If you have a few hours to spare, I might suggest a little trip over to Sheaff Ephemera. The site is the brainchild of one Richard D. Sheaff. Collector extraordinaire. These figural cameos don’t need much explaining. If you’d like to see more, and there are MORE, go here.

I am always on the lookout for good packaging, so imagine my total delight when I found an entire box of Wiffle Balls sitting on a bottom shelf in the toy section of our local supermarket. The packaging looks almost unchanged from earlier versions. And, as far as I’m concerned, they should keep it that way. Made in Connecticut since 1953, the Wiffle® Ball was invented by David N. Mullany. At the time, he was an unemployed semi-professional pitcher who saw his 12 year old son making a mess of his arm after throwing too many curve balls with a standard baseball. For more history and rules go here. And, thanks to my friend Nancy’s superior memory, here is a story that ran on NPR in September of last year.

I recognize that these boxes, or “tins” as the are more commonly referred to, are mighty familiar, and maybe a little ubiquitous. That doesn’t mean that I like them any less. Besides, who doesn’t love a little potted tongue? Transferware was a product of mid 18th century England (although popular in other parts of Europe as well), and really came into its own during the mid 1800s. All photos and tins from Ruby Lane.

Clearly I have a problem — Just taking stock of my recent postings and realize that 80 percent of them relate to sugar in some form or another. However, these Icelandic and Danish candies are all about the packaging, not about the eating.

All week long (really, it’s two weeks long, but we’ll confine it to one) it’s Chinese New Year. In honor of said holiday, I dug these beauties out of my files. I wish I could find the companion postcards to these two images. They were published by Quantity Postcards out of San Francisco, but way back in the eighties. I found this link and this link to the site (you have to scroll down to find the images), but I wish there were more.