Over 2,100 Cereal Boxes pictured so far in this price guide.
NEW. Where possible I've added the year a particular brand of cereal first made its appearance on store shelves. Ongoing.
The most Cereal Boxes pictured anywhere in print or on line.
Easy access by brand, type n year.
No click then wait for images, simply scroll down to next, then next, then next.
Every image is dated n valued.
More Cereal Boxes in a single chapter than most other sites have in total.
Every listing in this price guide is and will be pictured. Over 2,100 pictures in this cereal box price guide so far.
I'm writing this because cereal boxes have been a personal passion of mine for 40 years. I have to admit though, there is a second reason. There is nothing currently available to collectors like what the Cereal Box Price Guide will be. I've looked. The best I found were portion aspects. A list but no pictures, dates or prices or pictures but zero true info about actually collecting cereal boxes. The actual how n why to collecting cereal boxes.
Some places have pictures but you've gotta keep changing pages to see another, again no years & no values. Very tedious n time consuming. Here you just scroll down n voila there she be.
I've also noticed what seems to be the norm for printed guides to cereal boxes. That norm seems to be a conglomerate of radio premiums, cereal premiums n finally cereal boxes. As I approach this project one thing is very clear. A guide to only US release cereal boxes is massive enough. How could a guide that includes radio premiums n cereal premiums leave enough room to do cereal boxes properly.
As it stands I'm not going to include boring boxes like Bran this n Bran that or Whole grain healthy crap. My colon be damned, give me sugar sweetened n unhealthy by today's goofy standards. I'm old n could not give a crap anymore, I eat what I like, life is to short to trade quality for boring. Anyway the point being, even eliminating the the boring crap healthy cereal this thing is gonna be very big/long. So how in God's name could you possibly have room for premiums.
The exception on boring cereal will be boxes that have good or interesting offers on them. Examples; Post Toasties, Grape Nuts n Grape Nuts Flakes will be included because the offers on the boxes were to good to ignore them.
On premiums. Don't fall into the premium trap. I spent 20 years collecting premiums, when I actually should have ignored them n collected the Cereal Boxes they came in. I could honestly kick myself for that. Collecting premiums is only collecting half the picture. Collecting both is a diffusion of efforts. Every premium you buy to go with a box is an additional cereal box you could have acquire with that money. The Cereal box alone is enough, the illustration of the premium on the box covers the premium. Buying the premium also is a waste of time n money.
The number of Cereal Boxes you can collect is huge enough without wasting needed funds on extraneous items. I'll tell you a secret, the biggest mistake I made with Pez was buying all that crap that was not actually a pez dispenser. I wasted massive amounts of time n money on stupid.
So here are the rules.
1. Collect cereal boxes n cereal boxes only.
2. Do not collect cereal premiums.
3. Do not collect cereal related advertising crap.
4. Do not collect box tops or half boxes.
5. Save your money for near complete boxes. One or 2 missing flaps is acceptable.
6. Buying crap to have an example is not a good idea. A crappy condition box will just eat at you over the years. Even stored away, in your mind you know it is there.
7. Fancy Dealers will happily sell you shit. Take your time, not having it is better than having crap. If you don't have it, it's always out there just waiting for you to find it. The Quest.
8. I'd rather own the newer boxes I talk about below than a cool old box in poor condition.
I will be spending a lot of time on Wheaties n Kellogg's in general. Reason, more people view Wheaties day to day n over the year than all other brands combined. The Kellogg's part 1 chapter comes in a solid second. In an ongoing effort to flesh out what people want, I will always add Wheaties n Kellogg's info as soon as I have it ready.
The values I place on cereal boxes are my opinion of what is reasonable to think you might get for a particular box. Big time dealers place much higher values on some boxes, it is an arbitrary number waiting for some idiot who has to much money. It works, but that's not how we are going to value cereal boxes here. You are not going to find an idiot with to much money for your box, idiots are a developed clientele nurtured by Big Time Dealers, there is a very limited supply of them. No, you my friends are in all likelihood going to have to sell your box or buy it in the real world n that is how I will place values.
I was limiting top value to $250.00. I'm probably going to increase that. A lot of cereal boxes are really valued at $250.00 to approx $900.00. Even still , I will probably not value any cereal box over $500.00. I've been reluctant because I do not want to encourage replicas. Two points here. I've been noticing a definite increase in the number of replicas on ebay. Second I've also notice a lot of replicas in existing collections.
This increase in replicas in the hobby troubles me only as to sales of these items down the road by people who don't realize that they are replicas to people who can't spot a replica. Newbies.
People tend to collect what was a part of there child hood or in this case what they ate. Example; Cocoa Krispies verses Cocoa Pebbles. Cocoa Pebles are & always have been more popular. End result most Cereal Box Collectors collect Cocoa Pebbles, Cocoa Krispies not so much. Sugar Crisp yes, Smacks to a lesser degree. Within cereal types produced by the various Companies one emerged as most popular with us as children, as adults we kept our bias as we collect.
Cereal Boxes are like adult Gum Cards. Bigger & more fun. A cereal box is like a TV show featuring a special guest appearance / Who's on the box. The first of something new & cool or a really great character featured on the box.
