Candied Popcorn Advertising Poster

Original advertising was a stand up cardboard cutout . The advertisement was sold in my Antique shop in New York, sometime in the early 1980's. The main image is part of a private collection on old film belonging to me. The name of this product could not be used due to ratings on this site! Frederick William Rueckheim- known informally as "Fritz"- and his brother Louis mass-produced an early version of this product and sold it at the first Chicago World's Fair in 1893. At the time, it was a mixture of popcorn, molasses, and peanuts and was called "Candied Popcorn and Peanuts". Rueckheim devised a way to keep the popcorn kernels separate in 1896. As each batch was mixed in a cement-mixer-like drum, a small quantity of oil was added — a closely guarded trade secret. Before this change, the mixture had been difficult to handle, as it stuck together in chunks. In 1896, the first lot of this product was produced. It was named by an enthusiastic sampler who remarked, "That's crackerjack!" (a colloquialism meaning "of excellent quality") Texture by zememz of Deviant Art