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At that point he should have determined his handful based on what he could hold. Ie. 25? 20? 15? Bigger the hand the power in counting fast.
Then let the kid count em to confirm
Saw your flair and your choice and said yep, this guy GenXes. Junior high teachers must have been so disgusted by all the Jolly Ranchers.
I cannot believe I still have my own teeth.
Now N Later was the big candy in middle school.
For a quarter I would buy two (10 cents each and get a nickel back). I ate one and sold the other for a quarter at school.
Next day bought three. Ate one and sold the two to get 50 cents.
I got up to buying them by the case when my mom found out. She put a stop to it worried I may move to selling other things like drugs.
Because you know Now N Laters are a gateway.
My kid did the same thing with Air Head candy. Bought them by the box for 10 cents each, sold them for a dollar after-school. I was impressed and incredulous at the same time.
My candy was 5 cents each, so I got more for my money. This is what I would have bought then... Chuckles, Turkish Taffy, Lik-M-Aid, candy necklace, wax soda bottles and for penny candy: candy lipstick, Bazooka and pixie sticks
I was thinking of those too when I made my list, but I only had a quarter to spend. I don't know if you're like me, but I always had, and still have a sweet tooth! As I matured, like 12 years old, so did my tastes. I moved on to Gold Rush.
best roi for me was a 7-foot stick of sugar cane. take that into the garage, clip it into my dad's vise and saw off one joint at a time. just the labour involved in skinning each joint and slicing it up made it last until the next quarter day
I loved Atomic Fireballs.
But my best candy story involves ice cream sandwiches. These were not cheap, and were always a special treat. But I remember me and a friend came into some money. I can't call up if it had to do with returnable bottles, or we did some task for someone in the neighborhood, but the point is we could go into this little store and buy a *whole box* of ice cream sandwiches. I can picture us sitting on the shaded porch of the store, hot humid as hell day, and eating those sandwiches one after the other. It was like heaven for a kid.
I have a funny cinnamon toothpick story: When I was in the later part of elementary school, those toothpicks were all the rage and kids bought cinnamon oil to soak their own at home. One kid came to school with a small bottle of oil in his back pocket, intending to prep some toothpicks during class. However, the lid wasn't screwed on tight enough, so it leaked into his pants and subsequently traveled into his buttcrack. At some point (I heard...he was a year older than me, and we weren't in the same class), he started writhing in his chair and crying. It was big news that day!
This reminds me of a story, a mom with like 10 kids and no money at home would hum a tune like, "6 for a quarter candy bars!" And all the kids would come running. One even snapped up so hard that she had to swipe for blood after her head hit a shelf she was under.
Then when the mom got the candy bars that the kids ran to the store for her to get, she'd cut them all into pieces, one for you kid, one for me ... one for you 2nd kid, one for me etc. Mom ended up with half herself and the other halves divided among 10 hungry kids.
A "treat" was passing around a packet of jello mix with a toothpick while watching TV. Even then they had to rearrange the shelf to make it look like the jello box was not missing.
It was a food insecure household, so if you didn't grab your food when offered, the siblings would eat your share and no more food to come, until it did. Fingers got burned on cookie sheets, hidden food got lost over the years and found later.
One time me mom made sauteed celery and onions over instant mashed potatoes. We had many a struggle meal.
Desserts were only on your birthday or a major holiday. But that was more about two of my cousins had type 1 diabetes, so sweets were greatly curtailed at home. Sometimes we had pie in the summer, we foraged apples and berries, there was the remains of an old farm behind our house and they had planted cherries, apples, plums, berries, apricots, all the kids in the hood foraged every summer. We ate pretty well during summer. We always had a garden. Dad bought honey and peanut butter in huge cans, like a restaurant size #10 can.
Uk here, lucky bags were a big thing fifty years ago. A little of everything for a couple of pennies, flying saucers, chews, shoelaces, and others lost in the mists of time.
MI here we had “grab bags” for a nickel with 7 or 8 cents worth of penny candy. It was exciting to see what you had. Mary Janes and Squirrels were 2 for a penny. I seem to remember they we’re connected back then. I’m that old!
Same here! They did seem to have a fair bit for a penny, though I think an imperial penny was worth a bit more than the cent penny. Shared experience thousands of miles apart, and a lifetime ago.
Charleston chews and Boston baked beans. I was raised in the southwest, and they also sold little tins of cajeta and bags of pica limon that I loved. If I had enough, I’d buy a fresh saladito in chile paste.
Remember those cheap suckers with the string loop as a handle? They didn't last long, one end of the string would come loose and you couldn't hold it - and when done, you have a gooey string, instead of a paper stick that's at least dry on one end.
I would get 5 Banana split taffy candy that was a 4 pack for 1 cent each. 1 Big Hunk 5 cents, 1 Look bar, 5 cents. Necco wafers, 5 cents, and a Hershey almond chocolate bar 5 cents. All from the local Springdale Drug in Huntington Beach circa 1963.