Classification of value n desirability for a cereal box starts this way. You have a maker then the brand n it's mascot in some cases, then it is about what is happening on the face of the box. Offers can add value, celebrity guest appearance can add value or if the mascot is in a costume, that can add vale. To me a great example of costuming mascots is the 1995 series of Pebbles cereals where Barney is in different crazy costumes. I love these.
The crazier the front of a box is, the better it is.
Some boxes have names. Example below is the Pebbles Chocolate Dragon box. A really good name alone can make a box iconic. Put that with crazy & costumed. Ding, Ding you have a winner. Mark my words 20 to 30 years from now this box will be known as the Chocolate Dragon Box.
Mascots for cereal boxes seem to evolve about every decade. So obviously earlier incarnations of Tony, Lucky or Cap'n Crunch by themselves adds value. Another example is say Franken Berry pouring milk into the bowl from a pitcher, better box.
The company that first took Licensed by Character or Movie boxes with no brand affiliation ( like still General Mills but not Cherios) within the corporate header to its furthest point was Ralston. The license was the brand of Ralston, Kellogg's etc. Now that Ralston is out of the picture General Mills, Kellogg's n Post have picked up where they left off. I call this category of product the Ralston effect.
Most of the chapters are going to have a category called the Ralston effect. The Ralston effect category is for example Star Wars Cereal by General Mills or Polar Express Cereal by Post.
One more thing about Ralston. Early on & now again Ralston was n could be nothing more than all the rest of the generic brands of cereal. Cereal boxes that nobody really collect. Ralston got behind there brands Grins n Giggles, Freakies, Fruit Islands etc, with characters n promotions. I've seen some pretty cool generic boxes, but they don't follow up or promote themselves. Ralston was an iconic company of unique innovative brands n characters.
Ralston got lazy by going with movie licensed brands, making there future fortunes boom or bust. Don't get me wrong I love some of these boxes, Urkelos, WWF, Ghost Busters etc, but a few licenses like Robin Hood Prince of Thieves & Addams family can sink a company. Heck I bought a lot of even WWF at Dollar stores. I just feel Ralston Cereal might have had a brighter future if they'd stuck with Freakies, Fruit Islands & about half the licenses they did. God bless them though, Ralston cereal as we knew it died but we got all those great cereal boxes.
I personally own over 10,000 cereal boxes. I also buy cereal boxes, but I pay prices that take a longer view of things. Translation, I'm cheap. Any idiot can pay big money for something.
My all time favorite cereal boxes are Baron Von Redberry & Sir Grape Fellow. Next probably the Monster cereal boxes. These are my personal favorite, ones I would cherish above all others. That said I would feel crappy unless I got an extremely good buy in acquiring them. I can live without them at the wrong price.
My favorite group of cereal boxes is the Monster Cereal group, Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, Yummy Mummy & Fruit Brute. Hands down no competition Big G Monster Cereals are the best.
My favorite cereal Company is Ralston, again no competition. More unique licensed product during the right time period to be affordable. Cabbage Patch, Ghost Busters, WWF, Early Cookie Crisp/dark brown boxes, Dinersaurs, Dinky Donuts, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Dunkin Donuts, Freakies, Fruit Islands, G I Joe, Gremlins, Grins & Smiles & Giggles & Laughs, Moonstones, Nerds, Nintendo, Rainbow Brite, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Urkelos & Waffelos. Now that is a group of cereal boxes you want to collect & I didn't even name everything.
If Ralston had also done the Monster Cereals, Baron Von Redberry, Sir Grape Fellow, Quisp, Quake & Quangaroos, you would only need to collect Ralston.
My least favorite Cereal Company is Nabisco. There are some pretty good boxes from Nabisco, but generally the worst group of cereal boxes for collecting.
Recently I had to come to grips with my feelings towards Wheaties Cereal Boxes. I've been very critical & wrong. My position was there are tons of them out there & everybody collects them. Hence my thought was they are worthless. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. The truth is actually in the critique. Everybody Collects them. With typical stupidity I was fighting the current. Recoiling against what is truly popular. My problem, I'm gonna work on it.
On that very point. the Cereal Box Price Guide has been up long enough that consistent data that bares this out is now available. The Wheaties chapter is viewed day in day out n overall 3 to 1 over any other chapter. In other words you name the brand of cereal, Wheaties are viewed 3 times as much on a daily basis or overall.
I know to big collectors Wheaties are not as sexy as Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Yummy Mummy, Fruit Brute, Quisp, Quake, Quangaroos, Cap'n Crunch, Ghost Busters, Freakies, Fruit Islands, Grins & Smiles & Giggles & Laughs, Moonstones, Nerds, & Waffelos etc. Problem for me in writing this book is solved very simple. Give the reader what they overwhelmingly want, WHEATIES. This data also shows me I made the correct decision by giving Wheaties there own chapter.
Wheaties are the most popular Cereal Boxes collected. I now embrace this fact.
