Well, here’s a little something different for this sunny Sunday afternoon!
I have long loved the artistry and design of vintage, aged, hand sculpted and painted advertising; it originally inspired a lot of early work of mine over at @happyfranksigns . Antique shops, charity shops, car boot sales, museums, the high street – there’s inspiration everywhere!
For a while I’ve been wanting to work on some pieces that would combine Happy Frank art with my British Candy Connoisseur research project, and here’s an example of one of my combinations!
‘Take a break…’
Hand painted on a wooden board with my sign writer’s enamel paints and brushes; this is my attempt at recreating an old sales display for that lunch break classic, the Kit Kat (and back when it was still under the Rowntrees banner).
Side by side comparison
Is it perfect? No. Am I happy with it? You bet! This is going to be just one experiment in line of painting recreations of old ads, wrappers and displays to link my two projects! Practice makes perfect.
What other classic vintage ads should I tackle next?
While scouring the internet for vintage confectionery tins and ephemera, I came across (and purchased) a small tin badge not really knowing what it was for…until now!
This small, safety pin clasped badge is adorned with a miniature bar of Cadbury’s famous Dairy Milk Chocolate (created in 1905) and features the ‘glass and a half‘ logo of flowing milk (first marketed in 1928). The iconic Cadbury purple, now known as Pantone 2865c, is also pictured.
Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Award pin badge
But what does it all mean?
In 1965 Cadbury ran a campaign called the ‘Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Award’, or C.D.M Award for short. It encouraged the British public to nominate a friend, a family member, a local hero (or themselves) for ‘a simple everyday act of kindness, cheerfulness or courtesy’.
Winners of the C.D.M Award were gifted one of these tin badges, along with a presentation letter and a half pound bar of Dairy Milk chocolate.
Images showing the promotion and prizes for the Cadbury Dairy Milk Award
The promotion ran for several years and helped to temporarily boost sales while the company operated through a difficult period, instigated by a series of miss-matched marketing decisions and fluctuating costs of raw ingredients.
Cadbury in recent years have adopted the themes of kindness and thoughtfulness, as promoted in the C.D.M Awards, in a series of TV adverts. These adverts often feature children offering their bars of Dairy Milk to those they see as deserving or in need of a pick-me-up; a crying teenager, a tolerant neighbour and a hard-working mother.
(British) Advert for Cadbury’s Dairy Milk
I personally will be wearing my claimed C.D.M Award on the lapel of my jacket whenever I introduce myself as the ‘British Candy Connoisseur‘!
Bing bing! What’s better than a big nugget of chocolate filled with crunchy, chewy bits? TWO big nuggets of chocolate filled with crunchy, chewy bits! And that’s just what you get with the various flavours of the ‘Twin Bing’.
Twice as nice: Twin Bing
Fifth generation company Palmer Candy Co. (1878, Sioux City, Iowa) have been producing candy since the early 1900’s with early ranges including marshmallows, gum drops and ‘fancy boxes’ (hand-dipped chocolate assortments). Candy and chocolates were initially an add-on product from the original family business of wholesale fruit sellers.
In 1923 the Palmer family created the ‘Bing‘ chocolate bar; a rolled ‘clump’ of milk chocolate and crushed peanuts entombing a flavoured centre. The original four Bing varieties were cherry, pineapple, vanilla and maple…and I have a Cherry Bing right here, along side a Caramel Crunch and S’mores version ready to taste!
Visually, they’re not much to look at. And they’re hard to make look pretty…(what do they remind you of)? When unwrapping all three I was initially disappointed to see how similar they all looked, and didn’t hold out for much difference in taste…that is until you bite inside and the centre flavour is revealed.
Big ol’ peanut clumps…
Inside a thick, and tasty, coating of soft milk chocolate and slightly salty peanut pieces lies a chewy hidden centre; bright pink for the Cherry, snow white for the S’mores and golden brown for the Caramel Crunch.