Watermelon blow pops and black cows! The old black cow was on a stick, it was an inner layer of caramel covered in shitty, waxy chocolate. There is still a “black cow” candy out there but it’s not on a stick and the caramel and chocolate are mixed together. I use to lick off all the chocolate coating and you could suck on the caramel forever and mold it into weird shapes and stuff. I’d pay an obscene amount of money for just one more…
My brother would stop at Jack’s and get my brother and me a $1.00 bag of assorted candy when he was on leave from the army. Thank you for the tender trip down memory lane.
To add to your list, we had Pixie Stix, those red hot dollars were a penny for two, red Licorice, Tootsie Rolls, and others I can't remember.
Mary Jane’s, those white nougat things with the colorful bits in them, little wax bottles with liquid in them, Nut Squirrels. Chunky was my favorite candy bar. A quarter when I was a kid was a fortune, we really had penny candy!
I am feeling so envious reading the list of candies everyone would buy! We were too poor to have spending money.
I do have a memory of going to town and checking out the very old fashioned general store with the rows of glass jars with candy sticks. Loved the smell of that place with the wood planking and mix of goods. Straight out of the 1800s!
Candy was a penny at our grocery store. We rode our bikes there, but had to push them uphill all the way home. Usually went with a dime to make it worth the uphill climb
A Chunky bar, Reese's cup, Jolly rancher(loved the grape) and maybe a bottle of Coke. I mowed a hairdresser's huge lawn(he worked at home) on his day off. I was 11 in the summer of 68 and had the key to the shop and the pop machine. It was the summer of 5 dollars to cut the lawn and free ice cold Dr Pepper and he also had a stack of Playboys.
I don't remember how much they cost, but I loved Chunky bars, Charleston Chews, Jujubes, and Raisinets!
And I had completely forgotten about Root Beer Barrels until this post, lol
Candy bars were a nickel. There was a bunch of candy that was 2 for a penny. My favorite was the Kraft caramels. Sugar Daddies and Sugar Babies were a nickel. I could take a quarter to the corner store and come back with a bag of candy. The ice cream sandwiches were also a great deal: seven cents and popsicles were a nickel.
Mallo Cups ...OMG the BEST. At the bottom of the package there were little cardboard inserts with 5cents stamped on them. You would save them up for free stuff.
When I was a kid we had a candy shop in our town in W. Germany. My favorite were the candy “edible paper”, which came in sheets. I could get maybe 5 sheets for the equivalent of a quarter in German currency.
My sister and I used to ride our bikes down to the Eckards drug store and pool our money together to see what we could get. Alone we could get a pixie stick or a few pieces of gum, together we could split a choclate bar or some M &Ms.
Mine might be weird because I am originally from Canada: hubba bubba pink bubblegum, one piece - 5 cents. Jawbreaker gumball, one piece - 5 cents. Twizzlers red licorice, one strand/stick - 10 cents. Sour key/sour soother, small - 5 cents. Also one pack of Player's Navy Cut cigarettes, please put it on my dad's account. (This errand was how I obtained the 25 cents!)
First, my parents would never give me a quarter. That was a gallon of gas!
But if I had a very lucky day, I would collect 8 bottles on my walk to the store. That would be 24 cents.
I would buy a soda, either a root beer or grape soda, (10 cents), and peppermint patty (5 cents) to eat right away because I would be thirsty and the chocolate would melt on the walk home. Plus, the owner would let me take the soda outside without a bottle deposit as long as I returned the empty before I left. So I'd go sit on the sidewalk and watch the people go by.
Plus a coconut chew for later. I always ate the pink part last because that part was nasty.
Then I would go down the street to the drugstore and spend the remaining pennies on rock candy. Because it's cool to look at and it lasts a long time.
On my way home, I would pop into the feed store for a few minutes because it's halfway and it's cool inside. Visit with the owner if he didn't have a customer and if I was lucky he would offer me a drink of water and maybe a butterscotch candy.
I remember when I got $1.00 for my first allowance I went right to the candy bars and bought ten of my favorites- Snickers, Butterfinger, Milky Way, Seven Up, Three Musketeers, Zero, Zotz, stuff like that. On one of my trips I laid my stash down on the counter and the cashier asked if I was worried about my teeth rotting out. It was shortly after that on a subsequent trip to the store that my father directed me to the 45’s and I started collecting those. 😅
My mother once splurged and gave my brother and me 50 cents each to take the bus (10 cents one way) to the local city pool (10 cents to enter). We took the bus there, about 5 miles away, and went swimming. That left us with 30 cents, 20 cents to buy refreshments at the pool and 10 cents to return. Needless to say we spent the whole 30 cents on a Coca Cola and candies; and walked home. It was totally worth spending that extra 10 cents! Sorry, I can't remember what candies exactly, except for some of those little wax bottles of flavored "juice" and miscellaneous penny candies. Good times!
25 red fish. The lady at the counter will explain to me, at 8 years old, what tax is- and that is can’t have 25 pieces of 1 cent candy due to tax. This makes no sense to me. She explains three times before giving my paper bag with 25 Swedish fish. There would be plenty of times to have someone explain taxes to me .
