Kentucky lunchbox auction will take you back to the cafeteria. Here is how to bid.
Nothing evokes childhood memories like a lunchbox. Everyone had one. Close your eyes and think back to yours.
You can almost smell the baloney sandwich. Or maybe you had peanut butter and grape jelly every day. Then there’s the thermos of tepid Campbell’s soup.
A Mount Sterling auction house is finding out that nothing sells like nostalgia. Caswell Prewitt Realty is selling over 500 vintage lunchboxes, many with matching thermoses.
It’s the collection of the late Marvin Brown of Lancaster, who began collecting in the ’80s. Brown died last year and now the pieces are for sale in two lots. Some of the lunchbox are very rare and are fetching thousands of dollars.
“We took it on as just a little auction that would be fun for the community but it has just taken off,” said Omar Prewitt, co-owner of Caswell Prewitt. “This is the largest group of collectors for one item I think ever seen, and I’ve been in the auction biz for 40 years.”
He said that people have been contacting them as far away as California. A Colorado collector is planning on flying in just to pick up the ones he wins.
When people come in to view the items, “it evokes a memory. They start talking about the time a bully stole their lunch or a kid they sat next to in the school cafeteria. ... It’s just been amazing the response.”
Two open houses are planned for this weekend in Mount Sterling to let potential bidders look at the boxes: Nov. 5 from 4 to 6 p.m. and Nov. 6 from 10 a.m. to noon.
Bidding on the online auction will close for the first 250 lunchboxes at 6 p.m. Nov. 6. Bidding on 251 and above begins to close at 6 p.m. Nov. 7. To bid on items in the “Art of the Vintage Lunchbox” collection, go to auctions.caswellprewittrealty.com and register.
The collection covers a wide swath of 20th century pop culture: The Beatles to Disney, Star Trek to The Jetsons, Evel Knievel to Holly Hobbie. TV shows from “The Addams Family” to “Zorro,” including “The Brady Bunch,” “The Beverly Hillbillies,” “The Munsters,” “Welcome Back, Kotter,” “Davy Crockett,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “The Dukes of Hazzard” are all there.
Prewitt said that they originally thought the items might sell for $5-$10 a piece.
So far the highest bids have come for a very rare 1957 lunchbox and thermos featuring “Toppie” the elephant. By Thursday bidding had already topped $2,000 on that one.
Why so unusual? Maybe because you could only get this item by trading in Top Value stamp books. Only 12 of these are know to exist, said Dave Diederich with Caswell Prewitt.
Diederich cataloged the collection and thinks it will appeal to two groups of people: “Serious collectors nationwide that might be missing five or 10 of the ones for sale, and they’ll bid competitively. Then there’s the general population who might have carried Peanuts as a kid and they want that one.”
The rarest in the offerings is “Chavo,” which was a TV show that aired in South America, Mexico and Los Angeles. “It wasn’t on for very long in the U.S. and a very limited number of lunch boxes with that were made. So it’s rare, but maybe not as desirable,” Diederich said.
He said that he’s all about quirky collectibles. “This was probably the most fun I’ve had putting an auction together,” Diederich said.
After decades in the auction business, Prewitt said that he thought he’d seen almost everything.
“Then you get a lunchbox sale. It’s really been an eye-opening.”