To back the above statement up. This week an 8 cereal box series of Wheaties boxes from the 1970s, all unused factory flats sold as one lot for $1,754.00. This auction started out at .99 cents. To say the least I was dumfounded by the winning bid. If this does not bare out the above statement, nothing will. Over $200.00 per box on average. I've seen "great" boxes in the opinion of Cereal Box collectors "in the know" like Grins n Giggles or Moonstones go for say $100.00 or less each. Or other "great" boxes up for sale for a year at a time at $200.00 plus, that do not sell. So you tell me, What is the most popular cereal brand to general cereal box collectors en mass. WHEATIES, hands down Wheaties. There really is no dispute.
I noticed something while working on Wheaties this week. 1942 to 1945 are very lean on cereal boxes, here is why in my opinion. On December 7, 1941 World War II began. The USA was ill prepared for the war, so as a nation we had to scramble, very fast. This war effort included rationing for consumers and manufacturers. Massive amounts of raw materials were required for the war effort. We not only had to produce war materials for US efforts, we also had to carry a big part of the load for Europe and Russia.
So rationing of raw materials change packaging and quantities produced. Add to that, that during the war years what we call recycling was instituted in a big way to provide further for the needs of raw materials. Families and children were in perpetual paper and metal drives, collecting used materials needed for the war effort. So what little may have been produced in large part ended up in paper drives/recycled. Resulting in not many cereal boxes survived from the years 1942 to 1945.
Now for a very controversial subject. How to collect, do you leave the cereal in the boxes or empty the box & carefully flatten them? Please remember this is my opinion.
I would not give you 2 cents more for a cereal box with contents still in it. I'm actually a little ticked off when I buy boxes that have contents instead of being flattened. Full boxes cost a ton to ship & are prone to damage in shipping. Flattened boxes ship & store better. Getting a box from here to there in time is accomplished with less damage to the box if they are flattened.
To me nobody in there right mind would collect full boxes. You say you like to display them, ok. I've been collecting cereal boxes for over 30 years. Full boxes damage themselves just sitting on the shelf. They belly & bag. Dust can & does damage the box. Light damages the box. The contents themselves damage the box. All this is going on year after year even when in adding a box to a shelf, dusting etc, you don't knock one off & damage a corner. Flattened boxes is the only sure way to collect cereal boxes & minimize damage to your collection over the years.
Definitions
Full = box with original contents.
Flattened = a box that was once full of cereal, then emptied & carefully flattened, using existing side seams. The box will show you how as you attempt it.
A Flat = unused, never assembled. These can come two ways, an uncut sheet or a cut sheet ready to be shaped & glued. Most commonly these are found as cut sheets. I fold these once at the seam for shipping. I find it just plain stupid to attempt to ship a flat unfolded, every additional square inch of shipping surface increases the chance of damage when shipping. All file copies at manufacturers are folded once at a seam. Get over it people, it does no damage realistically to the flat & extends the overall life condition of the flat.
Shaped Flat = a flat that has been folded at side seems & glued. Top & bottom flaps have not been folded on a shaped flat. Shaped flats are the printers product ready for use at the factory.
How do you Figure out the year a cereal box was actually made?
* Never go by the copyrights on the side panel. Copyright year can be wildly off.
* Best is if the box has a sell by date stamped into a top or bottom panel. Usually box was manufacture in previous year of sell by date. Though these are not always there.
* Another way is if the box has an offer form with an expiration date. Example = Offer expires December 31, 1993. Box is from 1992 in all likelihood.
* Sometimes you may find a date on a bottom side panel flap. Example = 5-92. On that one that is the date of manufacture.
* One final way. On some boxes there is a circle of numbers with say 95 in the center. That is that boxes year of manufacture.
* Though sometimes there are none of the above. In that case scour all panels for any date that seems reasonable.
Shipping = I ship cereal boxes between 2 sheets of cardboard. Double corrugated is best. Also best if the cardboard you use to ship is big enough that you can fold it once to create the shipper. Use a piece that after folded once creates an envelope 1/2 inch bigger on all sides than the cereal box you are shipping. I find a cereal box has one ship in it without damage. If a person returns the box in original packaging it will most likely have damage.
The crease = there is one flaw almost every cereal box that ever served time on a store shelf will have. It is the top crease in the middle from where people commonly pick it up. More or less people pick up a box of cereal from the top using the thumb on one side index finger same hand on the back side. We all do it. Check yourself out next time at the store, grab a box off the shelf, pause & note the indentation you made in the box. To me this is the common flaw in almost all flattened cereal boxes. You can prize for it not being there, but it would be nuts to discount for it.
Again why I only collect flattened boxes. Say miracle of miracles you have a full box on a shelve at home. Are you gonna put an armed guard on it to keep some idiot from picking it up the most common way everyone in the world would. If a cereal box is full it will get this crease sooner or later.
Cut up boxes & torn boxes. If damage to a box exceeds 10% of the overall box appearance. Why Bother. You might buy it cause you can't afford better or even find another, but good luck ever getting your money back. Torn or cutup boxes are difficult to resell. A coupon like Betty Crocker or a proof of purchase cut from a top or bottom flap I can live with as long as it does not affect front, back or side panels.
