Midway Classic Arcade Lunchboxes

Good for Carrying Sandwiches, Doritos, and Arcade Tokens

One of the many things I collect are lunchboxes. For the most part I like them old and made of metal, although I’ve been known to break both of those rules when I run across something that tugs at my nostalgic strings. Such was the case with these Midway Classic Arcade lunchboxes which, while not old, certainly seem like they could have been found on store shelves back in the mid-1980s.

Back in the 80s when I was in grade school, the lunchbox one carried to school expressed who we were. Most of us only owned one at a time and it had to last an entire year, so picking something that truly represented who you were was really important. I was mostly a Star Wars lunchbox kid, but I wouldn’t have been embarrassed to bring my lunch to school in any of these lunchboxes.

Each of the three games depicted on these lunchboxes was a monster hit in the 1980s. None of these titles were obscure; every kid in the entire school (even that one weird kid our bus had to go ten minutes out of its way to pick up and drop off) would have known them. To me Gauntlet seems to be much newer than the other two games, but I think that’s partly due to my age when they were released. Defender (1981) and Joust (1982) seemed like old games to me, but when Gauntlet was released in 1985 I was in seventh grade, and I remember how new and exciting that game felt. Funny what just a couple of years can feel like at that age.

Sharp-eyed readers may find it slightly jarring to see the Midway logo printed on these lunchboxes. Defender and Joust were released by Bally/Midway, and Gauntlet was very famously released by Atari. It’s a bit complicated, but arcade giant Williams Manufacturing Company (WMS) acquired Midway back in 1988. Instead of dissolving the company, WMS transferred the arcade portion of their business to Midway. In 1996, WMS purchased Time Warner Interactive, who had previously purchased Atari Games (who had also gone out of business). Midway ultimately filed for bankruptcy in 2009 and closed its doors in 2010. In 2016, WMS was purchase by Scientific Games. I’m telling you, this story is messier than a pack of Zingers that got smooshed by a well-meaning Thermos.

Of the three lunchboxes, I think I like the Gauntlet one the best. Both the Joust and Defender lunchboxes, while cool, don’t focus much on the games themselves. The Gauntlet box features Merlin the Wizard front and center, sharing space with the game’s logo. That being said, there’s not a loser in the bunch and I would have happily carried my lunch in any of them.

Today I have approximately 100 lunchboxes on display in my home office. As a collector, these leap out as “new” to my when displayed among older ones I’ve picked up for a couple of reasons. Like many modern collectible lunchboxes, they’re slightly smaller than old ones (done to save money, I’m sure). They’re also not embossed like the old ones were. The real dead giveaway is that they’re not all rusty and dented like many of the used ones I find today.

If you’re looking for a fun way to decorate a room (or maybe even take your lunch to work), Amazon still sells all three of these lunchboxes for $50. Considering I paid roughly the same price for an old E.T. lunchbox with a spot of rust on Elltiot’s face, $50 for a set of three minty-fresh lunchboxes is a pretty good deal.