Hunting for the Holy Grail of PEZ dispensers

Sunday Morning Hunting for the Holy Grail of PEZ dispensers By Luke Burbank May 3, 2026 / 9:53 AM EDT / CBS News Add CBS News on Google If you were a kid in the United States any time in the last 74 or so years, there's a pretty good chance at some point, you had a PEZ dispenser. But you probably had no idea the long strange journey that PEZ candies took, to become part of American life. According to PEZ historian Shawn Peterson, who also works for the company, the candies – peppermint candies, to be specific – were invented in Austria in 1927 by Eduard Haas III, who took three letters from the German word for "Peppermint" and combined them to make PEZ … and eventually candy history. "They actually tried to sell it as an anti-smoking device," said Peterson. "A way to freshen your breath, and an alternative to smoking, very much ahead of his time. And [Haas] had a lot of success with it, and this is how it was sold throughout Europe and other parts of the world." But when the PEZ company came to America in 1952, it was a failure. No one wanted these little mints that came out of a plastic cartridge. "Somebody got the thought and said, you know, we've got this new dispenser. Maybe we add a dimensional cartoon character to the top and we'll change from peppermint to fruit flavors. Let's shift the marketing to children. And it worked." PEZ dispensers were originally without character heads. Once added, sales began to pop.   CBS News Did it ever! These days, PEZ U.S. makes some five billion candies a year, which are then rolled together, and paired with dispensers at its headquarters in Orange, Connecticut. But is this a candy, or a toy? Collector Brian Trauman was asked if he liked the candy: "I try the new candy flavors when they come out, but I don't eat the candy," he said. Trauman could be forgiven for not eating all the PEZ candy that goes with his collection of dispensers, because that could take a few lifetimes. Trauman is the Guinness record holder for the most number of unique PEZ dispensers in a private collection. "The record is 6,481, but that was as of the end of 2024, and I've added maybe 50 or so since," he said. Brian Trauman hold the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of PEZ dispensers - 6,481 and counting.  CBS News Trauman's collection is so vast, and so valuable, he says he recently turned down an offer to sell it for a number in the high six figures. And yet, even he has a white whale. He's looking for the Holy Grail of PEZ collecting, a story involving none other than JFK himself. Harry and Meghan PEZ dispensers. CBS News "John F. Kennedy was visiting Linz, Austria, which is where PEZ is headquartered," he said. "And as a gift to him, PEZ gave him a donkey PEZ dispenser, Bozo the Clown, and a Golden Glow (which is one without a head). Ultimately it was returned to PEZ, because it came with candy, and presidents can't accept food. Whether everything was returned or just the candy is somewhat unclear; no one knows what happened to that precise dispenser." Then one day, Shawn Peterson, over at PEZ, called Trauman up with incredible news: one of the ultra-rare donkey dispensers, like the one JFK had been gifted in Austria in 1961, had been located – and its owner wanted to sell. "And I said, 'I've got a backpack at my feet here with $10,000 in cash, would you be interested?'" Trauman recalled. "And he [says], 'Can I have a minute with my wife?' And so, we gave them a minute" – and then made the deal with a bag of cold hard cash, in exchange for an ultra-rare piece of plastic originally meant just to deliver candy to some kid's mouth. When PEZ were first introduced in the United States, they failed - but then character heads were attached to the pop-up dispensers, and a candy legend was born.  CBS News The fact that most PEZ dispensers were given to children – not the demographic that's the greatest at hanging on to stuff – meant lots of dispensers ended up in toyboxes. Like Trauman, Shawn Peterson has made it his life's work to scour those toyboxes, to try and recover and preserve every single PEZ dispenser ever created, many of which are on display at the PEZ Visitor Center, which Shawn moved to Connecticut to supervise the building of, bringing his own valuable collection to put on display. And yet, Peterson says he is still not done – he's still acquiring PEZ dispensers, much to the dismay of his wife: "There's still packages [showing] up. I don't buy like I used to, but yeah, I'm still interested. There's things out there that I'd like to have."      For more info: PEZ.comPEZ Visitor Center, Orange, Conn."PEZ: From Austrian Invention to American Icon" by Shawn Peterson (The History Press), in Hardcover, Trade Paperback and eBook formats, available via Amazon, Barnes & Noble andBookshop.org     Story produced by Aidan Trevisan. Editor: George Pozderec.  © 2026 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.