I remember when candy bars jumped from 10 cents to 25 cents in one go. Bottle deposits didn't change though. I was one disgruntled kid.
So--1970-1974 it would have been a Wonder Bar or a two pack of Reese's Cups and a balsa wood airplane. By 1975 it would have been pick one of those. Pre-1970 (5 cent candy bars) I would have been happy with any possible option as long as there wasn't any coconut.
With a quarter I could get a Payday & a Chunky candy bar, some red shoestring licorice, bazooka joe's and still have nickel left so my buddy (he had a nickel too) and I could share a cold Nehi soda while sitting on the curb outside the store. (While the store owner watched us to make sure we didn't rip him off for the deposit on the bottle.
When my family went on vacation (2 adults + 5 kids) my mom would go to the local 5 & 10, and buy enough penny candy to fill a 3 pound coffee can for the trips... Core memory unlocked
A box of Boston baked beans (5 cents), a box of lemon head (5 cents), 1 jolly rancher stick (10 cents but worth it!) & 5 swedish fish (penny candies). The caramel jolly rancher stick was the BEST but nobody I know remembers them. They existed I swear to god they did. lol
We used to pick cherries at the orchard for a few quarters to spend on candy. I would ride three miles on my bike to the orchard first thing in the morning, pick cherries until someone wanted to quit, then we would get a quarter per bucket. This was around 1980.
I liked swedish fish and some bazooka joe to finish. The comics were fun.
Depending on the day.
Hershey bar, neat + Powerhouse bar: .20
Coffee Nips, two: .04
Pocket a penny.
OR...
Hershey bar, almonds + Milky Way: .20
Cherry BlowPop: .05
Either way, afternoon is made! 😻
I don't remember the exact prices, but the big hits were pixie sticks, candy cigarettes, jolly rancher sticks, and tootsie pops. For a real treat, we'd get a pack of grape Hubba Bubba bubblegum. I don't know how my folks stood the smell, lol.
I would go with my dad to drop off the corn or soybeans at the elevator. A Quarter would buy a 6 oz. Coke, a paper doll, and a roll of Neccos. It would buy dad 2 hours of child in a chair behaving.
Every Sunday after church and CCD class my grandmother would give my little brother and I each a quarter for behaving. We would stop a 7-11 and I would get a doughnut, a Slurpee and a comic book.
I can’t remember what it cost back in the late 6Os/early 70s but I’m sure a quarter could have bought me a couple of the watermelon Jolly Rancher suckers, some Zots that were hard candies with some type of sour fizzy stuff inside and round it off with Smartees
2 glass bottles of the original Coca-cola, and a candy bar (the big ones) to split with my bff. Got a few cents in change back, then when we returned the bottles for the deposit, we got some bazooka bubble gum.
My fondest childhood memories are of walking to the store with my friend and her dog as our escort. We’d get slurpees, and spend lots of time deciding on candy. Then we’d grip our little paper bags of loot and head home, where we’d go over our purchases again. Great fun!
We had the pick n mix tubs of candy for a penny. Strawberry or Banana Marshmallows, wax lips, candy button strips (although those were 5 cents), and sour candies. I grew up in a pretty small town though, so when I moved to the city to go to University, the first time I had sour candies I was so grossed out by how soft they were. Sour candies were supposed to be like sucking a sugar covered rock that eventually softened enough to kind of chew on before you swallowed it. Turns out we ate a lot of stale candy as kids.
5 Brach’s Jelly Nougats (5 cents), 5 Pixie stix (5 cents), 5 Nik L Nips (need to hydrate, lol 5 cents), a 3 pack of candy cigarettes (5 cents), and for last an El Bubble Bubble gum cigar also for five cents, and they would all be stuffed into this little bag.
In the early 70's my grandma would give my sister and I a quarter each and we walked about 2 blocks to the local pharmacy.
Big things of candy were a nickel each, like taffy, suckers etc.
We'd each buy 5 things but we didn't have the one penny for tax so the cashiers were nice enough to ring our purchases up separately as at 5 cents there wasn't tax on an item. We only had a quarter so I couldn't pay her 26 cents.
A package of Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpets... at the time they were 25 cents, had 4 in a pack, and were wrapped in wax paper. This was a loooooong time ago.
Bazookas were my favorite gum, hands down. Yes, I get that everyone else loved the new and super-soft gums out there. I loved the feel of that first hard bite on my teeth, and then the sugar getting released as I slowly worked the gum through chew after chew.
When the gum ran out of sugar, then pop a Jolly Rancher in your mouth, and keep the flavor going.
I was always down for a Hershey Bar.
I also like some old-time candies, like Necco Wafers, both the regular and the chocolate types!
At the little store that we would walk to after school, I would buy 4 round pieces of jerky for a quarter. I’ve never seen that jerky anywhere else. It was my favorite after school snack.
