PEZ Museum Dispenses Sweet Memories

E A S T O N, Pa., Oct. 17, 2003 -- Only about a yardstick high, Andrew O'Tooledashes back and forth with a fiery energy, shouting the names ofhis favorite superheroes.

"Spider-Man! A Ninja Turtle! … Batman!" he cries, his fathershuffling alongside him.

Andrew is stalking every corner of the recently opened EastonMuseum of PEZ, a cotton-candy colored world of PEZ products thatcan captivate young and old alike. The museum is just paces awayfrom The Crayola Factory, another childhood playground where kidslearn how crayons are made.

Some 1,500 PEZ dispensers, all nestled in creative landscapes,fill the museum. Disney PEZ sit in a 10-foot-high castle.Halloween-themed PEZ are displayed in a haunted house. Andpsychedelic PEZ are set beside a real Volkswagen Beetle thatappears to be crashing through the wall.

From Crayons to Candy?

Owners Kevin and Tim Coyle hope to entice some of the 400,000 orso yearly Crayola visitors to turn left out of the crayon factoryand walk 30 seconds down a mural-filled alley to visit the shrineto the hand-held candy dispensers.

And if 4-year-old Andrew is the Coyles' typical customer, thenthe brothers have a hit on their hands.

"We were at the Crayola Factory and he wasn't nearly asexcited," said Andrew's father, Kevin O'Toole, of Garden City,N.J. "Plus they did a really good job. Everything's at eye levelfor kids.

"You know what made me laugh when I came in?" O'Toolecontinued. "I had that Hulk one when I was little, and then youlook at the price."

The Hulk PEZ that O'Toole was referring to was priced at about$75 — and that's on the inexpensive end for rare PEZ dispensers.One of the more expensive PEZ the Coyles have on display is abaseball glove, ball and bat PEZ from the 1960s. It cost about$400.

Hot Market for Rare Pez Dispensers

Even that is not overly expensive. Collectors on eBay pushprices for ultra-rare PEZ into the thousands. That rare PEZdispensers can command such high prices is one demonstration of arecent surge in PEZ's popularity.

Jill Cohen has run the PEZAMANIA collectors convention in theCleveland area for more than a decade. The first event attractedonly a couple dozen people. Now considered the premier PEZconvention by collectors, the convention can attract over athousand.

"Now I have to get the biggest ballroom in Cleveland," Cohensaid. "I've outgrown three hotels."

Interest in PEZ has spiked in the last decade, fueled by anostalgia for childhood toys and the Internet.

"For me it combines the two favorite elements of childhood —that's toys and candy," Cohen said.

The Easton museum, which opened in mid-July, is already gettingpositive reviews on PEZ chat rooms, Cohen said. And one name widelyknown in PEZ circles — Shawn Peterson, author of the bookCollector's Guide to PEZ — called the museum "a great place."

"The location just couldn't be any better, and what they'vedone with it is really nice," said Peterson.

"They've done a nice job with their displays, how they've goteverything themed," he said. "You may not see some rare thingsthere, but they've probably got more work in their displays thananyone else."

German Origins for PEZ

PEZ, derived from the German word for peppermint, pfefferminz,was first produced for adult smokers in Austria more than 50 yearsago. The bite-sized candies have been in the United States forabout 50 years. The Orange, Conn.-based company says more than 3billion PEZ candies are consumed annually in the United States. The Easton museum, which lays out the dispensers by era andgenre, shows how the candies have changed over the years.

There are NFL PEZ and superheroes, Star Wars and Charlie Brown.Elton John and Santa Claus. There is also a "Where in the World isWaldo" game the brothers have set up on a wall display containingmore than 500 dispensers.

There is a nominal entrance fee for the museum, and the storesells hundreds of PEZ products. Neither the Easton museum noranother PEZ museum in Burlingame, Calif., near San Francisco, isaffiliated with the PEZ candy company.

Everyone's Got One

"My brother and I have been joking to each other, 'How do youlike having $100,000 invested in plastic dolls?' " said KevinCoyle, 37. "We could end up with a whole lot of Easter gifts."

The brothers say they've received cooperation from Crayola, andthey hope the PEZ museum gives people another reason to visitEaston, 50 miles north of Philadelphia on the New Jersey border.

"People are driving two hours from New Jersey. They don't wantto drive two hours and do one thing and turn around and go home,"Kevin Coyle said.

Given the museum's smart location, and that PEZ appeals to justabout everyone — men, women, young, old, blue collar and those withadvanced degrees, as Cohen puts it — the museum may be bound forsuccess.

"It's something everyone can relate to," Peterson said."Whether it was a gift or a gag, everyone's got a PEZ dispenserlaying around in a drawer somewhere."

IF YOU GO… LOCATION: 15-19 Bank St., Easton, Pa. HOURS: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Tuesday through Sunday; closed inJanuary. ADMISSION: $5 adults, $3 children, free 4 and under. CONTACT: Call (610) 253-9794 or visit www.eastonmuseumofpez.com. NEARBY ATTRACTIONS: Crayola Factory and National Canal Museum,at Two Rivers Landing in Easton; open Tuesday through Sunday;admission to both facilities, $9; (610) 515-8000 orwww.crayola.com.. BURLINGAME MUSEUM OF PEZ MEMORABILIA: 214 California Drive,Burlingame, Calif., (650) 347-2301, http://spectrumnet.com/pez/ PEZ Candy Inc.: http://www.pez.com PEZ conventions: In Ohio, July 22-24, 2004, at the Holiday Innin Independence (suburban Cleveland area),http://www.pezamania.com; in Minnesota, Aug. 12-14, 2004, at theRamada in Bloomington, http://www.mnpezcon.com/main.html