Some Cracker Jack collectors enjoy collecting prize wrappers. They range from the plain wrapper envelopes that were first used by The Cracker Jack Company to the plastic wrappers and paper peel-off coverings introduced when Frito-Lay became the owner of Cracker Jack.

Most wrappers have been made of paper, but plastic has also been used recently. Some prize wrappers have been used to promote sweepstakes and contests; others have announced the prizes inside them or mail-in premium offers, or sometimes both. A couple of wrappers have even advertised video games with no connection to Cracker Jack.

Some prize wrappers from boxes of Cracker Jack distributed in Canada have been different from those used in the United States, and there is even variety among those.

Regardless of the wrapper type, they have all served the same dual purpose--to protect the consumer from accidentally swallowing a prize and to protect the prizes from the Cracker Jack surrounding them in the package. The stains on some of the wrappers demonstrate how the wrappers function as a barrier to the treasures they contain.

For Cracker Jack collectors, wrappers can also serve a third purpose: they can be useful in determining the approximate date of a prize, if not precisely, then at least within the broad time spans of general wrapper types. If the wrapper of a certain prize is known, then at least it can be determined that its prize came from the same "era" as other prizes found in that same type wrapper, and that it is either older or more recent than a prize that came in a different type wrapper. If the date of a prize in a particular type wrapper is known, and a second prize is found in that same type of wrapper, this may be useful in dating the second one. But this is by no means a foolproof method, however; there was some overlapping of types of wrappers used, and, again, the time spans are very broad.