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Once made of clangy metal, lunchboxes were as much a part of the school cafeteria din as chatter. But metal lunch boxes have been relegated to the back shelves of musty antique shops.

The shiny boxes that could be stood up on end to provide a tray have given way to a vinyl box, molded plastic or a soft plastic.

The old metal box may have gone out of style, but not so the lunchbox. About half of the fifth graders eating lunch one day at Monocacy Elementary School had lunch boxes, and most said they expected to use them again next year in middle school.

"In a backpack, bags get smashed" said Jonathan Vanelli.

"I think bags aren't that nice" added classmate Jonathan Glover. "They don't have handles, and they tear easily."

Jonathan Vanelli and Matt Beaujon use generic, undecorated lunch boxes with shoulder straps. Matt said his mother got his, a solid black. Jonathan's is a battleship gray.

Kelly Huynu has Garfield in a lavender background "because he's funny."

Crystal Mosley got her Garfield box, a bright yellow one, "because I wanted one of the soft ones" Hers is made with a soft, spongy plastic. It's new; she bought it this year after her hard plastic lunch box broke. That one had Mickey Mouse on it.

Kelly started carrying a lunch box in second grade; she couldn't imagine carrying her lunch in a Boring old bag. Crystal added that carrying lunchboxes is cool.

"Throwing away bags is a waste of money" she added, displaying a glimmer of youthful conservatism. A lunch box costs anywhere from $5 to $7.

Jason Mercer said it makes sense to carry one without decorations. "Nobody can laugh at you if you don't have any design" he said. "Anything can look dumb; it depends on what the other kids like."

The stuff of T-shirts, the latest TV and movie characters, makes the lunch box covers. Barry Dorsey has the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, while Gary Broski has the Simpsons. Gary Grimes has wrestler Hulk Hogan and stickers of the Garbage Pail Kids. William Gregory has Nintendo.

Lunch boxes not only reflect favorite cartoon characters but favorite games. Jonathan Glover has Photon, which he describes as "a game where you have lasers and electric targets, and you try to get each other. I got this 'cause at the time I was really into Photon." He figures he's had the lunch box for two or three years. He doesn't care what the other kids think of his lunch box, or whether his classmates will think he's too old for the box in middle school. "If you want to bring your lunch in a lunch box, then bring it" he said matter-of-factly.

Raia Minassian probably had the most unusual lunch box. Hers is hot pink, with the white outline of the word lunch written in crazy characters.

Lunch boxes have been around since the 19th century, when factory workers and miners carried them. But decorated lunch boxes, the ones mainly carried by youngsters, have only been around since 1950.

That year, according to Thermos marketing planner Cathy Gill, Aladdin Co. introduced a plain metal box with a picture of Hopalong Cassidy. "The reaction in the industry was phenomenal" she said.

In the next two years, Aladdin added Tom Corbett, the Space Cadet, to its lunch box line. It wasn't until 1953, however, that the first all-over decorated box came out. That was created by Thermos, and featured none other than Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. That box was snapped up by two and a half million youngsters.

Ohio Art, the makers of Etch-A-Sketch, sold decorated lunchboxes for a while in the late 1950s, but Aladdin and Thermos are the industry giants. More and more characters continued to be added to the lunchbox lines in the 1950s and 1960s.

In 1962,Thermos added Barbie. Since then, Barbie has outsold every other character. "She's consistently in the top two or three sellers every year" Ms. Gill said.

About the same year Barbie was introduced, Thermos added vinyl lunch kits, although metal continued to be the big seller through the 1960s.

In 1968, Aladdin introduced the first plastic lunch box, followed by Thermos in 1972.

"In some places, there was a ban on metal ones because of an injury to a child" Ms. Gill said. "One child hit another child."

By 1987 ,metal lunch boxes had been phased out. Thermos' last metal lunch box, sold that year, depicted a rainbow, Ms. Gill said.

Big years for lunch boxes were from 1950to 1970, the elementary school years for the Baby Boomers. During that time, 120 million lunch boxes were sold. That's 1.5 for every child in that era.

"That was lunch box heyday" Ms. Gill said.

Lunchbox sales declined in the 1970s, as the number of elementary-school aged children declined. "That trend continued through the '80s, but we're starting to see a reversal of that trend as more children are becoming environmentally conscious." She said.

"By using a lunchbox, you're not throwing away a brown bag" she said. "And by carrying your drink in a Thermos (jug), you're not throwing away drink boxes or cans."

Last year, Thermos sold more than 4 million lunch boxes, a 20 percent increase in sales from the year before. Thermos' sales shot up by 12 percent from 1987 to 1988.

Aladdin's sales have grown by 2 to 6 percent for each of the past six years, said marketing director Michael Schimmel.

It depends on the company as to the age of children who buy the lunch boxes. "Years ago, when I was a kid, we would carry lunch boxes until age 12." he said. "That was the norm. Now they stop carrying them at around age 9."

"Ten years ago, we targeted children age 5 to 8," Ms. Gill said. "Now we're including 3 and 4-year olds." These youngsters are taking their lunch to pre-schools, often in lunch boxes, she said.

Mr. Schimmel said his company is also looking to the pre-schoolers.

Older kids, mostly 9 and 10-year olds, are also buying lunchboxes, Ms. Gill said. High schoolers are reportedly carrying lunchboxes as a fad, but she said she doesn't have any statistics on it.

Lunch boxes have made their way into the hearts of collectors. Batman lunch boxes of 1966-67 became valuable after the re-issue of Batman lunch boxes in 1988.

"There are a lot of collectors out there." Ms. Gill said. One of the top collectors, Scott Bruce, from Massachusetts, once put out a newsletter, and was known as the "guru" of lunch box collectors. But he's no longer in the lunch box fad.

"He sold his collection for a cereal box collection, and he doesn't like to talk lunch kits anymore" she said.

Special thanks to Dic Sonneveld for providing this article, and Dylan Evans for translation to web form.

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