I've got to be honest with you. Boxes I buy from the 1990s or later with tears or are cut up, I just tear them in half & throw them away. There just not worth the space they take up.
Hard fact / Harsh reality. I buy cereal boxes in quantity, preferably 50 to a thousand or 2 at a time. I pay roughly $1.00 per box for flats. I pay .50 cents to $1.00 each for flattened boxes in quantity. This is for boxes I want in Quantity. I have payed $2.00 each for Ralston Flats, quantity over 750. I as a dealer can not pay more & hope to make any kind of reasonable profit to me.
As with the whole Pez thingy, see Pez Outlaw Diary. I have a lot of added costs in advertising, promotion & support material. Time expenditure alone creating the Cereal Box Price Guide.
I sometimes note in caption, boxes I like. This just means I personally like it, that for whatever personal reason. I like it. Sometimes it will be colors combined with overall box presentation, like the 1997 McDonald's Kellogg's Honey Crunch Corn Flakes cereal box. Others it might be as in the case of the Corn Flakes Memphis Box, I'd never seen one like it before. As with anything you collect, it should be about what you like. Not what others tell you is great.
Remember I'm trying to avoid crazy values in the Cereal Box Price Guide. I want to value at a good buy for the item. On values my bottom value will be $5 to $10.00. Here's why. Either you want a box or you don't. If you don't it is worth nothing to you. If you want it, how do you not value it at $5 to $10.00? A box of cereal costs about $4.00 at the store, so for a box to exist it starts at a $4.00 value in life. $5 to $10.00 is just easier as a bottom line. If you won't pay $5 to $10.00 for a cereal box, why are you even bothering to collect.
One final point on the values I place on boxes. There are boxes I value lower than a big time dealer would try selling it for. Reality check here. A big time collectibles dealer might occasionally get that kind of money for it. You and I are not going to get that kind of money for it. Reason is the big time dealer has developed the client base & reputation that brings big money buyers to them. We are going to get approx half.
For someone who finds a pile of boxes somewhere 1st sale money is fare. We are who big time dealers buy from quite often. That is our share, we don't have the contacts or years of work building a client base & reputation. Hoping for all the money is stupid greedy. You & I play our part & take our share. Plus my guess is you don't want to wait years to get top dollar.
As sure as God made little green apples the Cereal Box Price Guide will come under attack for it's low valuing structure. The cereal box "collector " elites will take great um-bridge at the values I place on really good boxes.
When I first started putting cereal boxes on ebay there were roughly 3,000 total listings for the search "cereal box". Now 2 years later that same search on ebay yields 7,000 to 8,000 listings. Draw your own conclusions.
I'd also like to mention to current cereal box dealers. Do you really think you are helping the hobby by asking $500.00 to $1200.00 for older cereal boxes. Those prices serve only two purposes, to enrich you and promote laser copies as viable/acceptable alternatives at $25.00 each.
On Laser copies of rare very expensive cereal boxes. They are acceptable alternatives and relatively easy to distinguish from the real thing. Problem is proliferation of them into collections and what happens with them further down the road to newbie collectors who don't have a good eye. I'm not condemning laser copies, just that this is the down side to them.
I love cereal boxes, as I have for 4 decades. I'm interested in the true fanatic collectors out there like kb8. I'm not interested in top money, just enough so I can keep buying everything I like that goes by.
Last time with Pez I was very careful to say all the right things & tow the party line. Look where that got me, broke. Last time even though I tried to say all the right things to fit in & not rock the boat. I was still despised & mean-mouthed behind my back. This time I'm gonna do it on my terms. Begin as you plan to continue, it is just easier.
I promise to pay attention to the nature of Google searches that bring you here.
example; "cost of a box of cereal 1970"
Go to the chapter that covers the brand of cereal that your box is. Scroll down to the year of your box. Years are in order in captions under pictures. If it's not your particular box what is there should give you an idea. Exception is if your box has an extraordinary offer on the back or character on the front, it will be worth more.
Reader Alert.
I had to break up Kellogg's into 2 chapters. The first chapter is Apple Cinnamon Squares thru Frosted Flakes. The second chapter is everything after Frosted Flakes. Problem is Corn Flakes, Froot Loops n Frosted Flakes are very large n pictures were slowing the chapter upload with the rest included. I don't know about you but if a page takes to long to upload I loose interest n leave. We can't have that so I divied Kellogg's up into 2 Chapters.
Kellogg's Chapter 2 will include Pops, Rice Krispies n Smacks. Again kinda large groups of boxes. We will see if I'm forced to do this with Post. General Mills is already divided by taking Wheaties Out. Hopefully that was enough with GM.
For some of my other adventures.
Please check out.
Pez Outlaw Diary
NEW. Where possible I've added the year a particular brand of cereal first made its appearance on store shelves. Ongoing.
The most Cereal Boxes pictured anywhere in print or on line.
Easy access by brand, type n year.
No click then wait for images, simply scroll down to next, then next, then next.
Every image is dated n valued.
More Cereal Boxes in a single chapter than most other sites have in total.
