Darlene Lacey is a creative writer and software producer/designer who lives in the Los Angeles area with her illustrator/collaborator husband, Joe, and their irrepressible wiener dog, King. Darlene is the curator of the Candy Wrapper Museum, and she was kind enough to tell me all about the joy of the wrapper in the following interview:
ephemera: When did you become interested in candy wrapper collecting?
Lacey: The concept of the Candy Wrapper Museum came to me when I was a teenage girl back in the mid-70s. I wanted to collect something cool, but all I could afford to buy was candy. I thought I could make the collection very cool if I found the right wrappers… and I do believe I achieved this goal!
ephemera: Well, it's cool in my book, Darlene. What challenges or obstacles do you encounter in collecting? How do you
overcome these challenges?
Lacey: One of the nice things about candy wrappers is that they’re generally very easy to collect. They’re cheap, usually small, and readily available. Where you run into trouble is when you try to obtain older items. There are people out there with seemingly tons of money who will spend far more for certain wrappers than I would ever spend. This tends to happen with cross-interest type wrappers… say, a Betty Boop Halloween candy box. You get Betty Boop collectors and Halloween collectors vying for it, and these people are ready to spend serious money. So I don’t even bother trying to collect those pieces. The only remedy I have found to this problem is to buy the cool candy when it’s new on the shelves and then hold onto it for the rest of one’s life. If it’s a good wrapper, eventually it’ll be worth something.
Also, the abundance of different candy wrappers can actually create an obstacle. Some collectors like to be completists. They’ll collect things like every different bag of M & Ms and all their associated ephemera. I decided right from the start not to go down that path. This type of collecting just doesn’t interest me because: a.) it would be a massive collecting effort in and of itself; and b.) the M & M’s bags are not intrinsically interesting from an artistic, humorous, historical or sociological point of view. The Candy Wrapper Museum is aimed at entertainment and nostalgia; it is not a catalog. So I need to decide where to draw the line in my collection. I can’t ignore M&Ms altogether, but I’m not going to collect every single piece. So I need to remind myself to keep an open mind and not ignore them every time I pass the shelves. I need to consider what is important to collect and what is not.
ephemera: There's obviously a lot of thought that goes into this pursuit. What are your favorite items in your collection?
Nice Mice has to be my favorite. It was the first item I bought for the collection, and it was also the item that brought my now-husband to my website. It’s also funky and fun to look at, so it’s a winner on all levels. My husband Joe also bought me an ultra-cool item for a wedding gift, a 'Honeymoon Robot'! So it’s another sentimental favorite that is also objectively a really great collector’s piece.
I also love my celebrity-endorsed items like my Mr T. Gold Chain Bubble Gum (“I pity the fool that passes up my gold colored chain offer on the back!”) and the Muhammed Ali Crisp Crunch Bar. And, although, this isn’t what one would ordinarily consider a great wrapper, I love my “Think Thin! Low Carb Diet Sugar Free Natural Flavors Gummy Bears (A Fat Free Food)” wrapper. It combines every snack food fad into one (awful-tasting) candy. I think it’s a wrapper that will appear even sillier over time.
ephemera: I had no idea Mr. T could be so sweet. What's your advice for achieving success as a collector?
Lacey: Have a good eye and take a moment to look around whenever you shop. Some of the strangest, most interesting candy comes and goes in a heartbeat. I’ve made the mistake of seeing something and thinking I’d buy it later. Never count on “later” when it comes to buying candy.
ephemera: What resources do you recommend?
Lacey: The beauty of candy wrapper collecting is that I rely on run-of-the-mill neighborhood stores as my primary source. When friends travel abroad, they also often bring back wrappers for me. I also find items on eBay, although the majority of my collection came from regular store shelves.
One downside of collecting wrappers is that not a lot of history exists. Many candy manufacturers have come and gone or have been absorbed by other companies who aren’t very interested in the obscure candies from the company they bought up. Therefore, old woman’s magazines such as Ladies Home Journal are a good source for getting a nice look at candy wrappers of yesteryear and seeing how they were marketed. This can at least provide some history and tell a story about how candies and their wrappers have changed over the years.
I keep my wrappers in the kind of plastic bins that you can buy at any drug store, hardware store, or general-purpose market like Target. I don’t typically like to flatten my wrappers because I like to retain the original shape of the product as much as possible. I find that displaying a flattened wrapper that shows the back, sides and front at the same time loses that wonderful sense of recognition that a person gets from just seeing the front. I want to make them say, “Whoa! I remember that!”
However, it is good to flatten candy boxes if you can because they tend to sag or get dented over time. Never stack a candy box on another candy box, even if the one on top is light. Eventually gravity will take an effect on the box below.
ephemera: I pity the fool who doesn't enjoy this post! This was a lot of fun, Darlene. Thanks for sharing! And good luck in your efforts to find more fun and wonderful wrappers.
