PEZ Dispensers That Are Now Worth A Ton Of Money

Actor Jason Alexander once gave "Seinfeld" credit for reviving the fortunes of a particular novelty item. During an "Inside Look" on "The PEZ Dispenser" episode for the series DVD (via YouTube), Alexander described PEZ as "a relatively dead, obscure product" that was put "back on top" after it was featured in the sitcom, which wasn't yet the hit it would become but was climbing in the ratings. As a thank you, PEZ Candy Inc. sent the "Seinfeld" staff custom dispensers with the heads of the main characters on top.

Of course, the PEZ company didn't put it quite the way Jason Alexander did when it mentioned "Seinfeld" on a timeline of its candy's history, which presents PEZ as an ever-growing success, from tins of small round Austrian peppermints in the 1920s to the 12-brick candy dispensers of the 1930s to the explosion of colorful character-headed dispensers in the 1960s and beyond. But the company did acknowledge the publicity the TV appearance brought its candy's distinctive cartridges.

PEZ would probably have something to boast about as well if those custom "Seinfeld" dispensers ever did go on the market, as PEZ has become a collectible, and one-off productions can fetch a lot of money on the collectors' market. (Speaking of which, here's a look at Funko Pop! figures worth considerable money today, as well as collectible old Barbies and PEP cereal boxes and toys.)

There are over 1,400 different character heads featured as PEZ dispenser toppers, so any collector has a lot to try and get their hands on. A new PEZ dispenser sold through its website goes for $2.29 as of 2024, and older dispensers — even those marked as rare on pricing guides — don't always sell for much more than that. Consider, you can find supposedly rare PEZ dispensers on eBay for just $3.99, and an entire collection for around the price of lunch at a restaurant ($19.99).

As it tends to be with collectibles, however, the older it is, the more it's worth, assuming it's in mint or near-mint condition. For PEZ dispensers, collectors mark off "vintage" PEZ from "modern" PEZ by whether or not the dispenser has feet. Before the 1980s, PEZ was a straight rectangular dispenser; after the 1980s, supportive tabs called "feet" were added to the bottom. Because of their age, footless tabs are usually worth more. If they're from between the early '50s and the early '70s, those footless PEZ might be worth even more, as those decades are counted as the glory years for PEZ.

While it's true PEZ hasn't made headlines for multimillion-dollar auctions like, say, Pokémon cards have in recent years (here, by the way, is a look at five Pokémon cards worth more money than your may realize), there are some PEZ dispensers that have been identified as being more valuable than others. And as said, a lot of that value has to do with age (and condition).

To help verify the age of your PEZ dispenser, check its patent number on the side of the stem. If it's from the '50s to early '70s, it will have one of two numbers: 2,620,061 or 3,410,455. According to the PEZ Collectors Store, if the patent number reads 2,620,061, then the dispenser is from 1952 to 1967. If it reads 3,410,455, then it's from 1968 to 1973.

Dispensers with a patent number of 3,845,882 are from 1974 to 1975, and any with a patent number of 3,942,683 were made between 1976 and 1989. And finally, if you've got a verifiable, vintage PEZ dispenser in mint condition that's still in its box, you will have much better luck getting some money out of it.

Starting with Popeye in 1958 as the first-ever licensed character, a lot of other famous characters have graced the top of PEZ dispensers, including cartoon and literary characters, as well as real-life celebrities and politicians. This said, there are some obscure names among the ranks of PEZ heads, and you might think obscurity could help the value of a dispenser; after all, how many pieces of merchandise can a little-known character have?

But the PEZ collectors' market is heavier on nostalgia than on novelty. People pay for what they know and love, not what they've never heard of. A prototype line of soft Disney-headed PEZ that never hit the market, for example, combines both nostalgia and novelty and have sold individually for a few thousand each. And PEZ that were sold commercially featuring beloved characters like Batman have gone for a few hundred.

Yet, the most valuable PEZ dispensers known didn't feature Popeye, Mickey Mouse, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or any other endearing figure. They instead featured a donkey and an elephant. In 1961, PEZ Candy Inc. gifted President John F. Kennedy a set of Democratic and Republican PEZ dispensers made of ivory when Kennedy visited Austria. The duo dispensers were obtained by the Burlingame Museum of PEZ Memorabilia sometime in the early 2010s, as reported by The Daily Journal in 2012. At the time, the museum reported the combined value of the dispenser as being between $20,000 and $25,000. (In 2019, the museum permanently closed.)