What Is Penny Candy? History, Classic Examples and Where to Buy
Penny candy is the name for cheap, individually wrapped sweets that general stores and candy shops once sold for a single cent apiece, later a nickel or a dime. The category took shape in the late 1800s as candy shifted from a luxury item sold by weight to small, affordable pieces anyone could buy with pocket change. Sales peaked between the 1950s and the 1980s, when glass jars of Tootsie Rolls, NECCO Wafers, and Jawbreakers sat on nearly every corner store counter in America. Sugar shortages and supermarket growth ended true penny pricing by the 1990s, though many of the same candies are still sold today at higher prices.
What Does Penny Candy Mean Today
Today, penny candy refers to old-fashioned, individually sold candy, not candy that literally costs a cent anymore. Nostalgic Eats defines it as inexpensive, individually wrapped candies sold for a penny or a few cents each, a description that still fits the bins and jars found in specialty shops today. The core idea has not changed even though the price has: candy sold piece by piece rather than by the bag.
What made penny candy distinct was not the flavor or the brand, it was the format. Blair Candy Company notes that these treats democratized sweets across economic classes, giving every child with a spare coin the same access to candy that wealthier families enjoyed. A kid with one cent could walk into a corner store, pick a candy from the jar, and leave with something that felt like a genuine purchase, not a handout.
Community connection was as much a part of penny candy as the sweets themselves. Corner store owners often let kids linger over the jar, counting out coins for exactly the right combination of candy, which turned a one-cent purchase into a small act of independence. That kind of unhurried, kid-directed shopping is largely gone from modern retail, even where the same candy brands survive.
How Did Penny Candy Start
Penny candy started in the 1830s, when industrialized production and refined sugar distribution turned candy from a luxury confection into a commodity. Small shops and general stores began packaging sweets into individually wrapped pieces during the late 1800s, a format cheap enough to sell for a cent. Within a few decades, corner stores across the country carried jars of penny candy as a standard fixture.
The Shift from Luxury to Commodity
An 1857 publication from the Ohio Journal of Education documented an early list of penny candy flavors, including cream candy, popcorn, peppermint, molasses, rose, clove, butterscotch, sugar plums, lemon drops, French kisses, cinnamon, wintergreen, horehound, lavender, gum drops, and birch. Up to 100,000 candy varieties existed by the 1920s, most made by small, often home-based candy makers rather than national brands. Ethnic immigrant communities added their own recipes to the mix, so nineteenth-century penny candy told local stories in a way that today’s supermarket candy aisle does not.
The First Wrapped Penny Candies
The NECCO Wafer, originally sold as the Chase Lozenge, appeared in 1847 and ranks among the earliest true penny candies in the United States. Leo Hirschfield, an Austrian-American candy maker born in 1868, created the Tootsie Roll in 1907 and patented it in 1908, naming it after his daughter Clara’s nickname, Tootsie. He hand-rolled the chocolate taffy and wrapped each piece in brown and gold paper designed to look sophisticated enough for adult buyers, not just children.
Paper wrapping machines arrived around 1908 and made individually wrapped candy practical on a large scale, extending shelf life and making transport easier. The Tootsie Roll’s moderately hard texture, achieved through low-temperature baking, kept it from melting before refrigeration was common, which made it ideal for summer sales. That same durability helped it earn a spot in soldiers’ ration packs during the Great Depression and World War II.
Some retail sources date the Tootsie Roll’s creation to 1896, but the more detailed account, drawn from Hirschfield’s biography and the 1908 patent record, points to 1907. The patent date is specific and verifiable, so it carries more weight than the earlier, undocumented figure.
Penny Candy and Tootsie Roll Timeline
Tootsie Roll links the penny candy term’s late nineteenth-century record to a defined invention, patent, and market history. The dates show that the category name came first, followed by the candy’s separate commercial milestones.
| Date | Term or product | Event |
|---|---|---|
| 1885-90 | Penny candy | Dictionary.com first records the term. |
| 1907 | Tootsie Roll | Leo Hirschfield invented the candy and applied for a patent. |
| 1908 | Tootsie Roll | Hirschfield received the patent. |
| 1909 | Tootsie Roll | Stern & Staalberg began marketing the product. |
Leo Hirschfield, an Austrian-American candymaker, was born in Austria in 1868. He began his own candy-business career at a small New York City shop or factory in 1896 and died there on January 13, 1922.
Hirschfield named the candy for his daughter Clara, whose nickname was ‘Tootsie.’ Clara was 5 years old when he gave the candy that name.
Together, the entries distinguish the broader candy category from one product’s invention and commercial history.
