Collections – My Vintage Chocolate Box Collection
It’s no secret that I’ve always had a sweet tooth and a soft spot for all things vintage. And somehow, old candy boxes sit perfectly at that intersection.
I still think about my childhood best friend, Sandy C. One Valentine’s Day, her mom took those heart-shaped chocolate boxes and hung them up in their basement playroom as wall art. I remember being completely captivated. She didn’t see them as something to toss once the candy was gone, they were too pretty and definetly something worth keeping.
That moment stuck with me. Because honestly? Sometimes the packaging feels even more magical than what’s inside.
Ornately decorated heart-shaped boxes are my favorite, but I also collect tins and beautiful cardboard boxes. Candy and chocolate were initially sold by weight and were often just wrapped in simple paper. At some point in the early 1900s, packaging became more important. It started as a way to protect the candy but it was also a way to advertise the candy company.
These are a few pieces from my small collection. My favorites are the heart-shaped chocolate boxes of the ’70s and ’80s. But a simple and beautiful box like the Thurston & Johnson is just as beautiful to me. I don’t keep them out all year as my neighbor did. I use these boxes yearly for my small Valentine’s Day vignette.
Candy boxes are one of the things that are always in the back of my mind when I’m out-picking. It’s not a popular collectible and it’s also a very fragile collectible so it’s taken me 15 years to amass this small collection I have. It’s taken me this long because I prefer to find these out in the wild, and by wild, I mean estate sales, yard sales, and flea markets. I know I can buy them on eBay (for a lot of money), but the search is a huge part of collecting.
I know that it’s what is on the inside that is most important but not in this case.
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