Does anyone remember the premiums found in cereal boxes etc. back in the 50's?

Ruth n Jersey

Ruth n Jersey

Well-known Member
Location
Northern New Jersey
I remember getting little frogmen in some type of cereal. They were plastic and had a small hollowall booklets.jpg area in the base of them. You put baking soda in the base, put the little tin lid on that had a very small hole. Put them in a deep container and they went up and down as the baking soda bubbled and dissolved. My Grandfather found a very tall glass container. I sat at the kitchen table and watched the frogmen for hours. Probably used up my mom's baking soda refilling them as needed. I also have a few Cracker Jax prizes. There were items that could be sent for as well. I collected Borden's evaporated milk coupons for a camera I wanted. My Dad and Grandpa always used evaporated milk in their coffee. Finally I had enough. For some reason you could redeem them in a furniture store in our town.Then I waited, finally my camera arrived. What a beauty,I thought. I still have many of the photos I took with that camera. Then there was my Sargent Preston of the Yukon ore detector. Waited all summer for that to come. The little comic books shown in the photo belong to my Brother in Law. He isn't sure how you got them.
 

frogmen.jpg

I definitely remember frogmen! My brothers and I loved them. :)

Put baking soda (I think) in them, put in a big jar of water and watch them dive around. Such fun.

I also remember the little tiny comic books in cereal.
 
Oh! my goodness! I remember that box! What memories. I must have had corn flakes coming out of my ears because I remember having quite a few frogman.
 

Ah, yes, the frogmen - the reason I weighed 400 pounds at 6 years of age! I couldn't convince Mom to buy enough boxes of cereal, because I wanted my own little Navy.

Have you seen what the "prizes" are in Cracker-Jacks theses days? Usually a sticker.

A sticker!

You break your teeth on those stale peanuts, and your reward is a sticker?!?
 
Ruth. This thread really is my downfall. These pictures, of some of my collections, really bring out the kid in me. I've been collecting premiums for years now. Hopalong, Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, etc, etc.
 

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Pappy, I really like your collection. My favorite was Hopalong Cassidy when I was little. I have a photo of me wearing that brown shirt with him on it. I saw it recently and was surprised to see the shirt was too big for me, so now I realize it was my older brother's shirt and I must have stole it from him. :)
 
Pappy said:
Pretty sure it was from Sgr. Preston, of the Yukon, and King, his faithful dog.
Click to expand...

Here we go....I got this from Wikipedia:

Inception. Quaker Oats bought 19.11 acres of land in the Yukon Territory of Canada for the price of $1000 USD and printed up 21 million deeds for one square inch of land. On advice of counsel, Quaker Oats set up and transferred the land to the Great Klondike Big Inch Land Company to make the company the registered owner and manager of the deeds.

Starting on January 1955, 93 newspapers across the United States ran advertisements that read "Get a real deed to one square inch of land in the Yukon gold rush country" and, "You'll actually own one square inch of Yukon land".[1] The promotion was tied to the Sergeant Preston of the Yukon radio show which Quaker Oats was sponsoring at the time.

Obtaining Deeds: The promotion instructed people to mail a form along with a box top from either Quaker Puffed Wheat, Quaker Puffed Rice or Muffets Shredded Wheat to the Quaker Oats company. In turn, a 5 by 8 inch deed to one square inch of land in the Klondike was sent back. In February 1955, Quaker Oats was blocked from trading the deed for a box top by the Ohio Securities Division until it received a state license for the "sale" of foreign land.[2] To get around the injunction, the company stopped the trade-in offer and instead put one of the deeds in each box of cereal produced.

Since none of the deeds were actually registered, the documents were never legally binding and owners of these deeds were never actual owners of any land. The deed excluded mineral rights on the property.

Afterwards: Due to $37.20 in back taxes, the land was repossessed by the Canadian government in 1965, and the Great Klondike Big Inch Land Company dissolved in 1966. The land is now part of the Dawson City Golf Course.

To this day, Yukon officials receive letters and phone calls about the deeds. The land office of the Yukon currently contains an 18-inch thick file folder of correspondence regarding the promotion.
 
This thread brings back memories for me too, I can
remember the small gifts in cereals, or when the box
was empty, you cut it apart and stuck it together to
make a castle or a fort or something.

I love your collection Pappy, I haven't got one, except
for junk, I spent my life living from a suitcase while
travelling around the world on different jobs, I never
really stopped wandering till about 25 years ago, then
I still moved within London.

Mike.
 

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