What Candies Counted as Penny Candy Through the Decades
Penny candy varied by decade, but a few staples like Tootsie Rolls and Jawbreakers stayed on shelves the whole time. The table below lists the candies most associated with each era, based on retro candy retailers’ historical listings.
| Candy Type | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | 1980s | Ever Present |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hard Candies | Lollipops | Atomic Fireballs | Jawbreakers, sour balls, Jolly Rancher | ||
| Chocolate and Taffy | Tootsie Rolls | Laffy Taffy | Bit-O-Honey, caramel creams, Chick-O-Stick | ||
| Interactive and Novel | Pop Rocks, candy necklaces | Bubble Gum Tape, Runts | Ring Pops, Bubble Tape, Fun Dip, Nerds | Smarties, PEZ, Dubble Bubble | |
| Other | NECCO Wafers, licorice sticks, taffy | Pixie Stix | Salt water taffy, Lemonheads, Dum Dums |
Certain candies stayed popular across every decade instead of fading with a single era. Smarties rolls, PEZ dispensers, Lemonhead candies, Dum Dums lollipops, and Jolly Rancher hard candies appeared in penny candy jars from the 1950s through the 1980s and remain common today. Salt water taffy, Dubble Bubble gum, Bit-O-Honey, caramel creams such as Goetze’s Bulls Eyes, Chick-O-Stick nuggets, and root beer barrel candies rounded out the mix at most corner stores.
Why Did Penny Candy Disappear
Penny candy disappeared because rising sugar prices and the growth of supermarket chains destroyed the economics that made cent-per-piece candy possible. Independent corner stores, the backbone of penny candy retail, closed by the tens of thousands as larger retailers took over grocery and candy sales.
The 1970s Sugar Price Crisis
Sugar prices quadrupled by 1975, and that single shift did more damage to penny candy than any other factor. Candy that cost a penny in 1970 cost a nickel by 1980, a fivefold jump that made true penny pricing mathematically impossible. Manufacturers responded by raising prices and shrinking portion sizes, which undercut the affordability that defined the category in the first place.
How Supermarket Economics Changed the Math
Supermarkets generate 30 to 40 percent margin on pre-packaged, branded candy, compared with single-digit margins on loose bulk candy sold by the piece. Large retailers preferred packaged candy because it needed less labor, offered predictable profit margins, and built brand loyalty that a glass jar of mixed candy could never match. Those numbers pushed bulk penny candy out of mainstream retail even where nostalgia kept demand alive.
What Happened to Corner Stores
Corner stores vanished as suburban sprawl and car-dependent shopping replaced dense, walkable neighborhoods between 1980 and 2000. Rising real estate costs and labor expenses made the thin-margin, high-volume corner store model unsustainable in most cities. The social pattern that supported penny candy, kids walking to a nearby store with spare change, largely disappeared along with the stores themselves.
How Much Did Penny Candy Cost Compared to Today
Penny candy cost about a cent a piece before 1970, and it costs 25 to 50 cents a piece roughly 25 to 50 times the original nominal price. That jump tracks a real shift in sugar costs and retail economics rather than simple price gouging. Sugar alone accounts for much of the gap, since prices quadrupled between 1970 and 1975 before continuing to climb in the decades that followed.
The table below breaks the jump into three checkpoints using the pricing already on record for 1970, 1980, and today. By 1980, a candy that cost one cent in 1970 cost a nickel, a fivefold increase in a single decade. Today’s 25 to 50 cent price reflects several more decades of sugar, packaging, and labor cost increases stacked on top of that 1980 baseline.
| Year | Approximate Price per Piece |
|---|---|
| 1970 | $0.01 |
| 1980 | $0.05 |
| 2026 | $0.25 to $0.50 as of September 2026 |
During grocery stockroom and night shelving in Kettering from 2005 to 2009, I learned to compare unit prices, account for shrink, and expect the register to expose my optimistic reading of a shelf tag. For penny candy, comparing past and current prices is the sensible check, because a visible sticker can preserve the appearance of a bargain long after the bargain itself has retired.
Why Did Tootsie Rolls Outlast Other Penny Candies
Tootsie Rolls outlasted most penny candy competitors because they combined a shelf-stable recipe with early national distribution, not just nostalgia. The candy’s moderately hard texture meant it survived heat and long storage better than soft taffy or chocolate, which made it a practical choice for military rations and general store shelves alike.
That same durability gave Tootsie Rolls a head start once supermarkets began favoring pre-packaged, nationally branded candy over loose bulk jars. A candy that already had brand recognition, a long shelf life, and reliable individual wrapping fit the new retail model that doomed most small, home-made penny candies. Many of the era’s other treats depended on a local candy maker or a single corner store, so when those shops closed, the candy closed with them.
