1950's Post Sugar Crisp Cereal Tins

[Anonymous]

Hello,
My dad and I collected a set of 25 Railroad Line tins out of Post Cereal boxes. We have wut i believe is a complete set of 25 tins? These tins are approx. 3" X 3" in size and depicts all the major railroads. Does anyone have any information on these, ; ie, year of production, how many in a set, where they only in Sugar Crisp boxes, and if they have any value? I found these in my dads attick, and they all appear to be in very nice condition. Just would like to find out more about these Railroad tins.
Thankyou,
Mike

[wrmcclellan]

I have no idea but you might cruise e-Bay and see if they show up there under in the collectables area.

Welcome to the CTT forum [#welcome]
Roy

[mersenne6]

There were 28 emblems. Post announced them in February 1954 as giveaways in specially marked boxes of Sugar Crisp. From May 1954 - November 1955 with one Sugar Crisp boxtop and 25 cents you could receive a set of seven emblems and a 36 page Railroad Fun Book.

There were 4 separate sets and they were grouped as Northeastern, Central and Northern, Western, and Central and Southern railroads. The sets were as follows:

Set #1 NYC, Lackawanna, PRR, Nickel Plate, B&O, Reading, and Erie
Set #2 C&EI, CGW, Wabash, GTW, CNW, Rock Island, Burlington
Set #3 SP, Western Pacific, Santa Fe, Milwaukee, NP, UP, Great Northern
Set #4 ACL, Seaboard, IC, C&O, MKT, Missouri Pacific, Southern

Sometime in the 1970's someone made reproductions of the hearlds. I don't know how you tell an original from a reproduction and, to the best of my knowledge, I don't know of anyone who has attempted to describe the differences. I do know there are variations. In particular, the Wabash can be found in white, blue, and red and in just white and blue. I don't know if this is a real variation or the difference between an original and a reproduction.

I also know that at least one railroad - the ACL - purchased a large number of the hearlds from the company who supplied Sugar Crisp and included them in their railroad promo packets along with such things as timetables, route maps and drink coasters.

As one of the kids of that time period I can tell you that I and many others enlisted all and sundry in an attempt to eat enough boxes of Sugar Crisp to get all of the emblems. Like so many, I failed in the initial attempt (I managed to get them a few year later). Again like so many others, my only real accomplishment was to make sure that no one in the immediate family, nor in the circle of relatives, would ever again consider eating even one spoonful of Sugar Crisps!

There were two articles about the hearlds in the TCA Quarterly for Fall 1977 and January 1986. Neither of the articles have much more information than what I've given above.

[Dave Farquhar]

I suspect that a reproduction, assuming the repros were made from the originals and not by re-drawing the heralds, would have a slightly odd-looking dot pattern when viewed under a photo loupe or a strong magnifying glass. In extreme cases it'll be cross-hatched, or the dot pattern might be irregular. It's a little hard to describe, but if you had a known original to use as a reference point--it wouldn't necessarily even have to be the same herald--and examined it, you'd know normal and that'd be enough to recognize a repro under magnification.

[Anonymous]

Good grief, it's unbelievable this came up here. I've been trying to find them on eBay for months (I usually stick to the Trains forum).
In 1984, I bought four of them at a RR show in St. Persburg, Fla. (NYC, IC, Nickel Plate & UP). They had just a bit of weathering on them, and look great.
I have lost the IC somehow. I would love to buy a couple more - and if they are a bit weathered, that's fine, since they would match. Anybody have any to part with? Might want to e-mail me because I'm likely to forget to look over here.

Larry

[Anonymous]

Prices for Post Cereal Tins with Railroad themes range up to around $20 apiece.
Depending on condition.
BillFromWayne
www.modeltrainjournal.com

[lionelsoni]

So the post-sugar-crisp era started about 10 years after the post-war era? Do I have that right? ..;-)