Kim Ashford
Like most collectors, Jim Davis started with one category: antique toy marbles. He perused garage sales and antique stores until he’d amassed a large collection. But collectors seldom seem able to restrain themselves to one item. When Davis spotted collectible Cracker Jack prizes during his travels, a passion was stirred that would stay with him for years.
Davis, director of the Louisiana Center for the Book in the State Library in Baton Rouge, now has an enormous collection of Cracker Jack prizes, lagniappe that were included inside every box of Cracker Jack popcorn and peanuts since the early twentieth century. Davis also became a charter member of the Cracker Jack Collectors Association, created an innovative website for collectors, and has contributed to numerous magazines as well as the book The Cracker Jack Collection: Baseball’s Prized Players, silver winner for the Benjamin Franklin Award of the Independent Book Publishers Association in the sports category.
“Cracker Jack brings back memories to everyone of a certain age,” he said.
“Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack”
It all began with Frederick William Rueckheim, a German immigrant who moved to Chicago to help clean up the city after the great fire of 1871. With help from a partner, he started a confectionary business that churned out popcorn accented by molasses. The partnership fizzled; but his younger brother Louis joined him to begin the F.W. Rueckheim & Brother company, and business boomed.
In early 1896, the brothers applied for a trademark patent for “Cracker Jack,” a name derived when a salesman allegedly exclaimed “That’s a crackerjack!” after eating the candied popcorn that didn’t stick together. The crunchy treat, sold with the slogan “The more you eat, the more you want,” soon took off; and the company began shipping the confection throughout the United States and overseas. “It was the most popular confection in the world,” Davis said. “It was sold everywhere it was so popular. Even ‘The Cracker Jack Two-Step’ was published in England with boxes of Cracker Jack on the sheet-music cover.”
By 1908, the candy was immortalized in a song by Jack Norworth and Albert Von Tilzer, in which a fictional Katie Casey asks her beau to “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” where he would buy her “some peanuts and Cracker Jack.” Today, the tune is sung at baseball parks across America at the seventh inning stretch.
Inside Every Box
No one knows the precise date that Cracker Jack included the first prize in a package, nor what that prize was. The company had given out premiums before the turn of the century, Davis said, such as paper dolls with the purchase of a Happy Family Candy stick. As early as 1907, Cracker Jack bears postcards were distributed with purchase; according to a promotional letter that year, these cards were attached to the package so that they could be “easily removed without injuring the card.”
Around 1910 or 1911, coupons were inserted in boxes or printed on box side panels, to be redeemed for items in a catalog, Davis explained. “A 116-page ‘E’ catalog, published in 1912, offered an amazing array of over five hundred items, including clothing, silverware, toys, jewelry, sports equipment, books, sewing machines, and ‘many other useful household items,’” Davis said. (Because of the “E” designation, Davis presumes that there were probably previous versions released before 1912.)
Most people agree that 1912 was the year that Cracker Jack began including prizes inside every box, Davis said. Early examples included ball player cards, paper horns, whistles, miniature books, or expanding fans. There were pot-metal rocking horses, steins, and tiny pipes with celluloid inserts. “Some of the most wonderful prizes came out during that time and especially throughout the Depression; something I’ve always admired about the brothers,” Davis said of the early years. “It seems as if they made an extra effort to create prizes during that time when those might be the only toys kids would get.”
There were many, many others throughout the decades, which is why the prizes are so collectible. Some prizes were created by notable artists such as C. Carey Cloud and John Craig, who created album covers for Rod Stewart and the Smashing Pumpkins.
“Cracker Jack brings back memories to everyone of a certain age.”
Davis’s favorite prizes are the “put-togethers,” or prizes that come in pieces to be assembled, popular in the early 1960s. “I don’t mind if prizes have been ‘loved,’ but I prefer the put-togethers to be pristine,” he said. “But those are harder to find, and it’s always fun to find them.”
Other favorites of Davis’ include three men in a tub with a rocker base, glass spin tops, and a pencil sharpener that would never pass child safety laws today.
Collecting Cracker Jack
Around 1930, the Cracker Jack company started keeping records of its prizes: what they were, where they originated, the cost per thousand, and distribution numbers, Davis explained. Collectors can use these records to determine information about prizes collected; but on prizes before that date, the details blur.
The Cracker Jack Company was sold to Borden, Inc., of Columbus, Ohio, which inherited the prize archives. Davis and other collectors assembled in the city in 1995 for the first Cracker Jack Collectors Association convention. “We were like a bunch of 10-year-old pen pals getting together for the first time, trading our duplicates and showing what we’d found,” he related. Davis and other collectors also visited the Columbus Center of Science and Industry, where Borden donated the archives and where many of the Cracker Jack prizes are on display.
Cracker Jack is now owned by Frito-Lay, and the prizes have changed to address concerns over child safety. There are no longer cute sayings on the prize wrappers, and all prizes are made of non-toxic paper.
But one thing has changed for the better. The Internet has made collecting and sharing information much easier. Ebay continues to be a great marketplace for Cracker Jack prizes, and collectors discover new items all the time. For instance, it was thought that a 1934 Mystery Club series included thirty-two movie stars until Davis found a new prize, one of character actor Joe E. Brown.
Davis’ collection has grown so much that when he worked at the East Bank Regional Library in Metairie, he was able to fill the building with Cracker Jack prizes for an exhibit he hosted. “I had every case of the library filled, and it was just a portion of my collection,” he said.
But let’s not forget those marbles. Turns out Cracker Jack occasionally offered marbles inside their boxes as well. Of course, Davis has a few of those, one wrapped in Akro Agate. “That’s one of my most prized prizes,” he said, “because it connects my two collections.”
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