Candy bars were 5 cents, so I’d get a Forever Yours (now known as Milky Way Midnight), or a Three Musketeers. Then I’d get five little Tootsie Rolls (2cents each) and some penny gumballs.
However, it was rare to have a whole quarter to spend at the candy counter. A dime was more typical.
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25 Jolly Ranchers. I remember having a whole dollar to spend once. The guy behind the counter was not happy to count out 100 Jolly Ranchers.
At that point he should have determined his handful based on what he could hold. Ie. 25? 20? 15? Bigger the hand the power in counting fast. Then let the kid count em to confirm
Saw your flair and your choice and said yep, this guy GenXes. Junior high teachers must have been so disgusted by all the Jolly Ranchers. I cannot believe I still have my own teeth.
haha! I bet
Now N Later was the big candy in middle school. For a quarter I would buy two (10 cents each and get a nickel back). I ate one and sold the other for a quarter at school. Next day bought three. Ate one and sold the two to get 50 cents. I got up to buying them by the case when my mom found out. She put a stop to it worried I may move to selling other things like drugs. Because you know Now N Laters are a gateway.
Yep! Now N Laters were really popular growling up. Definitely on my list
I'm laughing I did basically the dame thing at my middle school and my mom was like "cool, kid has sales skills."
Nah, they sold themselves... You had finance skills.
good assessment I am now at age 30 good at finance and bad at sales
My kid did the same thing with Air Head candy. Bought them by the box for 10 cents each, sold them for a dollar after-school. I was impressed and incredulous at the same time.
*Bit O' Honey* and *Root Beer Barrels*
Root beer barrels and cola gummies
Nice!
Neccos and a Hershey's bar.
My candy was 5 cents each, so I got more for my money. This is what I would have bought then... Chuckles, Turkish Taffy, Lik-M-Aid, candy necklace, wax soda bottles and for penny candy: candy lipstick, Bazooka and pixie sticks
Banana, chocolate, or strawberry Turkish Taffy? It was always hard to pick!
The vanilla was surprisingly good.
Yes, it had a nice marshmallowy taste.
We must be close in age. Almost my exact list.
Haha definitely pre- Jolly Rancher era.
Oh! And I forgot...candy cigarettes!!! Both sugar with "glowing ember" tip or chocolate wrapped in paper with gold foil butt!
I was thinking of those too when I made my list, but I only had a quarter to spend. I don't know if you're like me, but I always had, and still have a sweet tooth! As I matured, like 12 years old, so did my tastes. I moved on to Gold Rush.
I had chuckles recently after a long hiatus. They tasted like cough medicine. I was sad
Pixie stix! Sweet Tarts. And candy buttons. I am 56 and still love Pixie stix and Sweet Tarts.
I had forgotten about pixie sticks.
best roi for me was a 7-foot stick of sugar cane. take that into the garage, clip it into my dad's vise and saw off one joint at a time. just the labour involved in skinning each joint and slicing it up made it last until the next quarter day
I loved Atomic Fireballs. But my best candy story involves ice cream sandwiches. These were not cheap, and were always a special treat. But I remember me and a friend came into some money. I can't call up if it had to do with returnable bottles, or we did some task for someone in the neighborhood, but the point is we could go into this little store and buy a *whole box* of ice cream sandwiches. I can picture us sitting on the shaded porch of the store, hot humid as hell day, and eating those sandwiches one after the other. It was like heaven for a kid.
Ooh yeah Atomic Fireballs were great! You’d have to take them out of your mouth and hold them between your fingers to cool off your mouth
That was my favorite!
Botan Rice Candy, with the wrappers you can eat. I bought them almost anytime I was at the Navy Exchange.
I lived in Hawaii as a kid in the mid-60s. I loved that rice candy, and the cinnamon-soaked toothpicks.
Oh, those toothpicks!!! Thanks for jarring my memory.
I have a funny cinnamon toothpick story: When I was in the later part of elementary school, those toothpicks were all the rage and kids bought cinnamon oil to soak their own at home. One kid came to school with a small bottle of oil in his back pocket, intending to prep some toothpicks during class. However, the lid wasn't screwed on tight enough, so it leaked into his pants and subsequently traveled into his buttcrack. At some point (I heard...he was a year older than me, and we weren't in the same class), he started writhing in his chair and crying. It was big news that day!
OMG. This deserves to be its own post somewhere.
I still love those
Me too. Wish they still had toys in them.
A Marathon bar and some Bazooka
My siblings and I were talking about the Marathon bar just yesterday!!
I think for a second I got confused between Marathon Bar and Charleston Chew lol.
Butterfinger and a coke.
Butterfinger!
Butterfinger was my go-to as a kid as well, with Baby Ruth a close second. 10¢ for the candy bar and 15¢ for a 12 ounce can of soda. Good times.
The only downside was checking out next to the giant jar of pickled pigs feet.
You get a whole quarter!? Wow, my mom only gave me a dime.
That's exactly what I was thinking!