Every listing in this price guide is and will be pictured. Over 2,100 pictures in this cereal box price guide so far.
I'm writing this because cereal boxes have been a personal passion of mine for 40 years. I have to admit though, there is a second reason. There is nothing currently available to collectors like what the Cereal Box Price Guide will be. I've looked. The best I found were portion aspects. A list but no pictures, dates or prices or pictures but zero true info about actually collecting cereal boxes. The actual how n why to collecting cereal boxes.
Some places have pictures but you've gotta keep changing pages to see another, again no years & no values. Very tedious n time consuming. Here you just scroll down n voila there she be.
I've also noticed what seems to be the norm for printed guides to cereal boxes. That norm seems to be a conglomerate of radio premiums, cereal premiums n finally cereal boxes. As I approach this project one thing is very clear. A guide to only US release cereal boxes is massive enough. How could a guide that includes radio premiums n cereal premiums leave enough room to do cereal boxes properly.
As it stands I'm not going to include boring boxes like Bran this n Bran that or Whole grain healthy crap. My colon be damned, give me sugar sweetened n unhealthy by today's goofy standards. I'm old n could not give a crap anymore, I eat what I like, life is to short to trade quality for boring. Anyway the point being, even eliminating the the boring crap healthy cereal this thing is gonna be very big/long. So how in God's name could you possibly have room for premiums.
The exception on boring cereal will be boxes that have good or interesting offers on them. Examples; Post Toasties, Grape Nuts n Grape Nuts Flakes will be included because the offers on the boxes were to good to ignore them.
On premiums. Don't fall into the premium trap. I spent 20 years collecting premiums, when I actually should have ignored them n collected the Cereal Boxes they came in. I could honestly kick myself for that. Collecting premiums is only collecting half the picture. Collecting both is a diffusion of efforts. Every premium you buy to go with a box is an additional cereal box you could have acquire with that money. The Cereal box alone is enough, the illustration of the premium on the box covers the premium. Buying the premium also is a waste of time n money.
The number of Cereal Boxes you can collect is huge enough without wasting needed funds on extraneous items. I'll tell you a secret, the biggest mistake I made with Pez was buying all that crap that was not actually a pez dispenser. I wasted massive amounts of time n money on stupid.
So here are the rules.
1. Collect cereal boxes n cereal boxes only.
2. Do not collect cereal premiums.
3. Do not collect cereal related advertising crap.
4. Do not collect box tops or half boxes.
5. Save your money for near complete boxes. One or 2 missing flaps is acceptable.
6. Buying crap to have an example is not a good idea. A crappy condition box will just eat at you over the years. Even stored away, in your mind you know it is there.
7. Fancy Dealers will happily sell you shit. Take your time, not having it is better than having crap. If you don't have it, it's always out there just waiting for you to find it. The Quest.
8. I'd rather own the newer boxes I talk about below than a cool old box in poor condition.
 |
| 1986 Ghost Busters Hologram Cereal Box = $25.00 I'd love to tell you this box is worth $50.00, because it is. Problem with that is, people currently will not Pay more than $25.00. That's the problem with valuing boxes, myself n say 12 others might feel a box is worth $500.00 to $1,000.00, but if only 10 people would ever pay that, if they didn't already have it. Is it truly worth that kind of money, no. A box is worth what it will actually sell for in say a 6 to 12 month time period. |
The values I place on cereal boxes are my opinion of what is reasonable to think you might get for a particular box. Big time dealers place much higher values on some boxes, it is an arbitrary number waiting for some idiot who has to much money. It works, but that's not how we are going to value cereal boxes here. You are not going to find an idiot with to much money for your box, idiots are a developed clientele nurtured by Big Time Dealers, there is a very limited supply of them. No, you my friends are in all likelihood going to have to sell your box or buy it in the real world n that is how I will place values.
I was limiting top value to $250.00. I'm probably going to increase that. A lot of cereal boxes are really valued at $250.00 to approx $900.00. Even still , I will probably not value any cereal box over $500.00. I've been reluctant because I do not want to encourage replicas. Two points here. I've been noticing a definite increase in the number of replicas on ebay. Second I've also notice a lot of replicas in existing collections.
This increase in replicas in the hobby troubles me only as to sales of these items down the road by people who don't realize that they are replicas to people who can't spot a replica. Newbies.
People tend to collect what was a part of there child hood or in this case what they ate. Example; Cocoa Krispies verses Cocoa Pebbles. Cocoa Pebles are & always have been more popular. End result most Cereal Box Collectors collect Cocoa Pebbles, Cocoa Krispies not so much. Sugar Crisp yes, Smacks to a lesser degree. Within cereal types produced by the various Companies one emerged as most popular with us as children, as adults we kept our bias as we collect.