The S’mores centre is a soft fondant with a taste of vanilla, but oddly enough then turns into a nail varnish-like taste which is slightly sharp and caught me off guard. Now, many people think that pear drops (an old-fashioned hard-boiled sweet) taste like nail varnish too – I’m not saying it’s unpleasant, just unexpected. There is also a hint of graham cracker malty-ness (presumably from the whole grain wheat used in this candy).
The Caramel Crunch’s centre is hard, thick and chewy (which I thoroughly enjoy) but isn’t as creamy as European caramel.
Palmer’s best selling Cherry variety also contains a soft fondant, and despite being a sweet artificial cherry flavour, marries so well with the flavours of the chocolate and nuts, and is perhaps my favourite out of the three (and I’m not a fan of cherry chocolates usually).
Inside the Twin Bings…
Individually the confectionery elements; chocolate, caramel and fondant flavours taste about ‘ok’, but what elevates the hunky Twin Bing is all those crunchy nuts which creates a great textural candy bar.
What drew me initially to these regional chocolate snacks were the wrappers – a wonderfully classic American design that lets you know that this is a smaller scale company, offering you up something different to the regular brands found in the supermarkets.
And because there’s two pieces, my American man can also have a piece while I nibble away and do my thing!
Have you tried a (Twin) Bing? What flavours are the best?
If you’re not nursing a sore tummy or toothache after Halloween, why not crack open a box, pack or roll of your favourite sweets today just to revel in the moment!
I’ll be eating assorted liquorice! Whatever you’re munching on, let’s take time to enjoy the candy we have, and remember those confectionery lines long lost to history…alas Spangles, I hardly knew ye…
This week for Wrapper Wednesday I have three (recent) versions of a trio of American/Canadian chocolate bars that were invented during the so called ‘Golden Age’ of candy.
Throughout the 1920’s and 1930’s (on both sides of the Atlantic) an abundance of new chocolate bars hit the shelves, with many becoming the USA and Canada’s best selling and long lasting brands to this day.
‘Oh Henry!’ (1920), ‘Zagnut’ (1930) and ‘5th Avenue’ (1936) are all varieties of peanut-based candy that are still widely popular. All three also embody vintage graphics with many of their colour-schemes and designs reflective of their earliest wrappers.
Oh Henry!, Zagnut & 5th Avenue chocolate bars
By ‘staking a claim’ so early on in regards to colour patterns and typography, these three candy bars are able to signify their brand with the simplest of details.
As a sign writer and artist myself, I adore vintage-style advertising: candy bars such as these (along with ‘Hershey‘ milk chocolate (1900), ‘Clark‘ bar (1917), ‘Sky‘ bar (1938) and ‘Milk Duds‘ (1928)) are living examples of the Golden Age of chocolate from almost a century ago.
Lord knows that I detest Hershey milk chocolate! But when I saw these vintage-inspired wrappers I knew I had to have them for my collection. Purchased a year and a half ago during a summer trip to the states, I unwrapped them almost immediately and flung the chocolate at my fiance – all I wanted was the graphics!
Retro Hershey bar milk chocolate wrappers
Hershey milk chocolate was invented in 1900 in the state of Pennsylvania by confectionery entrepreneur Milton Snavely Hershey. After several failed companies and numerous moves back and forth between his home state, Hershey finally made his millions…but not with chocolate…with caramel.
It was only after visiting the 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago did he come face-to-face with a machine that created eating chocolate, and it was this revelation that encouraged Milton to pursue a new future in producing milk chocolate bars.
Hershey’s milk chocolate with almonds was introduced in 1908.
I’m not sure that these two wrappers are re-prints of a much earlier design. I feel that they are more likely to be a vintage-inspired, limited edition, in order to hark back to days of nostalgia and more simpler chocolate-eating days; where we associate candy strongly with days of our childhood. The use of hand-rendered illustrations is reminiscent of pre-1950’s advertising, with the warm glowing cheeks of the young children accentuating the innocence of children and chocolate.
