Happy Easter – The History of Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs!

To all of CollectingCandy.com’s readers that celebrate the holiday; Happy Easter!  It’s been fun counting down to today by sharing various Easter candy goodies and bits of confectionery history this week.

I wanted to close out the week’s Easter coverage with something extra-special.  With that in mind, today I’m taking a look back at the history of an Easter candy classic – Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs.

Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs were first test-marketed in 1966 in the state of Pennsylvania.  That test market was a huge success and the following year in 1967,  the rest of the nation would finally get their first taste of what would become a delicious Easter candy classic.  This trade magazine clipping documents that initial roll-out and features an image of the very first Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs in their display box:

Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg trade clipping – February 1967

By the early 1970’s, Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs would take on the single Easter-flower design that would become iconic to the brand.

Here’s an early display box lid, when the wrappers likely had a printed-on 10-cent price:

Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs display box top – circa 1970 – Image courtesy Dennis Hartwig

The earliest wrapper example I have in my collection is a partial or “trimmed” wrapper from a few years after that box lid:

Hershey – Reese’s – Peanut Butter Egg – Easter candy wrapper – trimmed – circa 1975-1976

That classic design continued to be used for many years, likely into the 1990’s.  The next example I have to show is from the early 1980’s, and it is virtually unchanged from the mid-70’s version:

Hershey – Reese’s Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Egg – Easter candy wrapper – 1983

And in 1988, this wrapper design was still in use as you can see in this newspaper circular ad and coupon:

Hershey’s – Reese’s – Easter Circular ad and coupon – Easter 1988

At this point I hit a significant gap in my research, as the next wrapper I have to show is from the early 2000’s.  This wrapper features an updated look and one which previews the design to follow:

Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg Wrapper – 2003 – Image courtesy MikesCandyWrappers.com

Just a couple years later, Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs would have the look they largely retain to this day.  Though the design was introduced in 2004 or 2005, the earliest example I have is from 2009:

Hershey – Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg – swirl background – Easter candy wrapper – 2009

Of note on that 2009 wrapper is the use of Reese’s trademark orange swirl background.  The swirl background was something introduced in the mid-2000’s and used across the Reese’s line.  By 2011, the orange swirl would be retired:

Hershey – Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg – Easter candy wrapper – 2011

I’ve also got a recent Reese’s White Egg that shares this wrapper design:

Hershey – Reese’s White Peanut Butter Egg – Easter candy wrapper – 2012

Since the modern design for Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs arrived, there have been a number of special edition versions released beyond the white chocolate version I have.  I don’t have any of those others in my own collection, but I’d like to share a pair of examples pulled from elsewhere on the net.

First up, from the folks at CandyAddict.com is the Reese’s Fudge Egg:

Reese’s Fudge Egg – Easter 2008 – Image source: CandyAddict.com

And here is a neat-looking double-the-peanut-butter version from Jennifer T. on Flickr:

Reese’s Double Peanut Butter Egg circa 2007 – Image source Jennifer T. on Flickr

Back to items from my own collection, here is a six-pack outer pack for the standard Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs:

Hershey – Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs – 1.2 oz 6-pack multi Easter candy package – 2011

And a King-Size version of the standard:

Hershey – Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg – King Size – Keep Easter Easy – candy wrapper – 2012

Moving on to the “fun-size” versions of Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs – I’ve always quite liked these because they retain the spirit of the flower-design of the classic wrappers:

Hershey – Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg – .6oz mini package – Easter 2011

Here’s the outer package for the .6 ouncers:

Hershey – Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs – 8.5 oz minis package – Easter 2011

That brings us up-to-date on the classic Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs.  It’s a rich and delicious history of Reese’s Easter goodness.

[Edit:  I know I have a modern version of the Canadian Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg wrapper in my collection, but I must have misfiled it as I couldn’t find it for today’s post.  When I do finally track it down, I’ll drop it in here.]

I do have a few other Reese’s Easter-related items that I wanted to share today.   First up, a foil-wrapper Reese’s Egg package:

Hershey – Reese’s Peanut Butter Eggs – 8oz Easter candy package – 2011

This is an Easter package for the Reese’s classic Miniatures:

Hershey – Reese’s Miniatures – 8.5oz Easter candy package – 2011

And here is an Easter-branded package for the relatively new Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Minis:

Hershey – Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Minis – 7oz Easter candy package – 2012

Finally, here is the cleverly-named Reester Bunnies.  The box for these is kind of plain, as the focus of the package design is to showcase the foil-wrapped, peanut-butter-filled chocolate bunnies:

Hershey – Reese’s Reester Bunnies – Easter candy box – 2012

Here is one of the foil wraps.

Hershey – Reese’s Reester Bunnies – Easter candy foil wrapper – 2012

The Reester Bunnies received a packaging refresh and redesign for 2013.  I never saw the new version in any of my Easter candy hunts, but my brother sent me the following pic he snapped a couple of days ago:

Reese’s Reester Bunnies – new design for 2013

And that’s everything for today’s post.

Eventually, I’d like to track down the wrapper designs I’m currently missing and return to today’s topic – maybe by next year I’ll find some of the missing pieces of the puzzle.  If not by next year, hopefully I’ll have them all in time for 2016 – the 50th Anniversary of that first Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg test-market.

I hope everyone has a lovely Easter Sunday and that you’ve been able to enjoy some of your own Easter treat favorites this season.

See you next time!