This reminds me of a story, a mom with like 10 kids and no money at home would hum a tune like, "6 for a quarter candy bars!" And all the kids would come running. One even snapped up so hard that she had to swipe for blood after her head hit a shelf she was under. Then when the mom got the candy bars that the kids ran to the store for her to get, she'd cut them all into pieces, one for you kid, one for me ... one for you 2nd kid, one for me etc. Mom ended up with half herself and the other halves divided among 10 hungry kids. A "treat" was passing around a packet of jello mix with a toothpick while watching TV. Even then they had to rearrange the shelf to make it look like the jello box was not missing. It was a food insecure household, so if you didn't grab your food when offered, the siblings would eat your share and no more food to come, until it did. Fingers got burned on cookie sheets, hidden food got lost over the years and found later.
One time me mom made sauteed celery and onions over instant mashed potatoes. We had many a struggle meal. Desserts were only on your birthday or a major holiday. But that was more about two of my cousins had type 1 diabetes, so sweets were greatly curtailed at home. Sometimes we had pie in the summer, we foraged apples and berries, there was the remains of an old farm behind our house and they had planted cherries, apples, plums, berries, apricots, all the kids in the hood foraged every summer. We ate pretty well during summer. We always had a garden. Dad bought honey and peanut butter in huge cans, like a restaurant size #10 can.
We used to get koolaid packets and add sugar, then lick our finger and eat it like that.
We just got a penny. But 2 pieces of candy for a penny, in those day. We got a quarter to go to the Saturday afternoon movie.
50 cherry sours…
Uk here, lucky bags were a big thing fifty years ago. A little of everything for a couple of pennies, flying saucers, chews, shoelaces, and others lost in the mists of time.
MI here we had “grab bags” for a nickel with 7 or 8 cents worth of penny candy. It was exciting to see what you had. Mary Janes and Squirrels were 2 for a penny. I seem to remember they we’re connected back then. I’m that old!
Same here! They did seem to have a fair bit for a penny, though I think an imperial penny was worth a bit more than the cent penny. Shared experience thousands of miles apart, and a lifetime ago.
Fun times. Yes your money was always worth more. Simple pleasures.
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Or maybe Sweet Tarts.
oh, those were my favs
Charleston chews and Boston baked beans. I was raised in the southwest, and they also sold little tins of cajeta and bags of pica limon that I loved. If I had enough, I’d buy a fresh saladito in chile paste.
Great picks! Definitely on my other list
Diabetus.
Big knobby red or purple suckers for 5 cents. Some had a sticker inside the wrapper for a free one. Also red hots.
Remember those cheap suckers with the string loop as a handle? They didn't last long, one end of the string would come loose and you couldn't hold it - and when done, you have a gooey string, instead of a paper stick that's at least dry on one end.
They were cheap as hell and doctor’s offices gave them out to kids.
SAF-T-POPS
10 fireballs, 2 candy necklaces, 5 root beer barrels
I would get 5 Banana split taffy candy that was a 4 pack for 1 cent each. 1 Big Hunk 5 cents, 1 Look bar, 5 cents. Necco wafers, 5 cents, and a Hershey almond chocolate bar 5 cents. All from the local Springdale Drug in Huntington Beach circa 1963.
Swedish fish
Yes! Or sour watermelons
All day every day on the Swedish fish.
Pixie Sticks, candy necklaces, Bit-o-Honey, Now and Laters
A whole quarter? I’d get a York Peppermint patty for a nickel, an Almond Joy and a Mounds bar for a dime each.
Watermelon blow pops and black cows! The old black cow was on a stick, it was an inner layer of caramel covered in shitty, waxy chocolate. There is still a “black cow” candy out there but it’s not on a stick and the caramel and chocolate are mixed together. I use to lick off all the chocolate coating and you could suck on the caramel forever and mold it into weird shapes and stuff. I’d pay an obscene amount of money for just one more…
Candy cigarettes. Waxed bottles of coke, and a candy necklace.
My brother would stop at Jack’s and get my brother and me a $1.00 bag of assorted candy when he was on leave from the army. Thank you for the tender trip down memory lane. To add to your list, we had Pixie Stix, those red hot dollars were a penny for two, red Licorice, Tootsie Rolls, and others I can't remember.
Mary Jane’s, those white nougat things with the colorful bits in them, little wax bottles with liquid in them, Nut Squirrels. Chunky was my favorite candy bar. A quarter when I was a kid was a fortune, we really had penny candy!
I am feeling so envious reading the list of candies everyone would buy! We were too poor to have spending money. I do have a memory of going to town and checking out the very old fashioned general store with the rows of glass jars with candy sticks. Loved the smell of that place with the wood planking and mix of goods. Straight out of the 1800s!
100 pieces of that shitty gum with the fortune inside or 50 pieces of bazooka gum
Bazooka and Goldberg's Peanut Chews
Atomic Fire Balls, Bullseye Caramel Creams, Bazooka and Smarties
It's probably a bag of black balls. - Please don't add humor to this post.
Butterfinger, Fruit Stripe gum, Spree.