Cereal Boxes are like adult Gum Cards. Bigger & more fun. A cereal box is like a TV show featuring a special guest appearance / Who's on the box. The first of something new & cool or a really great character featured on the box.
 | |||
| This box is a perfect example of a really good cereal box. It's a 2005 box that hits the nail on the head of what makes a cereal box collectible. The crazy factor is really high on this one. A cereal box does not have to be old to be good. Firsts n old are good but even a brand that's been around forever can knock one out of the park now and then. |
Classification of value n desirability for a cereal box starts this way. You have a maker then the brand n it's mascot in some cases, then it is about what is happening on the face of the box. Offers can add value, celebrity guest appearance can add value or if the mascot is in a costume, that can add vale. To me a great example of costuming mascots is the 1995 series of Pebbles cereals where Barney is in different crazy costumes. I love these.
 |
| example of costuming mascots is the 1995 series of Pebbles cereals where Barney is in different crazy costumes. I love these. Again a cereal box does not have to be really old to be really good. |
Some boxes have names. Example below is the Pebbles Chocolate Dragon box. A really good name alone can make a box iconic. Put that with crazy & costumed. Ding, Ding you have a winner. Mark my words 20 to 30 years from now this box will be known as the Chocolate Dragon Box.
 |
| This box is a good example of all 3. Costumes check. Crazy check. Box that actually has a name check. Pebbles Chocolate Dragon Box. |
Mascots for cereal boxes seem to evolve about every decade. So obviously earlier incarnations of Tony, Lucky or Cap'n Crunch by themselves adds value. Another example is say Franken Berry pouring milk into the bowl from a pitcher, better box.
The company that first took Licensed by Character or Movie boxes with no brand affiliation ( like still General Mills but not Cherios) within the corporate header to its furthest point was Ralston. The license was the brand of Ralston, Kellogg's etc. Now that Ralston is out of the picture General Mills, Kellogg's n Post have picked up where they left off. I call this category of product the Ralston effect.
Most of the chapters are going to have a category called the Ralston effect. The Ralston effect category is for example Star Wars Cereal by General Mills or Polar Express Cereal by Post.
One more thing about Ralston. Early on & now again Ralston was n could be nothing more than all the rest of the generic brands of cereal. Cereal boxes that nobody really collect. Ralston got behind there brands Grins n Giggles, Freakies, Fruit Islands etc, with characters n promotions. I've seen some pretty cool generic boxes, but they don't follow up or promote themselves. Ralston was an iconic company of unique innovative brands n characters.
Ralston got lazy by going with movie licensed brands, making there future fortunes boom or bust. Don't get me wrong I love some of these boxes, Urkelos, WWF, Ghost Busters etc, but a few licenses like Robin Hood Prince of Thieves & Addams family can sink a company. Heck I bought a lot of even WWF at Dollar stores. I just feel Ralston Cereal might have had a brighter future if they'd stuck with Freakies, Fruit Islands & about half the licenses they did. God bless them though, Ralston cereal as we knew it died but we got all those great cereal boxes.
I personally own over 10,000 cereal boxes. I also buy cereal boxes, but I pay prices that take a longer view of things. Translation, I'm cheap. Any idiot can pay big money for something.
My all time favorite cereal boxes are Baron Von Redberry & Sir Grape Fellow. Next probably the Monster cereal boxes. These are my personal favorite, ones I would cherish above all others. That said I would feel crappy unless I got an extremely good buy in acquiring them. I can live without them at the wrong price.
My favorite group of cereal boxes is the Monster Cereal group, Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Boo Berry, Yummy Mummy & Fruit Brute. Hands down no competition Big G Monster Cereals are the best.
My favorite cereal Company is Ralston, again no competition. More unique licensed product during the right time period to be affordable. Cabbage Patch, Ghost Busters, WWF, Early Cookie Crisp/dark brown boxes, Dinersaurs, Dinky Donuts, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr, Dunkin Donuts, Freakies, Fruit Islands, G I Joe, Gremlins, Grins & Smiles & Giggles & Laughs, Moonstones, Nerds, Nintendo, Rainbow Brite, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Urkelos & Waffelos. Now that is a group of cereal boxes you want to collect & I didn't even name everything.
If Ralston had also done the Monster Cereals, Baron Von Redberry, Sir Grape Fellow, Quisp, Quake & Quangaroos, you would only need to collect Ralston.
My least favorite Cereal Company is Nabisco. There are some pretty good boxes from Nabisco, but generally the worst group of cereal boxes for collecting.
Recently I had to come to grips with my feelings towards Wheaties Cereal Boxes. I've been very critical & wrong. My position was there are tons of them out there & everybody collects them. Hence my thought was they are worthless. Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. The truth is actually in the critique. Everybody Collects them. With typical stupidity I was fighting the current. Recoiling against what is truly popular. My problem, I'm gonna work on it.
On that very point. the Cereal Box Price Guide has been up long enough that consistent data that bares this out is now available. The Wheaties chapter is viewed day in day out n overall 3 to 1 over any other chapter. In other words you name the brand of cereal, Wheaties are viewed 3 times as much on a daily basis or overall.
I know to big collectors Wheaties are not as sexy as Count Chocula, Franken Berry, Yummy Mummy, Fruit Brute, Quisp, Quake, Quangaroos, Cap'n Crunch, Ghost Busters, Freakies, Fruit Islands, Grins & Smiles & Giggles & Laughs, Moonstones, Nerds, & Waffelos etc. Problem for me in writing this book is solved very simple. Give the reader what they overwhelmingly want, WHEATIES. This data also shows me I made the correct decision by giving Wheaties there own chapter.
