Though this Cereal Box Collecting website represents less than a tenth of the total cereal offers made between 1950 and 1959, rest assured it contains more than three-quarters of the most mouthwatering masterpieces of the decade. Under pressure from time and an empty-checking account, thousands of offers-some major, most minor-didn't make the cut. Jewels like the Howdy Doody inflatable, Captain Video flying saucer ring, Tom Corbett goggles, and a few Space Patrol Chex cereal boxes may be mourned, but not zillions of boring come-ons for flatware, bird seed, and buttons.
What hurts are places where I scored a great cereal box like the SAC survival rifle Toasties but couldn't bag the matching premium. AWOL prizes like the Roy Rogers jigsaw puzzles, Wild Bill Hickok deputy badges, and Jingles' plastic American rifles have marched beneath my nose at countless shows in the past seven years, but when I really needed to take their pictures-like the cops-they were nowhere to be found. Alas, I did locate some of these trinkets, but their owners, figuratively peering down the shotgun barrel while cats licked dirty dishes in the bathtub behind them, wouldn't consent to having them photographed for love or money. Collectors are a strange breed and our pecularities must be endured like a patch of bad weather or a touch of the flu. Let's hope that these unsightly rat holes will be plugged in the coming editions of this cereal box website.
