Lunch Box Museum

We took a short day trip to Columbus, GA to visit the Lunch Box Museum this week.

It all started when we found the book Lunchbox Inside Out  while at the library a few weeks ago.  We were looking up general information about vintage lunchboxes and happen to discover that the Lunch Box Museum was just a few hours away.

Whoa!

 I would guess there are a thousand or more lunch boxes on display. Made from metal, vinyl, and plastic.

 There are thermoses lining the edges of the room and accompanying the shelves. There is also a large number of metal TV trays resting on old theater seats. 

Nearly every lunch box shown in the Lunch Box book is here...along with about 5 or more duplicates.

There is an area in the front of the museum where duplicates are for sale, at collector prices though.  The best thing is that all of the boxes can be touched and opened.

I really liked this Ghost Land lunch box from 1977.  It has a game on the back with a little spinner. 

 Funny!

 Cute tiny vintage Fisher Price lunch box.

The Addams Family

circa 1974 

 This Space Cadet box from 1952 had a neat surprise inside:

 A place to write the owner's name, and on a cute, clever space ship.

 There are a few metal sheets of printed designs for the lunch box and thermos, unused hanging on the walls.

 Universal Monsters

Circa 1979

 Snoopy

Circa 1980

 Roy Rogers and Dale Evans

circa 1957

There are a few of the first ever embellished lunch boxes depicting Hopalong Cassidy circa 1950 along with the last (of the heyday of metal lunchboxes) from 1987 depicting Rambo.  Along with everything else in between....  Star Wars, HeHaw, Kung Fu, Welcome Back Kotter, Planet of the Apes, Disney movies and cartoons, Dick Tracy, Smurfs, Atom Ant, Huckleberry Hound, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Beany and Cecil, Underdog, The Dukes of Hazzard...and more...much more.

This place was super cool and we would have spent hours here if it wasn't for the fact that there is no air conditioning, no fan, no breeze of any sort and it's the middle of July.

Only 5 bucks for folks over 10 years of age, 10 and below are free.

A few years ago we went to a very neat Lunch Box Display from the Smithsonian that toured through Art Museums and came to our town.

Lastly, to cover all bases, we found a mini lunchbox at the museum promoting the book Lunchbox!