PEZ - More Than Just Candy

PEZ is the brand name of an Austrian confectionery and the pocket mechanical dispensers it was sold in. The confectionery itself takes the shape of pressed, dry, straight-edged blocks (15mm (5/8 inch) long, 8mm wide and 5mm high), with PEZ dispensers holding 12 PEZ pieces.

The name PEZ was derived from the letters at the start, the middle and the end of the German word for peppermint, Pfefferminz, the first PEZ flavor. PEZ was originally introduced in Austria, later exported, notably to the U.S., and eventually became available worldwide. The all-uppercase spelling of PEZ echoes the trademark's style of type on packaging and the dispensers themselves, drawn in perspective and looking as if the letters were built out of 44 brick-like PEZ confectioneries (14 bricks in the P and 15 in each of the E and Z).

Despite the widespread recognition of the PEZ dispenser, the company considers itself to be primarily a confectionery company, and says it produces over 3 billion confectionery bricks each year in the U.S. alone. PEZ Dispensers are part of popular culture in many nations. Because of the large number of dispenser designs over the years, PEZ dispensers are collected by enthusiasts. This blog brought to you by http://www.thecollectorsbay.com/PEZ-,category,1892,parent_id,categories