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Posted By: leon

Hey folks,
I thought this was interesting reading so did a little cut and pasting (yes, even "I" can do that)...I did not write this myself....regards all.

.by Kit Kiefer

There are lots of misunderstood cards in trading-card history, but maybe the most misunderstood are caramel cards. The big reason why is the candy the cards were packed with - caramel.

We think of caramel in contemporary terms, as the gooey stuff inside the Snickers bars or the sticky stuff wrapped around the candy apple. We hardly ever think of caramel by itself. Caramel has become a marginal candy over the last couple of decades, having lost all sorts of ground to chocolate, Starburst and Skittles. But in the early 20th century caramel was neck-and-neck with chocolate as the candy of choice. Caramel was relatively easy to make, sweet and long-lasting - and in those tighter times, something that could stick with you a while was tremendously valuable. One all-day Slo-Poke was a lot cheaper than four or five Clark bars.

Because caramel was easy to make, lots of companies made it. And because it didn't always ship well, many of those companies were regional. Despite their names, the American Caramel Co. and the U.S. Caramel Co. were lucky if their products made it to the shores of the Mississippi. If you find a caramel card from either of these companies in San Francisco, it more than likely migrated there.

The couple of cents spent on a caramel in the 1910s or '20s was a kid's candy allowance for the day, and he got a lot for his money. Looking at the size and shape of caramel cards, you can postulate that the caramel was big and flat and relatively thin, but not crunchy-thin. Slo-Pokes and Sugar Daddies are the only modern candies that compare, but they're small by comparison, and they have sticks. The caramels that cards came with in the early part of the century didn't have sticks. You bit off a piece, wrapped up the rest and stuck it in your pocket. On a hot day you might wind up wearing your leftovers by four o'clock; on cold days, you could break a tooth trying to get through.

In the 1900s and 1910s, the caramels were narrower and thicker; by the '30s they were wider and slightly thinner, with dimensions close to those of the trading-card bubble-gum of the '30s, which makes sense. Even back then a standard size helped a candy bar get a prime spot at the candy counter.

If you're old enough to remember the animal cards packed in Sugar Daddy caramels in the '60s and '70s, you know that the caramel-card combination is far from ideal. Cards can stick to the caramel, with tragic results for both the card and the candy. Sometimes wax paper was inserted between the caramel and the card, but that added a step to packaging, and added steps add up.

Cost and logistics are two reasons why caramel cards fell from favor, but another reason was America's evolving sweet tooth. As advancements were made in flavoring chewing gum and prolonging that flavor, kids who wanted an all-day treat moved from caramel to gum. Caramels were still around, but they weren't an everyday eat, and trading cards weren't powerful enough to change that fact. Cards could still push a few extra caramels out the door from time to time - the Sugar Daddy animal cards did the trick in the '60s - but it wasn't worth the money and effort to pay athletes to push caramel.

Milk Duds learned one of those he-who-forgets-the-past-is-doomed-to-repeat-it lessons about caramel cards in the '60s, and someday some other caramel maker will probably wander down that same ill-fated path. If there are any caramel makers left.