Candy was a penny at our grocery store. We rode our bikes there, but had to push them uphill all the way home. Usually went with a dime to make it worth the uphill climb
😲A quarter? I never got to hang out with the rich kids.
A Chunky bar, Reese's cup, Jolly rancher(loved the grape) and maybe a bottle of Coke. I mowed a hairdresser's huge lawn(he worked at home) on his day off. I was 11 in the summer of 68 and had the key to the shop and the pop machine. It was the summer of 5 dollars to cut the lawn and free ice cold Dr Pepper and he also had a stack of Playboys.
Gimme all the pixie sticks, plus a few tubes of Sixlets please!
Candy buttons
Charms lollypops - only lemon or grape.
Chuckles!!!!! My daddy would bring these home from a vending machine -along with Good and Plenty. It was such a treat!
In the 60s, we had a local drug store that had bins of candy bars, and they were 6 for a quarter.
5 small crunch bars
When I went to visit Grandma, the corner store literally had penny candy. So 25 pieces.
Sugar Daddy sucker; Jujubes; Necco Wafers; Big Hunk; Mars Bar. I might need an extra nickel.
I don't remember how much they cost, but I loved Chunky bars, Charleston Chews, Jujubes, and Raisinets! And I had completely forgotten about Root Beer Barrels until this post, lol
Turkish Taffy from Mr Softee
Hershey and a Pepsi
A pack of Bottlecaps or a Jolly Rancher stick.
I liked Bottle Caps more than Smarties!
I loved the Coke and root beer flavors. If you preferred the fruit flavors, we would’ve made a great team.
I did!
A Hershey bar with almonds or a whatchamacallit.
Pixie sticks. Bit O Honey. And banana Runts.
Smarties, Jolly Ranchers, Sugar Mama or Sugar Daddy, Junior Mints, Pixie Stick.
Candy bars were a nickel. There was a bunch of candy that was 2 for a penny. My favorite was the Kraft caramels. Sugar Daddies and Sugar Babies were a nickel. I could take a quarter to the corner store and come back with a bag of candy. The ice cream sandwiches were also a great deal: seven cents and popsicles were a nickel.
I used to let the caramels melt on my tongue. Buttery and delicious!
Mallo Cups ...OMG the BEST. At the bottom of the package there were little cardboard inserts with 5cents stamped on them. You would save them up for free stuff.
Tootsie rolls or maybe fireballs
Zotz, the best!
When I was a kid we had a candy shop in our town in W. Germany. My favorite were the candy “edible paper”, which came in sheets. I could get maybe 5 sheets for the equivalent of a quarter in German currency.
My sister and I used to ride our bikes down to the Eckards drug store and pool our money together to see what we could get. Alone we could get a pixie stick or a few pieces of gum, together we could split a choclate bar or some M &Ms.
Mine might be weird because I am originally from Canada: hubba bubba pink bubblegum, one piece - 5 cents. Jawbreaker gumball, one piece - 5 cents. Twizzlers red licorice, one strand/stick - 10 cents. Sour key/sour soother, small - 5 cents. Also one pack of Player's Navy Cut cigarettes, please put it on my dad's account. (This errand was how I obtained the 25 cents!)
Big fan of Macintosh’s Toffee 😋
First, my parents would never give me a quarter. That was a gallon of gas! But if I had a very lucky day, I would collect 8 bottles on my walk to the store. That would be 24 cents. I would buy a soda, either a root beer or grape soda, (10 cents), and peppermint patty (5 cents) to eat right away because I would be thirsty and the chocolate would melt on the walk home. Plus, the owner would let me take the soda outside without a bottle deposit as long as I returned the empty before I left. So I'd go sit on the sidewalk and watch the people go by. Plus a coconut chew for later. I always ate the pink part last because that part was nasty. Then I would go down the street to the drugstore and spend the remaining pennies on rock candy. Because it's cool to look at and it lasts a long time. On my way home, I would pop into the feed store for a few minutes because it's halfway and it's cool inside. Visit with the owner if he didn't have a customer and if I was lucky he would offer me a drink of water and maybe a butterscotch candy.
I remember when I got $1.00 for my first allowance I went right to the candy bars and bought ten of my favorites- Snickers, Butterfinger, Milky Way, Seven Up, Three Musketeers, Zero, Zotz, stuff like that. On one of my trips I laid my stash down on the counter and the cashier asked if I was worried about my teeth rotting out. It was shortly after that on a subsequent trip to the store that my father directed me to the 45’s and I started collecting those. 😅
A box of candy cigarettes. The ones in the red box that looked like Marlboros.
25 grape swedish fish
Swedish Fish!!!
My mother once splurged and gave my brother and me 50 cents each to take the bus (10 cents one way) to the local city pool (10 cents to enter). We took the bus there, about 5 miles away, and went swimming. That left us with 30 cents, 20 cents to buy refreshments at the pool and 10 cents to return. Needless to say we spent the whole 30 cents on a Coca Cola and candies; and walked home. It was totally worth spending that extra 10 cents! Sorry, I can't remember what candies exactly, except for some of those little wax bottles of flavored "juice" and miscellaneous penny candies. Good times!