Wheaties are the most popular Cereal Boxes collected. I now embrace this fact.
To back the above statement up. This week an 8 cereal box series of Wheaties boxes from the 1970s, all unused factory flats sold as one lot for $1,754.00. This auction started out at .99 cents. To say the least I was dumfounded by the winning bid. If this does not bare out the above statement, nothing will. Over $200.00 per box on average. I've seen "great" boxes in the opinion of Cereal Box collectors "in the know" like Grins n Giggles or Moonstones go for say $100.00 or less each. Or other "great" boxes up for sale for a year at a time at $200.00 plus, that do not sell. So you tell me, What is the most popular cereal brand to general cereal box collectors en mass. WHEATIES, hands down Wheaties. There really is no dispute.
I noticed something while working on Wheaties this week. 1942 to 1945 are very lean on cereal boxes, here is why in my opinion. On December 7, 1941 World War II began. The USA was ill prepared for the war, so as a nation we had to scramble, very fast. This war effort included rationing for consumers and manufacturers. Massive amounts of raw materials were required for the war effort. We not only had to produce war materials for US efforts, we also had to carry a big part of the load for Europe and Russia.
So rationing of raw materials change packaging and quantities produced. Add to that, that during the war years what we call recycling was instituted in a big way to provide further for the needs of raw materials. Families and children were in perpetual paper and metal drives, collecting used materials needed for the war effort. So what little may have been produced in large part ended up in paper drives/recycled. Resulting in not many cereal boxes survived from the years 1942 to 1945.
Now for a very controversial subject. How to collect, do you leave the cereal in the boxes or empty the box & carefully flatten them? Please remember this is my opinion.
I would not give you 2 cents more for a cereal box with contents still in it. I'm actually a little ticked off when I buy boxes that have contents instead of being flattened. Full boxes cost a ton to ship & are prone to damage in shipping. Flattened boxes ship & store better. Getting a box from here to there in time is accomplished with less damage to the box if they are flattened.
To me nobody in there right mind would collect full boxes. You say you like to display them, ok. I've been collecting cereal boxes for over 30 years. Full boxes damage themselves just sitting on the shelf. They belly & bag. Dust can & does damage the box. Light damages the box. The contents themselves damage the box. All this is going on year after year even when in adding a box to a shelf, dusting etc, you don't knock one off & damage a corner. Flattened boxes is the only sure way to collect cereal boxes & minimize damage to your collection over the years.
Definitions
Full = box with original contents.
Flattened = a box that was once full of cereal, then emptied & carefully flattened, using existing side seams. The box will show you how as you attempt it.
A Flat = unused, never assembled. These can come two ways, an uncut sheet or a cut sheet ready to be shaped & glued. Most commonly these are found as cut sheets. I fold these once at the seam for shipping. I find it just plain stupid to attempt to ship a flat unfolded, every additional square inch of shipping surface increases the chance of damage when shipping. All file copies at manufacturers are folded once at a seam. Get over it people, it does no damage realistically to the flat & extends the overall life condition of the flat.
Shaped Flat = a flat that has been folded at side seems & glued. Top & bottom flaps have not been folded on a shaped flat. Shaped flats are the printers product ready for use at the factory.
How do you Figure out the year a cereal box was actually made?
* Never go by the copyrights on the side panel. Copyright year can be wildly off.
* Best is if the box has a sell by date stamped into a top or bottom panel. Usually box was manufacture in previous year of sell by date. Though these are not always there.
* Another way is if the box has an offer form with an expiration date. Example = Offer expires December 31, 1993. Box is from 1992 in all likelihood.
* Sometimes you may find a date on a bottom side panel flap. Example = 5-92. On that one that is the date of manufacture.
* One final way. On some boxes there is a circle of numbers with say 95 in the center. That is that boxes year of manufacture.
* Though sometimes there are none of the above. In that case scour all panels for any date that seems reasonable.
Shipping = I ship cereal boxes between 2 sheets of cardboard. Double corrugated is best. Also best if the cardboard you use to ship is big enough that you can fold it once to create the shipper. Use a piece that after folded once creates an envelope 1/2 inch bigger on all sides than the cereal box you are shipping. I find a cereal box has one ship in it without damage. If a person returns the box in original packaging it will most likely have damage.
The crease = there is one flaw almost every cereal box that ever served time on a store shelf will have. It is the top crease in the middle from where people commonly pick it up. More or less people pick up a box of cereal from the top using the thumb on one side index finger same hand on the back side. We all do it. Check yourself out next time at the store, grab a box off the shelf, pause & note the indentation you made in the box. To me this is the common flaw in almost all flattened cereal boxes. You can prize for it not being there, but it would be nuts to discount for it.
Again why I only collect flattened boxes. Say miracle of miracles you have a full box on a shelve at home. Are you gonna put an armed guard on it to keep some idiot from picking it up the most common way everyone in the world would. If a cereal box is full it will get this crease sooner or later.
