Collecting glass candy containers

I think all of us have some kind of happy memory from our childhoods that is related to a favorite candy. People my age that grew up in the ’60s and ’70s may remember buying candy for a penny! There is a fun little antique/collectible that doesn’t take up much space and can still be found for reasonable prices that you may not have heard of.

Glass candy containers were first produced in the late 1800s. Most of the containers were produced by Jeannette Glass, Westmoreland and Victory in Pennsylvania. The containers produced by Victory often have a little raised “V” on the bottom.

These containers served two purposes. Once the candy was consumed, the child had something to play with. They were sold as souvenirs, sold at fairs and in discounts stores such as Woolworths and Sears.

Some of the most common shapes are animals, especially dogs, lanterns and candlestick phones. These often had a cardboard or metal cap, which is usually long gone. Most of these can be found online for around $10. If you find some that still have the little colored ball shaped candies, they can cost around $20.

Older candy containers will be harder to find and more expensive to buy. Those ones are usually shaped like submarines, cash registers or have accessorie pieces like a bear with a metal windmill or a submarine with a metal periscope.

Another group that is pricey and hard to find are the painted holiday containers such as Easter chicks or Halloween pumpkins. The more original paint on them, the better. Perhaps the most valuable ones are from the Flossie Fisher Funnies series of candy containers. These ones were shaped like doll furniture or childrens china pieces. These were produced in the 1930s and if in excellent condition sell for several hundred dollars per piece.

If you are really lucky you may find the glass refrigerator candy container or the 1920s gas pump or Statue of Liberty figurals. Some of those have sold for over a thousand dollars each!

As with every popular collectible, beware the reproductions! Only clear or painted containers were produced. Reproductions in carnival, cobalt and pink often show up at shows and flea markets and are not original candy containers at all! Candy containers were not made during the Depression and resumed after the war in the 1940s and were replaced by cardboard and plastic after the 1950s.

Pre-Depression containers were sealed with metal caps but after the war they were sealed with cardboard, cork or wood since metal was scarce. Sometimes a new looking metal cap can be a dead giveaway to a reproduction piece. Some of the cute examples I have seen are Sparkplug and Barney Google (old newspaper comic characters) and military tanks.

Happy Collecting!

Jillinda Falen has been buying and selling antiques for over 27 years and is a licensed REALTOR and estate liquidation specialist. You can contact her through the Houston Home Journal or via email at falen@windstream.net

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