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The lifespan of the good, old-fashioned metal lunch box can best be described not in years but in the personalities that graced the sides of the familiar tin structures.

The brilliant trajectory of the lunch box can be measured from the first, Hopalong Cassidy, to the last, Rambo. For those of you who are hung up on numbers, that's from the early 1950s to 1987. (Isn't it fitting that Sylvester Stallone, in a red headband and ripped wife-beater was the death knell for the lunch box? In the cosmic scheme of pop culture, these things do not happen by accident.)

In between, the lunch box was coveted and adored by generations who not only used the metal keepsake as a PB&J protector but as acceptable advertising for their social leanings. Millions of American kids wore their hearts on their tin sleeves. Were you more "Flipper" or "Family Affair"? "Bonanza" or "Gunsmoke"? "Casper" or "Tennessee Tuxedo"? Superman or Batman? Monkees or Beatles? "That Girl" or "Josie and the Pussycats"? "The Bionic Woman" or "The Six Million Dollar Man"? "Star Trek" or "Star Wars"? Barbie or Hello Kitty?

Today, plastic lunch boxes rule. And even if they're not the preferred carryall for student nibbles, what with all sorts of poly/cryo/whatever containers on the market. But there was a time when the metal lunch box was king - and that's the time celebrated in "Lunchbox: Inside and Out" (HarperEntertainment, $16.95), a new, nostalgic look at the celebrated life of the childhood essential. Written by Jack Mingo and Erin Barrett, the book - out in time for back-to-school reminiscing - is illustrated with mint-condition lunch boxes from the private collection of Joe Soucy, 66, of Westerly, R.I.

The Hartford native (Soucy grew up in the South End and attended Bulkeley High School) began collecting 16 years ago after his wife, Lois, bought him a lunch box as a joke. But it sparked a passion that built into a collection of just under 500 pristine examples of the most popular and collectible lunch boxes of the great lunch-box era. Soucy's motto is "quality is better than quantity," which accounts for the like-new condition of his collection, which he has fine-tuned by upgrading the lunch boxes over the years.

He's still not done. He continues to search out better boxes and rarities. His collection is so special that on Thursday he's scheduled to be featured on NBC's "Today" show as part of the book's back-to-school publicity blitz. He's also scheduled on Fox, ESPN2 and CNN.

We caught up with Mr. Lunchbox recently.

You have an amazing collection. Are you still at it?
Initially when I first got started there was a lot of hunting, searching and driving to [antique] shows in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. I'd even fly out to Chicago and come back with a couple dozen pieces. Now I go down to Pennsylvania, which is a shopper's market. It's a haven for all types of collectibles. I'm a collect-aholic. But they show up in all sorts of places.

Why lunch boxes?
They're a part of your life. When I first started seeing them at antique shows, I dialed in on the Western ones, not because I had one when I was going to school, but because those cowboy heroes were a part of my childhood. Everyone played cowboys and Indians then. I was drawn to them that way.

What do they mean to us?
They're special for a lot of people. They're a lot of good memories for people. People, in themselves, have nostalgic ties to their youth. People go back into their childhood and they want to reacquaint themselves with things that made them very happy. Good memories.

They seemed such a part of that quintessential '50s and '60s life.
I relate back to when my children were going to school. They could remain children and not have to be worrying about all the things that go on in the world today. They were kids at 12 and 14 years old back then. Today, 6-year-olds know everything. I think the change in society has robbed children of childhood. Twenty-five years ago, kids could still be kids. Today they have to grow up too fast, too quickly.

What is the most expensive lunch box in your collection? Did it cost in the hundreds?
No, in the thousands. The most expensive lunch box out there is a 1954 Superman. They sold at auction three years ago for $11,500. Then there was another that sold on eBay for $12,200. And the very last was this past November at an auction in Chicago for $13,300. We're talking unused. In that condition, there's six or eight in the entire nation.

And you have one?
Yes.

Where do you put all these lunch boxes?
Wherever my wife lets me.

What's the future of lunch boxes?
Really, it's gone. Today the kids mostly use like a backpack or they have the soft canvas lunch boxes. The metal lunch boxes as you and I know them are no longer.

Why do you keep collecting?
The stories behind some of these boxes are unique. That's why finding them, one at a time, has so much nostalgia to it. What makes them worth something today is that 75 to 80 percent of them got used quite a bit by the kids and then got thrown away. The survival rate - what survived in that time frame - makes them worth something today. It's something that's unique.










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