This mystery is much longer than 25 years old, but I’m going to pretend I still knew what something was 25 years ago and have forgotten since.

In 1988 I was 10 years old and that fall about to start 4th grade.  (I’m pretty sure.  I’m doing some rusty math here and guessing that’s what grade I was in that year.  If not then I’m one off but its not the point of this story.  Which we shall now get back to.)  My mom took me out shopping for new school supplies.  Due to attending a Catholic school with uniforms there wasn’t the same craziness to buy a ton of new clothes.  Kinda going to wear the same thing most days.  That means my Mom was very generous and let me pick out new folders, pens, pencils, crayons, binders, and much more things I didn’t need.  Including a new lunchbox.

My grade school self could probably remember every lunchbox I had and which year or years they lasted.  By the time high school came around I was brown bagging or cooler bagging it and cherished information like lunchbox characters went out my head to make room for what can I pretend to have interest in in order to get this girl to talk to me.  (Answer, 90210.)

Once I discovered the geek community online and started writing about such topics I began to reminisce on the geeky items from my past.  It took a while to hunt for some things that I only had basic memories of.  Things like what was that movie with the hair growing and the peanut butter?  (Answer, The Peanut Butter Solution.)

So when I’m trying to remember a lunchbox that had baseball cards all over it that were kind of like Garbage Pail Kids but not, well, that’s a pretty vague search.  I have tried off an on for years to find out something about this lunchbox.  Checking lunchbox sites, eBay, Etsy.  Giving up and looking up thermos in hopes to find out something new.  Garbage Pail baseball cards.  Nope.  Wacky Packages lunchbox.  Not even close.  I even looked through old Mad magazines to see if someone’s art looked similar to my decades old memories.

Nothing.

Then, randomly today I tried something new.  I typed in “GPK Knock Offs”.  There in a Google Image search was the answer.  The moment I saw it I knew this was the answer.

Except it was not.

I still have not found the lunchbox but thanks to my buddy Shawn at Branded in the 80s who wrote this post before I started reading his site I have my answer.

Awesome All Stars and Baseball’s Greatest Gross Outs cards from Donruss/Leaf.  Printed in 1988 and with art from B.K. Taylor.

Shawn’s article is here:  http://brandedinthe80s.com/6373/peel-here-109-in-monster-baseball-you-use-grave-markers-as-the-bases

I still cant find any mention or image of the lunchbox.  But now I have at least narrowed it down.  I know what to look for.  I know what to search and ask people about.  Worst of all though, I now have a new collection.  I have to get my hands on these cards.  Maybe once life gets normal again.  Or if some fall in my lap during yard sale season.

I cant express how happy I am to discover this.  Here are some card images to make you fall in love with these strange things as well.  Maybe rekindle some of your own memories.

(Photo from Branded)