You could drive to San Francisco to find out more about PEZ -- or you could just take off for humble Erda, Utah.
The International PEZ Museum of Erda is located just north of Tooele in Brent Beazer's home, where dispensers galore line the walls of an office/exercise room.
His first Sylvester the cat is there, along with his next acquisitions of boy and girl PEZ Pals.
"Like they say, if you have three of anything, you've got a collection," says Beazer, who buys both new and vintage PEZ dispensers and opens his museum a few times a month for tours by Scout groups, families and others.
Older dispensers were hand-painted by farm workers all over Europe and have more character to them, Beazer says. New ones "are just a molded piece of plastic that's been painted in a modern manufacturing facility."
To schedule a visit or make a donation, email Beazer at beazco@byu.net or call 435-841-4324.
For the more adventurous, the Burlingame Museum of PEZ Memorabilia is found outside of San Francisco and draws 8,000 visitors annually.
One of the museum's most unusual dispensers is a hand holding a psychedelic eyeball that "just screams 1968," the year of its creation, says founder Gary Doss in a phone interview.
"Star Wars" and "Hello Kitty" are top sellers in the gift shop, but Doss says a new set of the first American presidents -- PEZ will eventually make all of them -- is also popular, despite his initial misgivings.
"I was 100 percent wrong on the presidents," says Doss, who admits he first thought, "Who in their right mind wants to buy a George Washington PEZ dispenser?"
For more information, visit www.burlingamepezmuseum.com.
-- Becky Cairns
Standard-Examiner staff
Comments