Posted on 05/17/2024 4:07:12 AM PDT by DallasBiff
How many of you actually had one of these as a kid: iconic, metal lunch boxes that were slightly rusted, often dented, and blazoned over with pictures of your favorite band, TV show, cartoon, or teen heartthrob? If you were born after 1985, chances are you did not! The National Museum of American History says this year saw the production of the last of the metal lunch boxes. What was on it? Sylvester Stallone as Rambo!
(Excerpt) Read more at mashed.com ...
Around 72, my sister worked for a caterer that serviced the Detroit Metropolitan Airport. She was able to get me a metal lunch box with the Pan American Airline logo. We were broke and free was good so that’s what I got. I can’t remember what my sisters had.
A few years later, when the boxes were falling apart, we were able to get store bought boxes. I chose a black “construction worker” style lunchbox with a full size thermos. It held a lot of food.
A thorough Clorox wipe-out might have fixed that. I think I ‘outgrew’ mine and by 5th grade, was also brownbagging it.
An elementary school age child in the late 50’s.
Never had a fancy “metal lunch box”.
Was always a plain brown paper bag.
But, the contents were always satisfying.
I don’t remember any thermos with any lunchbox lasting more than a few days. Finally got a steel thermos in about 1977 and still have it.
I think I ‘outgrew’ mine and by 5th grade, was also brownbagging it.
I served in the Air Force with a guy who would bring a “Muppet Baby” lunch box during week-long “Local Salty Nation” exercises. On the last day of each exercise he would whack it with the edge of his helmet to make a “hash-mark” denoting another exercise over.
Somewhere in the storage closet I have a metal Kit Carson lunch box.
Ahhhhhhhh, the memories...
i dropped the thermos and poured large glass shards into my hot chocolate... picked them out and drank it up...
about ‘74... woodholme elementary.
Gonna need something pretty strong to hold ze bugs.
The Rifleman, followed by Lost in Space. After second grade, it was strictly brown-bag.
I recall lunchtime as being the absolute highlight of school life. Enough time to play a real game of ball or whatever with a bunch of other kids. Lived out in the sticks with no other kids around. Our three Labradors and endless hunting/fishing adventures sufficed, however.
I can smell that picture.
Rat Patrol...Badass.
I still have my Bonanza Lunch box made by Alladin. I bring my lunch to work in it almost everyday.
I also have my older bothers NFL Quarterback lunch box by Alladin from 1964. It has Green Bay and the Browns on the front. The Bears and the Lions on the back.
The rest of the teams are depicted around the sides.
However, neither one has the thermos. Which makes them both worth around $100. They are worth a lot more with the thermos.
Which almost all broke because they were lined with glass and mom threw them out after you dropped it.
The grade school my kids attended in the 80s banned metal lunch boxes because they scratched the tables.
I wanted a Davy Crockett one but all the stores in 1955 Farmington NM area were out of them. So I had to settle for a Roy Rogers one. Or was it Gene Autry. Don’t remember but it had a space for you to scratch your “branding iron” mark on it.
Same here make the walk home easier I guess the folks didn’t have to worry about me losing it in a marble game.
Many metal lunch boxes in the 1960s were of poor quality so a lot of them rusted.
Taking a sandwich out of a rusting metal box wasn’t that appetizing.
45 years later and still upset I did not pay $3 for a Beatles one at a garage sale.
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