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Linda Striegel will never search for something to pack her bologna sandwich and Twinkie.

Since 1990, the Upland resident has collected lunch boxes, most the sort with painted-on tributes to television shows or comic book characters.

"One of my favorites is Lassie, because I loved the show as a kid," she said.

Counting the ones on display in her living room, and the stacks upon stacks in storage, Striegel has accumulated more than 300 lunch boxes. They include the traditional square metal boxes, vinyl lunch sacks, the older dome-style pails, and several even older oval tins dating to as far back as the 1940s.

"I got into the nostalgia," she said.

Striegel's collection includes lunch box art from such classic television series like "Gunsmoke," "Little House on the Prairie," "The Brady Bunch," "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids," and "Quick Draw McGraw." There are also tributes to Barbie, Holly Hobbie, Mickey Mouse and The Beatles.

Striegel's interest was prompted by her brother's lunch box collection hobby.

"I would look for him for his birthday or for Christmas," she said. Twelve years ago, she started her own collection.

Striegel explores antique store and thrift shops seeking out potentially valuable boxes at bargain prices. And she's found more than a few.

A Robin Hood lunch box from around 1965 Striegel paid $15 for is now worth more than $200. A couple of '50s vinyl sacks that cost her less than $5 each are valued at about $100 each.

The Beatles "Yellow Submarine" lunch box, which cost her a whopping $150, is listed in a collectors' guide as worth $500.

Like any collectible, lunch box values are based on age, rarity and condition.

Lunch box bibles rank them from 1 through 10 - 1 being a common box and 10 being extremely rare. A number 10 lunch box can be valued at $1,500.

Lunch box thermos bottles can be worth as much or more than the pails because they might be even tougher to come by, Striegel said.

The earliest lunch totes were not lunch boxes at all, but large tobacco tins with handles perfectly sized for carrying snacks and sandwiches.

American Thermos patented its first thermos bottle in 1907. The firm made the first workman's lunch box kit in 1911, and the very first kid's kit in 1920.

The first known licensed character lunch pail, Mickey Mouse, came along 1935. And the very first licensed television show kit arrived in 1950 with its artist rendering of the always-natty Hopalong Cassidy.

In 1953, the cowboy acting and singing duo of Roy Rogers and Dale Evans came out with their fully lithographed box.

Tom Corbett Space Cadet and the Lone Ranger soon followed. The perennially popular Superman lunch box first showed up in 1954. And Disney began licensing boxes in 1956.

Vinyl brunch bags were introduced in 1962.

The later plastic lunch boxes are worth less than their older cousins, but are expected to increase in value over time.

Striegel's interest in collecting goes beyond lunch boxes. She began squirreling away Shirley Temple collectibles - cards, watches, pens, magazines - back in her teens. That collection now contains more than 1,000 items, she said. "I always collected something."

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