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The story of the metal lunchbox, a mainstay of American schoolchildren for four decades, is not told in the rusting art of the coveted 1935 Mickey Mouse lunch pail. Nor is it seen on the uber valuable blue Beatles lunchbox, or even in Lindsay Wagner's determined gaze on the "Bionic Woman" box.

In a gallery of 75 vintage lunchboxes that go on display to the public this Saturday at the National Heritage Museum, the truest explanation of lunchbox longevity can be seen on a slightly battered yellow and pink Miss America lunchbox from 1972. There, just to the left of a beauty pageant brunette decked out in a sash, tiara, and "That Girl" flip, is a name written in careful fifth-grade script: "Alma Royer."

That Alma cared enough about her lunchbox to write her name on it, thereby ensuring it would not get mixed up in the noontime lunchroom crush of Fat Albert, "Sigmund and the Sea Monster," and "Family Affair" boxes, is a key to why vintage metal lunchboxes are enjoying renewed popularity. Far more than a vessel for transporting peanut butter and jelly, lunchboxes were a source of pride.

"Lunchboxes are an interesting intersection of your own childhood memory of school days and the collective consciousness of nostalgia for a time and place," says Jack Mingo, who coauthored "Lunchbox: Inside and Out," which will be published by HarperEntertainment in August. "An 'A-Team' lunchbox not only reminds you of the time you got into a fight with that evil Billy Jones in third grade, but it also reminds you of Mr. T and 'I pity the fool' all at the same time."

Nearly 20 years after manufacturers stopped making metal lunchboxes for children for safety reasons, collectors are now paying hundreds, and in some cases thousands of dollars for the boxes that were once thrown around on school yards and carelessly manhandled by mom each morning as the thermos was filled and the latch flipped shut.

Not only are nostalgia buffs snatching up "Flying Nun" and "Partridge Family" lunchboxes on eBay, at flea markets, and at specialty toy shows, but the Smithsonian has deemed them important cultural artifacts. Beginning this weekend, the history of this utilitarian art form is explained in "Lunch Box Memories," a traveling Smithsonian show at the National Heritage Museum.

The majority of lunchboxes in the exhibit are the television and movie boxes that dominated from the early-1950s through the mid-1980s, but the metal lunchbox had more humble beginnings.

"In the mid-19th century, tobacco, coffee, lard, and biscuit tins were recycled into children's lunchboxes," explains David Shayt, lunchbox curator in the Smithsonian's division of cultural history. "We have good photo evidence of children carrying used food containers fitted with a little wire hanger."

A push for improved child welfare led to the manufacture of the first children's lunchboxes in the 1920s and 1930s. A shrewd Walt Disney worked with a lunchbox manufacturer in 1935 to place Mickey Mouse on one of its pails, making Mickey the first character lunchbox.

But it was the combination of baby boomers and television that truly kicked off the lunchbox revolution in the 1950s.

"William Boyd was promoting himself as the first television Western hero called Hopalong Cassidy," Shayt says. "He put himself on a blizzard of artifacts. At some point they stuck a Hopalong decal on one of their red lunchboxes. That one took off and it alerted makers to the potent television-lunchbox connection."

The Hopalong box, called "the Hoppy" by collectors, went on to sell 600,000 units. At the height of their popularity in the 1950s and 1960s, more than 120 million metal lunchboxes were sold in the United States.

In fact, the history of popular culture can be traced through the lunchboxes at the National Heritage Museum, beginning with television Westerns and space-themed boxes, to the swinging 1960s dome-top Mod Tulip box in 1962, to the first appearance of an African-American woman in a leading role in a sitcom with the "Julia" box in 1969.

But as plastic boxes - seen by concerned parents as more safe and sanitary than metal - began overtaking the market in the mid-1980s, the golden age of the lunchbox drew to an end. Rambo was the last metal lunchbox manufactured for children in 1985.

"Which makes sense in a way," Mingo says. "Because mothers' groups were concerned about their kids getting smacked by these metal boxes. I'd say Rambo could easily scare that point home."

Rambo may mark the end of the metal lunchbox era, but he also ushered in a new passion for collectors. Meet Joseph Soucy, a self-described "collectaholic" from Westerly, R.I. His collection of 450 lunchboxes is so complete and pristine that photos of his boxes were used to illustrate the coffee-table book that Mingo coauthored with Erin Barrett. By way of comparison, the Smithsonian has just 250 boxes in its collection.

In 1988, Soucy's wife, Lois, purchased a vintage Disney lunchbox for him as a joke. Within a month, lunchboxes became his passion.

"I began buying furiously," he says. "One time I went to a flea market by myself and came home with 43 boxes in one day. I wasn't quality conscious at the time, I was quantity conscious"

There are hundreds of collectors, but Soucy is that rare breed known as the completest. He doesn't just have the domed Snoopy lunchbox with the beagle holding a red cup, he also has the rare blue cup box as well. In his living room is the prized "US Marshal" lunchbox with marshal spelled "Marshall." And nearby is the holy grail of lunchboxes, a never-used 1954 Superman lunchbox. In recent years, these boxes have been fetching more than $10,000 at auction (one sold for $13,225 in December).

Like most collectors, Soucy is concerned with the quality of his boxes. But a look around his living room and basement reveal that the 65-year-old retired owner of a tire and auto repair store is also something of a big kid. There is ephemera all around: "Tom Corbett, Space Cadet" toys are proudly displayed on a shelf, and there are Superman toys tucked between boxes. There's even a Mrs. Beasley from "Family Affair" keeping watch in the basement.

"I think it just conjures childhood," Soucy says of his passion for collecting lunchboxes. "Everybody remembers their first lunchbox and has fond memories of it."

That includes Shayt from the Smithsonian. In fact, he's still wondering what happened to his first lunchbox, which resembled a submarine.

"Perhaps it's the longing for my lost lunchbox that motivates me to collect," Shayt says. "It's like the sled in 'Citizen Kane.' I don't know what happened to it, and I'm still searching for it."

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