Thank heavens for the internet.
Twenty years ago, if a motivated collector had put together a stash of 600-plus examples of any given bit of ephemera—beer cans, drive-in movie flyers, Cracker Jack prizes—only his friends and family would likely have been aware of it.
Sure, he might have inspired a little human-interest coverage in the local paper or been given a short spot on the local Eyewitness News, but his renown would have been regional at best, not extending beyond the boundaries of the county or parish he lived in.
Not so today. Today, a collector can display his prized possessions online so that they might be enjoyed by kindred spirits the world over.
The unnamed person (so far as we could ascertain) behind the Candy Wrapper Archive has devoted the past three decades indulging his (or her) interest in and appreciation of candy wrappers, and we, the denizens of the internet, are the beneficiaries of his efforts.
The oldest wrapper in his (we’re going to assume for the sake of this post that our sweets maven is male) collection, a Hershey’s chocolate bar wrapper, dates back to 1908, and he’s got 647 other items spanning the century since that bar was fresh from the factory.
From the familiar (Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Clark bar) to the obscure and arcane (Chicken Dinner, Cold Turkey, Snow Wonder—what the…??), the Candy Wrapper Archive will keep you happily browsing for hours.