| The picture below shows larger front and back views of this Old Cracker Jack Pop Corn Confection Pot Metal or Lead Miniature Toy Prize Dick Tracy Detective Lapel Stud Button Badge. The six point star badge has an image of a hand gun is marked “DICK TRACY DETECTIVE”. This lapel stud button was purchased with many pot metal Cracker Jack prizes from a former Cracker Jack employee. We have no record of it being used, but he insisted that it was used as a box prize. It could also have been used as a prize in other promotions, and different mail away premium offers by the Dick Tracy, the Chester Gould comic strip and comic book Detective. In the 1940s and 1950s there were other Dick Tracy prizes used in Cracker Jack boxes. Many of the pot metal or lead prizes were manufactured by the Tootsietoy Company of Chicago, Illinois. There were other companies, including from Japan prior to World War II. Some of these type prizes were made specifically for Cracker Jack, while others were made as novelties, bought in volume, and used as prizes by The Cracker Jack Company. Pot metal or lead prizes were some of the earliest prizes that were used in Cracker Jack boxes from the 1910s to the 1940s. Many of these type prizes or novelties were also sold out of old Johnson Smith & Company catalog as well as some other early novelty catalogs, also used in fortune telling sets, and some were also sold and used as board game parts. Many of these can be found factory painted, inked, or with no finish at all. This lapel stud button star badge measures about 1-1/8'' x 1-1/4'' x 3/16''. It appears to be in mint condition as pictured. |
