Andy bought a Whitman’s Sampler Wednesday evening, for old time’s sake. He had given one to his mother every Christmas for about 55 years — from the year he started his paper route as a kid until she died in 2002.
The box looks about the same, but it has a lot more padding inside because there’s only 12 ounces of chocolate in it now. Clearly a lot of the nostalgia is for the box. According to this 2012 article celebrating the Sampler’s 100th birthday, a lot of people still keep the boxes for storing keepsakes. And the article also pointed out,
It’s traditionally given as a gift from the U.S. President to guests who visit the White House and those traveling on Air Force One. And, during World War II, handwritten notes of encouragement were packed into Sampler boxes and sent to fighting troops, a tradition that continued in 2001 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
In 1991, it even was added to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History in recognition of its place in American history.
Who would have guessed? It’s part of a lot more than just our family history.
November 28, 2014
We don’t have them here but we have Cadbury’s Chocolate boxes that are also used to store keepsakes. My favourite box for exactly that purpose is a box that The Laphroig Distillery of Islay gifted me with when I visited them. It contained a bottle of their famous single malt whisky but that bottle disappeared a long time ago!
😀
various companies here from time to time put out memorabilia tins that symbolise the advertising display aspects of the historic box of “whatever”
http://www.yates.co.nz/products/books-tools-and-propagation/sundries/yates-commemorative-seed-tin/
http://kiwicornerdairy.com/shop/griffin-s-150th-commemorative-tin-500g
and then there are the continuing chocolates i.e. https://www.cadbury.co.nz/products/gifts-boxes/roses-boxed-chocolates.aspx?p=3557
The interesting thing about this box is it was designed in the beginning to look old, to indicate the company was stable and could be trusted. And the basic design has never changed through all those years.
that’s interesting!
i didn’t know that about whitmans.
i DO remember that whenever a box of it appeared in our house . . .
we didn’t get to eat much candy… so it was a real treat…
the marine and i would read all the different kinds on the little sheet that came over the top… picking out our favorites. LOL.
it’s nice to know in this ever faster changing world that some things don’t change. 🙂
Whitman’s was the first candy maker to have that sheet letting people decide which ones they wanted. I think that was a brilliant.
Andy never had much candy as a child either, but he and his siblings could eat all the candy they wanted on Christmas Day. He continued that tradition in our family, so I never had to worry about cooking a fancy meal. I tried it just once, and no one wanted to eat it. 🙂