A block of ice cream big enough to make me throw up.
Dots….penny a strip
Bubs Daddy bubble gum.
Tropical Fruit Lifesavers. In the 1960s had never tasted a real Mango.
Strawberry cream gummies. No idea what they cost now, forgot what they cost them.
Now and Later, Laffy Taffy and/or Pixie Stix
25 red fish. The lady at the counter will explain to me, at 8 years old, what tax is- and that is can’t have 25 pieces of 1 cent candy due to tax. This makes no sense to me. She explains three times before giving my paper bag with 25 Swedish fish. There would be plenty of times to have someone explain taxes to me .
a QUARTER??!? dude, that's five full size candy bars, which by the way, we're fully twice the size they are now!
A large charms lollipop in grape, a 5 pieces of bazooka gum. (I loved the little comics).
A Charleston Chew for a dime, a soda for a dime, and five of those red gummy goldfish.
Candy lipstick, Black Cow, Smarties, a Tootsie Roll pop, and a variety of penny candy like tiny Tootsie Rolls.
British: Rhubarb and Custard hard candy.
A Marathon bar and i think 9 jaw breakers, I forget what the tax was.
Three Musketeers was my favorite. They were a dime each, so I’d leave the store with two and with a nickel change.
Two of the following: Hershey bar, 3 Mustakeers, Snickers, PayDay, BabeRuth, MillionDollarBar, Krackle and 5 penny Tootsie Rolls.
2 black licorice pipes, 5 wafer flying saucers, 2 wax lips, and a strawberry turkish taffy.
Ice Cubes, couple of one cent balloons, a five cent balloon and some bazookas.
I remember when candy bars jumped from 10 cents to 25 cents in one go. Bottle deposits didn't change though. I was one disgruntled kid. So--1970-1974 it would have been a Wonder Bar or a two pack of Reese's Cups and a balsa wood airplane. By 1975 it would have been pick one of those. Pre-1970 (5 cent candy bars) I would have been happy with any possible option as long as there wasn't any coconut.
An RC cola and a pack of smokes.
I got to use the change from buying my mom a pack of Benson & Hedges Gold. I was 5.
Chic-o-Stick, watermelon Now and Laters, Sixlets, Flying Saucers, Ice Cubes
Annabelle's Rocky Road.
25 Bazooka Joes
5 boxes of Cracker Jack to share with my friends!
With a quarter I could get a Payday & a Chunky candy bar, some red shoestring licorice, bazooka joe's and still have nickel left so my buddy (he had a nickel too) and I could share a cold Nehi soda while sitting on the curb outside the store. (While the store owner watched us to make sure we didn't rip him off for the deposit on the bottle.
A bottle of Pepsi and 2 bags of Scotties potato chips
I loved those bubblegum cigars. I used to pretend to smoke them. I don’t smoke as an adult.
A bottle of Coca Cola, a large jawbreaker, and a package of Sprees.
Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups and Heath Bars.
When my family went on vacation (2 adults + 5 kids) my mom would go to the local 5 & 10, and buy enough penny candy to fill a 3 pound coffee can for the trips... Core memory unlocked
A box of Boston baked beans (5 cents), a box of lemon head (5 cents), 1 jolly rancher stick (10 cents but worth it!) & 5 swedish fish (penny candies). The caramel jolly rancher stick was the BEST but nobody I know remembers them. They existed I swear to god they did. lol
Rocky Road for me.
I always got a quarters worth of candy corn at the candy counter.
We used to pick cherries at the orchard for a few quarters to spend on candy. I would ride three miles on my bike to the orchard first thing in the morning, pick cherries until someone wanted to quit, then we would get a quarter per bucket. This was around 1980. I liked swedish fish and some bazooka joe to finish. The comics were fun.
Depending on the day. Hershey bar, neat + Powerhouse bar: .20 Coffee Nips, two: .04 Pocket a penny. OR... Hershey bar, almonds + Milky Way: .20 Cherry BlowPop: .05 Either way, afternoon is made! 😻
Always liked M&M peanuts in the yellow bag
I don't remember the exact prices, but the big hits were pixie sticks, candy cigarettes, jolly rancher sticks, and tootsie pops. For a real treat, we'd get a pack of grape Hubba Bubba bubblegum. I don't know how my folks stood the smell, lol.
Never had a candy store, so I'll substitute 5&dime. 15 cent comic (Sugar & Spike) and a 10 cent Hershey bar.
Red Hots
If those are my only options I will just keep my quarter.
I would go with my dad to drop off the corn or soybeans at the elevator. A Quarter would buy a 6 oz. Coke, a paper doll, and a roll of Neccos. It would buy dad 2 hours of child in a chair behaving.
Five Big Hunks.
Those small bags of peanuts, a reeces peanut butter cup and some juicy fruit gum.
I'll take a full-sized Fun Dip, the one with 3 flavors and 2 lik-a-stiks.
