This stand-up owl, approximately 2 15/16" x 1 5/16", is one of a series of 48 embossed die-cut paper prizes ordered from the Cardy Lundmark Company in 1949, according to the Cracker Jack Company archival records. In addition to stand-ups, other prizes in the series include paper dishes and fobs.

Some plastic stand-ups later used as Cracker Jack prizes strongly resemble some of the paper stand-up prizes in this series, such as the tiger, hippo, fish, horse, whiffenpoof (Cracker Jack spelled it the "woofenpoof"), and frog, as well as the owl shown above.

Some of these paper prizes are marked "Cracker Jack," and some are not. In fact, marked and unmarked examples of the identical subject have been found--a stand-up featuring llamas is an example of one prize in the series known to exist in both marked and unmarked versions. The stand-up owl in Cracker Jack archives is not marked, though the example above is. This leads to the conclusion that entire sets of both the marked and the unmarked versions may have been produced.

Apparently, not many of these prizes were packed in Cracker Jack boxes, since they are some of the hardest prizes to find. Of the 37 that have been identified through archival evidence, 24 are stand-ups, 9 are fobs, and 4 are dishes.

© Jim Davis 11/10/03

 

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