Finding Collections of Vintage Lunch Boxes
One of the neatest vintage items I ended up coming across in my adventures in eBay selling was the vintage lunch box. Collectors of vintage lunch boxes are often quite serious about their hobby. The way I found out about it was by almost making a purchase on a whim at a moving sale that an older couple was having in my area. Yes, I said almost. Let me explain...
There was a bit of a sad feel to the tiny house as I entered it. The moving sale was being held by an elderly couple who moving in with the family of one of their six children and they seemed a bit upset by the idea. They started talking to me about how they hated to sell off everything, but that the move was necessary and they felt that they had little choice. Most of what they had on display was common household stuff and some knick knacks that had filled the shelves of their home. There were a few things that qualified as vintage, but nothing they had for sale was an actual antique. I suppose they probably had packed away most of what they considered valuable already for the move. It really didn't look too promising.
I would have left in about two minutes after doing a courtesy walk through, but the couple seemed quite happy to have someone listening to them and we ended up talking for a little while. When I mentioned that I was looking for older items from the 80s or earlier, the old man's eyes lit up. He got himself up from his chair and told me to follow him as he moved slowly down the hall, leaning on an old wooden walking stick. He made me nervous as he went down the creaky old steps to the basement, but he assured me that he was fine and that he had something he thought I'd get a kick out of.
I silently was hoping that whatever he wanted to show me was something that I would be able to act excited about. There have been many times when people thought they had some unbelievably rare collectible to show me which then turned out to be a pretty common find. I liked this elderly gentleman already and I didn't want to show any disappointment if what he had, fell into this category.
As it turned out, I didn't really need to worry about that. When we got to the bottom of the steps, he pointed to three home made shelves he had mounted on the paneled wall. They were filled with old school items from when his children had attended school. Some of it was rather common. There were a few vintage yearbooks, a row of trophies and some school pennants (which might have actually been worth a bit of money), but what caught my eye were the old lunch boxes that stood next to each other in a row. He asked me to take them down so that we could look at them more closely, so I did. There were eight vintage lunch boxes in all. I set the lot of lunch boxes down on a worn out formica card table and we each took a seat to check them out.
I could tell right away that someone had taken a lot better care of their lunch boxes than I ever had as a kid. I wasn't a bad kid, but I do remember kicking my metal lunch boxes around once in a while during the walk home from school. Why? I don't know. I just did. My mom never mentioned it, but must have wondered how I managed to scratch them up so badly.
These collectible lunch boxes showed some light wear but were in very nice condition overall. Like I said, at that point I had never researched how much they were worth, but I had enough experience to know that they looked like a sure seller to me. The collection he had was a mix of old plastic lunch boxes and what I figured were tin lunch boxes. I didn't know for sure what the metal boxes were actually made of at that point.
I asked him how much he wanted for them and he asked me what I thought would be a fair price. I had taken wild guesses many times before and burned myself. My garage full of junk was proof of that. I asked him if I could get back to him later in the day about them and he was fine with that. I wasn't really worried about him selling them to someone else because the sale was about over and I just had a gut feeling that he did not really think that they were very valuable. I left and went home to check out how these things sold on eBay.
If you are reading this, you surely know what I found out. Some lunch boxes are very valuable. Antique lunch boxes and vintage lunch boxes command some pretty high prices. It may or may not have been the intelligent thing to do, but I printed out the prices I found for items that were similar to what the old couple had and I went back to their house. I know that I probably could have purchased the entire lot for fifty dollars from them. They probably would have wondered why I was giving them so much. When the old man showed the boxes to me, I know that he wasn't thinking that I was reselling them on eBay. He assumed that I collected old stuff.
Anyway, I showed the couple how much the vintage lunch box collection was actually worth and told them that they should probably let their kids know about it. They were shocked to say the least. I left the printouts with them and drove home. To be honest, I wrestled with whether or not I did the right thing for days on that one. I really could have made some money, but it just didn't feel right.
I don't remember exactly what all was in the lot now, but I do remember that there were a couple of dome lunch boxes. I think that one of them had the Jetsons on it. There were also a couple with different popular characters that I only sort of recognized. I remember looking up "horse lunch boxes", so there was a horse on at least one of them. There were also two Mickey Mouse lunch boxes, and some others. I definitely remember that there was one with the rock band KISS on it. That one sticks in my mind because I really liked that band.
So, if you are a collector of vintage lunch boxes, you probably haven't really learned anything new here today. I apologize for that. If you just stumbled across this site looking for information about vintage and antique collectibles that sell on eBay, well, now you have something else to keep your eyes open for when you hit the sales.
Here are a few of the vintage lunch boxes currently selling on eBay. I don't find these too often at any of the sales I frequent. I've never seen a collection like the one that couple had unless it was being sold by someone who realized their value. Most times, what they were asking was way out of my price range. I don't collect them myself, so I really only want to buy them now if I can turn a profit on them by selling them to someone else.
Vintage Lunch Boxes for Sale
Here are a few of the popular vintage lunch boxes selling on eBay right now.
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 VINTAGE ROUGH RIDER MOTORCYCLE DIRT BIKE LUNCHBOX  US $13.50
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 VINTAGE DRAGONS LAIR METAL LUNCHBOX US $9.99
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 VINTAGE 1968 GENTLE BEN METAL LUNCHBOX US $16.50
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 VINTAGE 1962 PETS N PALS METAL LUNCHBOX US $9.99
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Here are a couple of videos showing off some vintage lunch box collections.
These are vintage 70's lunch boxes
Here is a video showing off vintage 60s lunch boxes...
You can also find a lot of really interesting information about old lunch boxes by clicking here.
Note: Per FTC guidelines, it should be noted that if I create a link to a product or service, sometimes I may get paid a commission if you purchase the product or service.