{"id":5104,"date":"2012-07-08T12:30:51","date_gmt":"2012-07-08T16:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=5104"},"modified":"2012-07-08T12:35:23","modified_gmt":"2012-07-08T16:35:23","slug":"nik-l-nip-and-other-wondrous-waxy-candy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/?p=5104","title":{"rendered":"Nik-L-Nip and other Wondrous & Weird Waxy Candy!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Ah… wax candy.\u00a0 As a kid, I never really understood the appeal, and frankly I was a bit afraid of the syrupy contents of some of these.\u00a0 But my friends and classmates seemed to enjoy them, and as I’ve found over the years, they were not alone.\u00a0\u00a0 Things like wax lips and Nik-L-Nips are still around today, and still evoke powerful memories for those that had them in their youths.<\/p>\n

For today’s piece, I’m going to share a series of trade ads and clippings from the early 70’s era.\u00a0 I don’t have much in the way of packaging for any of these wax treats.\u00a0 It seems that, for the most part, the packaging was an afterthought where this category of confection was concerned, and it rarely stood out by itself.\u00a0 It was the syrup-filled contents that were the stars of the show.\u00a0 That was certainly the case in the early 1970’s.<\/p>\n

By my estimate, this era was a time of intense competition between two of the biggest wax novelty candy manufacturers; Glenn Confections and W&F Manufacturing.\u00a0 Their ads in the candy trades during this time were full-color and plentiful. Which is good for us today, as I get to use those ads to show you a nice cross-section of what was available.<\/p>\n

Before I get to those, I’d like to mention Nik-L-Nips, certainly one of the stars of the wax novelty world.\u00a0 Originally produced by W&F, they’re still around and are now a product of the Tootsie company.\u00a0 Tootsie has acquired several of these nostalgic brands over the years, and has used their confectionery power to allow them to live on, where in some cases they might have disappeared.\u00a0 That’s pretty cool, in my book.<\/p>\n

Now let’s take a look at what the world of wax candy looked like circa 1970:<\/p>\n

I’m going to start with something you just wouldn’t find today – a wax six-shooter.<\/p>\n

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W&F Wax Novelties – Syrup Six Shooter – candy trade clipping – February 1969<\/p><\/div>\n

Oh, wax guns and bunnies – they really do go together.\u00a0\u00a0 I don’t think I need to point out the issue some folks would have with the wax six-shooter seen here.\u00a0 Simpler times.<\/p>\n

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W&F Manufacturing – Six Shooter centsational seller – candy trade ad – March 1970<\/p><\/div>\n

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W&F Manufacturing – Nik-L-Nip and more – candy trade ad – March 1969<\/p><\/div>\n

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W&F Manufacturing – centsational sellers – candy trade ad – February 1970<\/p><\/div>\n

Next up is another W&F trade ad – this time focusing on their Halloween offerings.\u00a0 In my opinion, Halloween is when these wax treats really shined.\u00a0 This particular trade ad has some pretty awesome items pictured.\u00a0 Anyone remember this wax-filled monster?:<\/p>\n

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W&F Manufacturing – Halloween centsational selling items – candy trade ad – May 1970<\/p><\/div>\n

Next up are the trade ads I’ve collected from the other big name in wax confections – Glenn.\u00a0 I first became aware of Glenn Confections due to their wax whistle, as one was in a scrapbook of gum wrappers that my pal Dan Goodsell had found years ago:<\/p>\n

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Glenn Confections Wowee Whistle packaging – and whistle.<\/p><\/div>\n

I’ll get back to Wowee, but for now, here’s more of the whole Glenn lineup from the period:<\/p>\n

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Glenn Confections – Summer Money Makers – candy trade ad – March 1969<\/p><\/div>\n

As you can see, Glenn was producing similar items to what W&F was.\u00a0 I suppose you can’t trademark filling a wax gun with flavored syrup.\u00a0 And once again, a wondrous mix of waxy forms; daggers and frogs.<\/p>\n

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Glenn Confections – 7 Fast Selling Items – candy trade ad – January 1970<\/p><\/div>\n

This next ad has some really cool pieces that aren’t included in the other ads:\u00a0 A syrup-filled space gun, a syrup-filled caterpillar (pretty gross for 1971), syrup-filled tools, and Chew-A-Toon, the same wax gum whistle that would be called Wowee for Halloween.<\/p>\n

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Glenn Confections – makes the change – candy trade ad – January 1971<\/p><\/div>\n

Next up is a great ad featuring Glenn’s Halloween offerings for 1970.\u00a0 I’ll bet a lot of you will remember these, or ones similar to these:<\/p>\n

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Glenn Confections – Fast Selling Items for Halloween – candy trade ad – April 1970<\/p><\/div>\n

You can see that same Halloween witch whistle in this 1970 trade ad.\u00a0\u00a0 According to the annotated date in that gum scrapbook, the one included there is from 1986 – so that design lasted quite a while.\u00a0 It was clear that they put a lot of promotion into it, as it received a dedicated ad the same year:<\/p>\n

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Glenn Confections – Wowee Wax Halloween Harmonica – candy trade ad – July 1970<\/p><\/div>\n

And that’s everything I’ve got to share today on the phenomena that is syrup-filled-wax confections.\u00a0 I’ll admit that I still don’t quite understand them, but I can’t argue with their appeal – people do love the things.<\/p>\n

Honestly, I’m still a bit afraid of that syrup.<\/p>\n

See you next time!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah… wax candy.\u00a0 As a kid, I never really understood the appeal, and frankly I was a bit afraid of the syrupy contents of some of these.\u00a0 But my friends and classmates seemed to enjoy them, and as I’ve found … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,24,252,50,127],"tags":[317,413,416,321,316,328,351,332,14,324,78,333,415,414,419,21,15,422,420,348,423,421,411,418,412,417,11],"class_list":["post-5104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1960s","category-1970s","category-halloween","category-holiday-2","category-novelty","tag-1970s-candy","tag-1970s-wax-lips","tag-70s-halloween-candy","tag-candy-collecting","tag-candy-collection","tag-candy-collector","tag-candy-wrapper-collection","tag-candy-wrapper-collector","tag-collectible","tag-collecting-candy","tag-confectionery","tag-confections","tag-halloween-candy","tag-halloween-wax-lips","tag-nik-l-nip","tag-packaging","tag-sweets","tag-syrup-filled-wax-bottles-candy","tag-syrup-filled-wax-monster","tag-vintage-candy-wrapper","tag-wax-bottle-candy","tag-wax-bottles","tag-wax-candy","tag-wax-harmonica","tag-wax-lips","tag-wax-whistle","tag-wrapper"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2aFGk-1kk","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5104"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5135,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5104\/revisions\/5135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/collectingcandy.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}