The Whitman Sampler

 By Bruce Shawkey

Who remembers the Whitman Sampler candy box? I do, and as I recall, they weren't especially good. Short on nougats, nuts, toffees, long on whipped fluffy creams. I found an ad for Whitmans in a 1941 Life magazine:









Note the prices: As low as $1, and as high as $7.50 for the one on left. Now, the boxes are as high as $50 (from Russell Stover.)  The company's history began in 1923 when Russell and Clara Stover started a small candy business, Mrs. Stover's Bungalow Candies, from their Denver, Colorado, home, eventually becoming one of the largest boxed chocolate manufacturers in the United States. The company was sold to Louis Ward in 1960, who then sold it to the Swiss chocolatier Lindt & Sprüngli in 2014. 

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