March of the PEZ Dispencers

July 24, 2001 — -- Bring me the head of Adolph Hitler. That's what a lot of PEZ collectors say.

The very sight of an unauthorized Hitler PEZ dispenser makes many collectors shudder. PEZ Candy Inc. even went to great lengths several years ago to sue the rascal responsible for this joke. Yet there are a few collectors of these "Fantasy PEZ" figurines who'll plunk down a few weeks' pay to flip up the toy Nazi dictator's chin for a fruity little candy with absolutely no nutritional value.

The Fantasy PEZ Hitler was just one of the hot-button issues at PEZ-a-Mania in Cleveland last weekend — a gathering of 1,500 hobbyists from 33 states and as far away as Japan and France — all to celebrate all things PEZ, one of the most highly sought-after baby boomer collectibles.

First PEZ, Then eBay

If you don't think that there are big bucks at stake in those little dispensers, you ought to have your little hollow plastic head examined. Just remember, eBay founder Pierre Omidyar created the Internet auction company after starting an online site for his girlfriend to trade Pez dispensers.

Those 4 ½-inch-high plastic candy containers are more than just an American cultural phenomenon. They're available in at least 60 countries. Go to Scandinavia and you can come home with a Viking PEZ dispenser.

At the show, a likeness of Captain Hook produced in the late 1960s can fetch upward of $100. The rarer Make-A-Face PEZ — a would-be Mr. Potato Head with removable body parts — now sells for $4,000.

"It really changed my life. With me, it's all PEZ all the time," says Gary Doss, who runs the Burlingame Museum of Pez Memorabilia, just south of San Francisco.

Doss once ran a computer store. PEZ was just a sideline, something folks might see on display near the cash register. "But it just sold and sold and then I got the idea to make my passion a career," he says. Now he runs a PEZ-head Mecca.

It's hard to believe that the first PEZ candies came on the market in 1927 as an aid to quit smoking. The word "PEZ" is derived from pfefferminz, the German word for peppermint.