Cut up boxes & torn boxes. If damage to a box exceeds 10% of the overall box appearance. Why Bother. You might buy it cause you can't afford better or even find another, but good luck ever getting your money back. Torn or cutup boxes are difficult to resell. A coupon like Betty Crocker or a proof of purchase cut from a top or bottom flap I can live with as long as it does not affect front, back or side panels.
I've got to be honest with you. Boxes I buy from the 1990s or later with tears or are cut up, I just tear them in half & throw them away. There just not worth the space they take up.
Hard fact / Harsh reality. I buy cereal boxes in quantity, preferably 50 to a thousand or 2 at a time. I pay roughly $1.00 per box for flats. I pay .50 cents to $1.00 each for flattened boxes in quantity. This is for boxes I want in Quantity. I have payed $2.00 each for Ralston Flats, quantity over 750. I as a dealer can not pay more & hope to make any kind of reasonable profit to me.
As with the whole Pez thingy, see Pez Outlaw Diary. I have a lot of added costs in advertising, promotion & support material. Time expenditure alone creating the Cereal Box Price Guide.
I sometimes note in caption, boxes I like. This just means I personally like it, that for whatever personal reason. I like it. Sometimes it will be colors combined with overall box presentation, like the 1997 McDonald's Kellogg's Honey Crunch Corn Flakes cereal box. Others it might be as in the case of the Corn Flakes Memphis Box, I'd never seen one like it before. As with anything you collect, it should be about what you like. Not what others tell you is great.
Remember I'm trying to avoid crazy values in the Cereal Box Price Guide. I want to value at a good buy for the item. On values my bottom value will be $5 to $10.00. Here's why. Either you want a box or you don't. If you don't it is worth nothing to you. If you want it, how do you not value it at $5 to $10.00? A box of cereal costs about $4.00 at the store, so for a box to exist it starts at a $4.00 value in life. $5 to $10.00 is just easier as a bottom line. If you won't pay $5 to $10.00 for a cereal box, why are you even bothering to collect.
One final point on the values I place on boxes. There are boxes I value lower than a big time dealer would try selling it for. Reality check here. A big time collectibles dealer might occasionally get that kind of money for it. You and I are not going to get that kind of money for it. Reason is the big time dealer has developed the client base & reputation that brings big money buyers to them. We are going to get approx half.
For someone who finds a pile of boxes somewhere 1st sale money is fare. We are who big time dealers buy from quite often. That is our share, we don't have the contacts or years of work building a client base & reputation. Hoping for all the money is stupid greedy. You & I play our part & take our share. Plus my guess is you don't want to wait years to get top dollar.
As sure as God made little green apples the Cereal Box Price Guide will come under attack for it's low valuing structure. The cereal box "collector " elites will take great um-bridge at the values I place on really good boxes.
When I first started putting cereal boxes on ebay there were roughly 3,000 total listings for the search "cereal box". Now 2 years later that same search on ebay yields 7,000 to 8,000 listings. Draw your own conclusions.
I'd also like to mention to current cereal box dealers. Do you really think you are helping the hobby by asking $500.00 to $1200.00 for older cereal boxes. Those prices serve only two purposes, to enrich you and promote laser copies as viable/acceptable alternatives at $25.00 each.
On Laser copies of rare very expensive cereal boxes. They are acceptable alternatives and relatively easy to distinguish from the real thing. Problem is proliferation of them into collections and what happens with them further down the road to newbie collectors who don't have a good eye. I'm not condemning laser copies, just that this is the down side to them.
I love cereal boxes, as I have for 4 decades. I'm interested in the true fanatic collectors out there like kb8. I'm not interested in top money, just enough so I can keep buying everything I like that goes by.
Last time with Pez I was very careful to say all the right things & tow the party line. Look where that got me, broke. Last time even though I tried to say all the right things to fit in & not rock the boat. I was still despised & mean-mouthed behind my back. This time I'm gonna do it on my terms. Begin as you plan to continue, it is just easier.
I promise to pay attention to the nature of Google searches that bring you here.
example; "cost of a box of cereal 1970"
Go to the chapter that covers the brand of cereal that your box is. Scroll down to the year of your box. Years are in order in captions under pictures. If it's not your particular box what is there should give you an idea. Exception is if your box has an extraordinary offer on the back or character on the front, it will be worth more.
Reader Alert.
I had to break up Kellogg's into 2 chapters. The first chapter is Apple Cinnamon Squares thru Frosted Flakes. The second chapter is everything after Frosted Flakes. Problem is Corn Flakes, Froot Loops n Frosted Flakes are very large n pictures were slowing the chapter upload with the rest included. I don't know about you but if a page takes to long to upload I loose interest n leave. We can't have that so I divied Kellogg's up into 2 Chapters.
Kellogg's Chapter 2 will include Pops, Rice Krispies n Smacks. Again kinda large groups of boxes. We will see if I'm forced to do this with Post. General Mills is already divided by taking Wheaties Out. Hopefully that was enough with GM.
For some of my other adventures.
Please check out.
Pez Outlaw Diary
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