Lunchboxes

A portion of a most amazing Metal Lunchbox and Thermos Collection is shown here. In total there must be over 100 boxes. We see here a portion of the Starwars Series.

We had lunch at the Apricot Cafe at Firebaugh California, the scene of this amazing collection.

The owner revealed that he owns all but of a few of the metal lunchboxes that had ever been produced by the three companies ever to manufacture them. Also included are many of the Matching Thermos containers. He has been collecting them for 19 years and says that he had to buy the restaurant to store them or else his wife was going to kick him out of the house.

We saw the two original lunchboses produced in 1950 - The Hopalong Cassidy red and the blue boxes. With thermos the red box sells for $250.

Metal lunchboxes were banned in the early 1970s, as a result of a campaign of "concerned" Florida mothers against the steel lunchboxes. Children being children, were using the metal lunchboxes as a type of weapon, This was probably related to an incident in the first Rambo movie when a metal lunchbox was used to bash someone in the head. The last steel metal lunchbox was a Slyvester Stalone Rambo model, produced by KST in 1985.

It is very interestine to learn of the bits of Americana that could be found on our nations byways.

Becky is off to Chicago and we are staying the night at Barstow, CA.

Tomorrow we will search for London Bridge...