Where Can You Buy Penny Candy Today
Penny candy is available today through specialty candy retailers, both online and in a handful of physical shops. The Penny Candy Store operates as both a website and a physical location, and it stocks old-fashioned candy varieties that date back to the late 1800s and early 1900s.
| Retailer | Type | Website |
|---|---|---|
| Candy Warehouse | Online | candywarehouse.com |
| Royal Wholesale Candy | Online, bulk | royalwholesalecandy.com |
| Blair Candy Company | Online, wholesale | blaircandy.com |
| True Treats Historic Candy | Online, specialty | truetreatscandy.com |
| Candy Store For Me | Online | candystoreforme.com |
| The Penny Candy Store | Online and physical | pennycandy.com |
| Pat’s Porch | Online | patsporch.com |
| Richardson’s Candy Kitchen | Online | richardsonscandy.com |
Candy Warehouse and Royal Wholesale Candy focus on bulk online orders, which suits parties, parades, and classroom treat bags better than single pieces. True Treats Historic Candy leans into the history angle, curating candies tied to specific decades and events. Shoppers who want the full nostalgic experience, glass jars and all, are more likely to find it at The Penny Candy Store’s physical location than at a big-box retailer.
Pat’s Porch and Richardson’s Candy Kitchen round out the smaller specialty sellers, both shipping old-fashioned candy assortments rather than focusing on any single brand. Shoppers comparing sites should check whether pieces are sold individually or only in pre-set bags, since pricing per piece varies more than the sticker price suggests.
Many specialty candy stores and online retailers offer a wide selection of individually wrapped sweets reminiscent of the classic experience. If you want to recreate the nostalgic feel of choosing treats one at a time, browsing a variety of penny candy can help you find favorites from different eras.
Penny candy refers to small, individually portioned sweets often associated with candy counters and pick and mix assortments. Choices include hard candies, gummies, chews, lollipops, licorice and chocolate pieces, with differences in flavor, texture, shape, wrapping and package size.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is Penny Candy Still Sold for a Penny?
No, penny candy is no longer sold for an actual cent at any major retailer. Sugar and packaging costs rose after the 1970s, raising prices per piece. The name survives as a nostalgic label for small, individually sold candy rather than a literal price.
What Was the First Penny Candy in the United States?
The NECCO Wafer, sold originally as the Chase Lozenge starting in 1847, is often cited as one of the earliest penny candies in the country. Leo Hirschfield’s Tootsie Roll, introduced in 1907, is widely credited as the first individually wrapped penny candy specifically. Both predate the mass wrapped-candy boom that followed the introduction of paper wrapping machines around 1908.
Why Is It Still Called Penny Candy if It Costs More Now?
Retailers kept the phrase because it describes a format and a shopping experience, not a fixed price. Shoppers buy candy piece by piece from a jar or bin rather than in a sealed bag, which is the trait that originally defined the category. The term signals nostalgia even though a literal penny purchase disappeared decades ago.
What Candies Are Considered Classic Penny Candy?
Classic penny candy includes Tootsie Rolls, NECCO Wafers, Jawbreakers, Smarties rolls, PEZ candies, Lemonheads, Dum Dums lollipops, and Bit-O-Honey. Atomic Fireballs, Laffy Taffy, Ring Pops, and Fun Dip represent the 1970s and 1980s additions to the category. Most of these candies share small size, low individual cost, and a long shelf life.
Can You Buy Penny Candy Online?
Yes, several retailers sell penny candy online, including Candy Warehouse, Royal Wholesale Candy, Blair Candy Company, and The Penny Candy Store. True Treats Historic Candy and Candy Store For Me also ship curated selections of retro and old-fashioned candy. Most of these sites sell by the piece or in bulk bags rather than at true penny prices.
Penny candy is less about the price today and more about the format: small, individually sold sweets that let a shopper pick exactly what they want. Corner stores that once anchored the tradition are mostly gone, replaced by specialty retailers and the occasional old-fashioned candy counter. Anyone chasing the original experience is more likely to find it at a dedicated candy shop than a supermarket aisle.
References
- Leo Hirschfield, Wikipedia
- The History of Penny Candy and Why It’s a Perfect Fit for Parades, Blair Candy Company
- Old Fashioned Penny Candy: A Complete Guide, Nostalgic Eats
- Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? The Real Story Behind Its Disappearance, Nostalgic Eats
- Which Candy Holds the Title of the First Wrapped Penny Candy in the US?, Tasting Table
- The First Penny Candies: What’s Missing and Why, True Treats Candy
- Old Fashioned Penny Candy Collection, Candy Warehouse
- Old Fashioned Penny Candy Store, The Penny Candy Store
Sources read in September 2026.