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The Cracker Jack Collectors Association:CJCA
CJCA's official web site: history, trivia, events, latest prizes, links, and membership information. There is even a page just for kids, with sections on where to get prizes, how to store them, when to play with them, and where to to find more information.
Frito-Lay's Cracker Jack and Related Sites:
Cracker Jack
Frito-Lay's wonderful Cracker Jack web site is an interactive amusement park for kids of all ages with super activities and games that relate to current Cracker Jack prizes. It also has Cracker Jack news stories, history, and links -- and admission is free! See if you can find all the neat mouse-overs and click-activated surprises. " Way kewl !!! "
Choose "Consumer Products & Promotions" and then go to "Fun Foods!" to select "Cracker Jack" from the products drop-down menu. You'll find links to Cracker Jack products, history, and nutritional information.
After arriving at Planet Lunch's ePLOIDS.com, click on the Catalog button left to see the latest premiums available in exchange for the Ploids found on wrappers of Frito-Lay products, sometimes even Cracker Jack.
Cracker Jack Home Pages:
Alphabet26
Jeffrey Maxwell is an aficionado of alphabet-related Cracker Jack prizes and is affectionately known among his fellow CJCA members as the "the Alphabet King." Originally, this site primarily featured plastic Cracker Jack alphabet prizes, but it now includes some awesome addtions - an "Alphabet26 Dictionary of Cracker Jack Prize Collecting Terms" and an "Alphabet26 Guide to Plastic Cracker Jack Prizes from the 1940s and '50s." (It also includes an entertaining section on vending machine alphabet charms and the like that are not Cracker Jack prizes.) If you don't know your Cracker Jack ABC's, this site can help!
In late 1993, Ann Brogley organized a loose-knit network of Cracker Jack penpals into what was to become the Cracker Jack Collectors Association, serving as its first president until late June 1999. The organization had its first charter members by April 1994; and soon after, in May 1994, CJCA's newsletter, The Prize Insider, was inaugurated as "a vehicle for disseminating information" about anything and everything relating to Cracker Jack, with Roberta Bowen as editor. The next year, CJCA held its first annual convention in Columbus, Ohio. Much credit goes to Ann for the rise in the popularity of Cracker Jack collecting and for establishing it as a legitimate collecting field--and for the enduring friendships that have been born--because of her hard work and dedication in founding and nurturing CJCA. GinnyDoll's Doll & Toy Collection
GinnyDoll's Doll & Toy Collection is the web site of CJCA member Linda Woeltjen and features "a lifetime's worth of playing and keeping." Her interest in dolls and dollhouse miniatures led her naturally to collecting gumball machine prizes and Cracker Jack toys. A section of her site is an exhibit of items from her Cracker Jack collection, which includes the Green Monster Glasses Diguise Kit shown here.
Who says Cracker Jack collecting is for old fogies? Not Jack Bradley; he is a teenager who is very much into Cracker Jack collecting, so much so that he has set up his own web site dedicated entirely to Cracker Jack. He presents some Cracker Jack history and offers advice to other kids and their parents on Cracker Jack collecting. Though Jack does enjoy Cracker Jack, that is not a picture of him at left. It is actually an early Cracker Jack paper mechanical prize; notice that Sailor Jack does not appear on the box that the boy is holding. A larger image of the prize can be found at Jack's web site.
This site of a Cracker Jack fan includes a brief history of Cracker Jack, news releases, a gallery of Cracker Jack items, links to other Cracker Jack information, and even recipes.
Miscellaneous Links Other Sites of Interest:
Retro
Retro: The Magazine of Classic 20th Century Popular Culture
Unfortunately, this wonderful e-zine has been inactive since Summer 1999, but the back issues are still there in the attic preserved in genuine acid-free file folders for browsing: click on the Archives link. Previously Retro included a "Teletype" section with features added several times a week, but the "teletype" archives are not presently accessible. "The Cracker Jack Box" is honored to have been spotlighted in "Teletype" on January 26, 1999. Hopefully, this excellent site will one day reactivate; but until it does, enjoy the previous articles.
Mike Speth, the Astronit, has created a wonderful site which features an amazing collection of the cereal premiums and toys made by the R & L Company of Melbourne, Australia, and includes a section on Nits, which were used as Froot Loops cereal AstroNit premiums in Australia and as Cracker Jack prizes in the United States.
Remember those neat folders in Granny's sewing basket with needles stored inside, some with brightly colored rectangles of foil backing, and often a needle threader? This web site celebrates those needle books and includes a couple of neat exhibits, including one gallery of covers with Army and Navy themes. Go for a visit, but don't get stuck!
Plan to "bookmark" this web site--a wonderful collection, beautifully presented. Of the more than 550 bookmarks on display, most are silver, though some there are made of all sorts of materials--except, by intent, ones made of paper. Cracker Jack collectors in particular will want to use the drop-down menu and do a Keyword Search on "Cracker Jack" to find some bookmark surprises.
