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It was shiny and new on the first day of school, and it promised something more fun than learning your ABC's: lunch.

These days, that old lunch box from childhood might promise something else: cash. If, that is, it's made of metal, remains in good shape and has a picture people covet - maybe Superman zooming across the sky or Roy Rogers astride Trigger.

As the new school year gets under way and you outfit your kids with new lunch boxes or bags, you might ponder the rising value of boxes that have survived from the past.

The metal ones, which haven't been made since the mid-'80s, have become collectors' items commanding hefty prices.

"I'm always looking for them, but the prices are going out of sight," says Seattle antiques dealer Mary Shelver, who has a booth at the 222 Westlake Antiques Mall.

Of the dozen or so she had on display recently, the priciest was an $80 box, dated 1975, with a scene from the short-lived TV show "Space: 1999." A Lone Ranger box from 1980, with Thermos bottle inside, was $70.

At another booth, a "Mickey Mouse Club" box from the 1950s was priced at $150.

These prices are modest compared with some. Shelver once sold a Beatles Yellow Submarine box for $350. It was missing its Thermos bottle, which would have brought another $200.

Michael Hall of Pacific, near Auburn, says he's heard of lunch pails fetching as much as $5,000 or $6,000. He's something of an expert, as the owner of more than 300 metal lunch boxes. They line his living room walls, grouped by theme: space, Western, Disney characters and so on.

What's the appeal? Nostalgia, it seems.

Baby boomers of about 45 to 50 years old are the most avid collectors, says Shelver." We remember what we had when we were kids. . .It makes you smile. It gives you a good feeling."

Hall, 47, a retired machinist, says his collection constantly stirs his own nostalgia." I surround myself with lunch pails. In my computer room they're everywhere. I think about them all the time."

His favorite box? "I think it's the first one my wife (Brenda) bought me. A Davy Crockett. I think I had a Davy Crockett (as a child)."

His most expensive lunch box is also one Brenda gave him, after it caught his eye in a shop. Called "The Hometown Airport," it's relatively rare, pictures planes flying in an out of an airport, and cost $1,100. Made around 1960, it's a dome-topped style, as opposed to the more familiar rectangular boxes.

Hall thinks today's plastic lunch boxes will never appeal to collectors as the old metal ones do. They're not only less durable but the pictures are printed on paper, not painted on metal.

Hall, who never sells his boxes, isn't sure which is his oldest, but three of them - a Superman, a Lone Ranger and a Howdy Doody - are contenders, all made in 1954.

Space and Western themes are most in demand and generally command the highest prices. But rarity and good condition also raise the value. Never-used boxes in mint condition are prized.

Still, there's gentle appeal in a well-worn lunch box, its corners dented and the paint extra-worn on one side. That's the side the box lay on as its young owner lifted the lid to pull out a peanut-butter sandwich or an oatmeal cookie during many a lunchtime of long ago.

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