Highlighting the fact that (the milk chocolate one) was made in ‘Chocolate Town’, this adds to the warm, family friendly and romanticized image of all things named Hershey.
If anyone has more information on these designs then please get in touch!
It’s Wednesday! So that can only mean another dip into my growing sweet wrapper archive! This week is the turn of a mini Alenka chocolate bar, from Russia.
Made by the Soviet confectionery manufacturers Krasny Oktyabr (Red October) in the mid 1960’s, the Alenka chocolate range was driven by the government’s food program to produce a widely available, affordable, and tasty milk chocolate.
Alenka chocolate bar, from my wrapper archive
This iconic staple of Russian confectionery is well known for its image portraying a big, blue eyed baby girl – the very picture of a healthy, beautiful Soviet child. But the child, Elena Gerinas, never received any royalties for the use of her image as a baby (just like the Fry’s boy I wrote about in an earlier Fact Friday)!
I won’t lie, when I first picked up the bar I was a little put-off by this wide-eyed child staring at me as I was soon about to ‘consume’ her (but I think that’s just my own hang-ups with babies)! But I was equally drawn in by this traditional depiction of childhood, something that is not often seen on contemporary chocolate bars now, despite the power of nostalgia that chocolate has as a marketing ploy.
This was picked up for me by my parents while on a trip to Cyprus, where there is a thriving Russian community and plenty of stores and shops catering for Russian tastes. This bar was very milky, silky and melts in the mouth – I really enjoyed my first taste of Russian chocolate, and would love to try more if anyone can recommend any treats for me!
Hullo and welcome to the first ‘Sweet Spotlight’ – a little article series where I intend on focusing in on one type of candy bar/sweet/chocolate, both current and past. To kick it off I’ve been trying to find out more about the Verne Collier Inc, Birmingham Alabama…
I picked up this original tin whilst rummaging through an antique mall in Kansas last summer; it stands approx. 10cm tall with the front design advertising ‘kitchen fresh fine candy’, and the reverse sporting a rather 50’s retro looking silver star pattern. Only the lid makes reference to what type of candy was inside – I believe that this might have been a design feature of quick and cheap, mass production; allowing candy to be distributed quickly with little time spent on amending designs for each confectionery line. Just pop them in the tin and make sure the right lid is on top!
According to the lid, the tin apparently once contained ‘Cocoanettes‘ – made with (among other things) milk, sugar and cocoanut – an archaic spelling of ‘coconut’, and retailed at only $1 per pound. But apart from the actual information on the tin, I’m struggling to find out much else about this candy (for now)!
The only references I have found so far are advertisements taken out for Cocoanettes, Chocolettes and Peanut Brittle in magazines such as ‘Scouting’ and ‘Field and Stream’ where the tins of candy are pitched as a way for boy scouts, schools and churches to raise money for community causes. They could be bought by these organisations for 50c, giving them the opportunity to double their money; a similar framework is still in place for scout groups buying and selling chocolate and candy today.
Left (1966) Right (1970)
Most of these adverts seem to span the 1960’s and 70’s, and their images of the tins pretty much match mine, hooray! And in the above adverts we can even see images of the candy! They almost look like piece of heavily coated popcorn…but I hazard a guess that they were rolled coconut balls of sorts.
Above (1974)
But I am yet to find any references to Cocoanettes being sold outside this market and appearing in retail stores – perhaps this was solely the purpose of production for the Verne Collier candy company? Not being an American, or familiar with the notion of selling candy even as a girl guide, I feel like there’s a pool of socially based information I am not privy to, so if any of y’all can enlighten me, then please let me know!
I am hoping to find out more about this tin in the future as I work my way through a series of books on American candy, but if any one out there also has a tin, knows anything about the origin of Verne Collier candies, or can remember selling or buying or eating them, please get in touch! I’d love to hear from you, and will update this article if any I can find out any more information about my little American souvenir.
The British Candy Connoisseur 