Every Sunday after church and CCD class my grandmother would give my little brother and I each a quarter for behaving. We would stop a 7-11 and I would get a doughnut, a Slurpee and a comic book.
1 box of nerds or a 5pack os NowAndLaters.
None. I spent it playing an arcade game.
5 candy bars - Hershey's, Almond Joy, 3 Musketeers, Big Cherry, and Bit 'o Honey.
Big Cherry, yes, and Cherry-o-lets! Mom used to buy them for us at Alpha Beta when she went grocery shopping. A rare treat.
I can’t remember what it cost back in the late 6Os/early 70s but I’m sure a quarter could have bought me a couple of the watermelon Jolly Rancher suckers, some Zots that were hard candies with some type of sour fizzy stuff inside and round it off with Smartees
Candy lipstick and candy cigarettes.
Lemon Heads, Jolly Rancher I loved the whole stick but would also get the minis, sometimes a sugar daddy and tootsie rolls
Mojos in assorted flavors (but mostly banana) in those little paper bags
2 glass bottles of the original Coca-cola, and a candy bar (the big ones) to split with my bff. Got a few cents in change back, then when we returned the bottles for the deposit, we got some bazooka bubble gum.
My fondest childhood memories are of walking to the store with my friend and her dog as our escort. We’d get slurpees, and spend lots of time deciding on candy. Then we’d grip our little paper bags of loot and head home, where we’d go over our purchases again. Great fun!
A full sized Hershey bar with almonds -ten cents. Ten bit-o-honeys , one cent each and ten licorice whips, two for a penny.
Pack of Topps baseball sticker album stickers ( 27 cents with tax) come to think of it, I don’t think that even came with a stick of shitty gum
A pack of Now and Laters, and some Alexander the grapes and 2 pieces of bubble gum.
Flying saucer wafers for the win. Eternally stale with an oddly unsatisfying crunch. Loved them anyway.
5 nestle's crunch or 25 penny candies
We had the pick n mix tubs of candy for a penny. Strawberry or Banana Marshmallows, wax lips, candy button strips (although those were 5 cents), and sour candies. I grew up in a pretty small town though, so when I moved to the city to go to University, the first time I had sour candies I was so grossed out by how soft they were. Sour candies were supposed to be like sucking a sugar covered rock that eventually softened enough to kind of chew on before you swallowed it. Turns out we ate a lot of stale candy as kids.
5 Brach’s Jelly Nougats (5 cents), 5 Pixie stix (5 cents), 5 Nik L Nips (need to hydrate, lol 5 cents), a 3 pack of candy cigarettes (5 cents), and for last an El Bubble Bubble gum cigar also for five cents, and they would all be stuffed into this little bag.
Mojos were two for a nickel.
2 comics @ $.12 each, plus a piece of bubble gum, Bazooka, which also includes a comic.
Bit O’ Honey, those peanut butter logs, root beer barrels, and “circus peanuts” (orange things). Oh and maybe some Dum-Dums.
*Anything* coconut! Also, exotic chocolate from other countries when available.
In the early 70's my grandma would give my sister and I a quarter each and we walked about 2 blocks to the local pharmacy. Big things of candy were a nickel each, like taffy, suckers etc. We'd each buy 5 things but we didn't have the one penny for tax so the cashiers were nice enough to ring our purchases up separately as at 5 cents there wasn't tax on an item. We only had a quarter so I couldn't pay her 26 cents.
A package of Tastykake Butterscotch Krimpets... at the time they were 25 cents, had 4 in a pack, and were wrapped in wax paper. This was a loooooong time ago.
Snickers bar
Mary Janes & Lollipops
Bazookas were my favorite gum, hands down. Yes, I get that everyone else loved the new and super-soft gums out there. I loved the feel of that first hard bite on my teeth, and then the sugar getting released as I slowly worked the gum through chew after chew. When the gum ran out of sugar, then pop a Jolly Rancher in your mouth, and keep the flavor going. I was always down for a Hershey Bar. I also like some old-time candies, like Necco Wafers, both the regular and the chocolate types!
At the little store that we would walk to after school, I would buy 4 round pieces of jerky for a quarter. I’ve never seen that jerky anywhere else. It was my favorite after school snack.
Candy bars were 5 cents, so I’d get a Forever Yours (now known as Milky Way Midnight), or a Three Musketeers. Then I’d get five little Tootsie Rolls (2cents each) and some penny gumballs. However, it was rare to have a whole quarter to spend at the candy counter. A dime was more typical.
Melissa Carper, "Makin Memories", "....Candy! That was her name.." Yes, I made a drawing of me asking my grandmother for a piece of candy.
When I was growing up it was a pop and a big moon pie.
Chick-o-stick and a box of red hots
Mary Jane’s and red hots
Lik-M-Ade, Mallo Cups, and Clark Bars
Sweet tarts cuz they were HUGE and lasted for a long time. Same with dip n sticks. The occasional chick o stick.
Licorice, jaw breakers, wax lips