Non-Cracker Jack

ALPHABET ANIMALS

I think one interesting prize is the "Deer."  I have the hard plastic "Deer" which was modeled after the NOSCO "Nilgai."  But the big question is, if the "Nilgai" is the "Deer," then what is the "N" in this hard plastic series?  I believe there was no "N" for this set.

The hard plastic "Bear" and "Elephant" found their way into my collection due to the generosity of a Cracker Jack friend with whom I visited at the CJCA convention in 1998.  These two items were among my most wanted prizes, but once I acquired them, I was able to purchase from various sources dozens of more examples of each shape.

I now have over 1000 examples of Type III ALPHABET ANIMALS in my collection.  The fact that I still only have 24 different shapes in this set has convinced me that there are were only 24 shapes made.  My theory is that the manufacturer of the Type III set copied the Type II NOSCO set, and it had only 22 of the original prizes to use as examples.  That is when the "Nilgai" was substituted for the "Deer," the "Bear" and "Elephant" were created to round off the set to 24 with no interest in keeping it as an alphabet set, and the letters "A," "F," "N," and "P" remained unrepresented in the new set of animal stand-ups.

The soft plastic ALPHABET ANIMALS are interesting in that I have seen these in only five colors -- red, yellow, blue green, and white.  This seems to be a more difficult series to collect, perhaps because less were made -- perhaps due to the fact that Cracker Jack collectors are largely interested in only the NOSCO ALPHABET ANIMALS.  As a result, there are several prizes I do not have yet in this soft plastic set, so there are still many questions that remain unanswered.