Vintage Fleer Mr. Bones Candy Coffin!

Hail, fellow Hordytes! It's been a while since I did any serious blogging. Life has been keeping me pretty busy.

But I found myself with a few minutes to kill so I thought I'd take a moment to snap some pics of a recent eBay score, an item which remains in my heart as one of the greatest pieces of molded plastic of my entire childhood.

I'm talking about the legendary Fleer Mr. Bones Candy Coffin!

If you didn't have one of these in you childhood, then you just didn't have a good childhood. Sorry. That's a scientific fact.

Found in candy aisles just about everywhere when I was a kid, I most often scored mine at Bailey's Pharmacy back in Blissfield, Michigan during the late '70s and early '80s. My friends and I collected all sorts of candy containers, but it was the Mr. Bones candy coffin that we often went back to time and time again.

At one point (during 4th grade I believe), I probably had about 6-8 of these empty coffins which I used as scenery for my Indiana Jones adventures.

Most of you probably remember the candy inside, which was made up of fruit flavored inter-locking bones that made an entire skeleton, if you were lucky. I remember sometimes getting a bum coffin with a missing hand or too many skulls, which meant that you couldn't build a complete Mr. Bones. So it soon became a sign of good luck amongst my crew if you had a complete skeleton in you coffin.

I also always thought it was neat that it had a loop at the top so you could string it around your neck like some sort of morbid pendant. I vividly remember painting one of these coffins black and gluing a small plastic skeleton (that I got at the dentist's office out of the treasure chest) inside and wearing it on a length of chain (that my G.I. Joe dog tags came on) for a good part of the summer of '82.

Let's take a look at the inside... whoa! 

Beat it, Lego Vampire. We've got vintage candy containers to study.

Another thing I love about these were the little skeleton diagram inside. For the record, they show only using one arm bone, but we didn't roll like that. In our gang, you needed two arm bones on each arm to make a proper complete Mr. Bones.

And just look at that beautiful inscription on the top of the coffin lid.

I'd like to take this moment to give my heart-felt thanks to Mr. Vero Ricci, the man who designed the Mr. Bones coffin among many other of our favorite keepsake candy containers during the heyday of my youth.

I recently spoke via email with his son, Steve, who has started a blog all about his father's creations.

I'm not entirely sure if this man fully understands how much he touched our youth, how much fun and imagination he sparked within us by simply putting some sweet-tart candies inside these brilliant pieces of packaging pop-art.

I strongly urge you all to please visit Mr. Ricci's blog, read about how some of your favorite candy containers came to be and if you feel moved to do so, leave a kind word or two.

You can visit his blog at veroinventions.blogspot.com. Make sure you click through all of the pages, each one showcasing a new legendary toy container.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get to a little monster dance party going down on my desk. It seems that they like the new addition to my collection, too.

Vintage Topps & Fleer Candy Containers!

When I was a kid (and I guess this still applies, now that I think about it), I was a sucker for candy containers. In fact, when me and my friends would load up on sugary goodness down at my local drug store after cashing in bags of cans and bottles (a major source of income for me as a kid), I was always the kid that gave the majority of his candy away and then asked his friends for their containers in lieu of them throwing them away. yeah, for me, it was more about the containers; usually those tiny character heads.

But today's post is about two of my all-time favorite candy containers from the early '80s, the classic Topps trashcan and Fleer fire-hydrant...

I've been searching for affordable vintage candy containers for a while now, and I guess everyone else has as well, because these babies are starting to get expensive. I can't even count how many auctions I've lost. But luckily, the collector gods chose to steer me towards these two pieces at the last toy show I attended a few weeks ago (I know, I'm trying to catch up) and I managed to get these for $5 for the pair.

I loved the trashcans as a kid and probably had a bajillion of the them. the candy inside was the typical fruit-tart fare in the shapes of stuff you'd throw away like fish bones and old bottles. I know I had at least a couple of the fire-hydrants as a kid, but for the life of me I can't remember what came inside of them.

 The best part of finding these two pieces is that once I got them home, I opened them up and a fruit-scented cloud of 30 year old sweet-smelling nostalgia wafted out of them.

I'm still trying to find one of the old Mr. Bones candy container coffins, but those babies are proving to be really hard to find. But that and maybe the old mini plastic lunch pail (remember those?) and my collection will be pretty complete.

At least now I have someplace for my action figures to throw away their trash....