Look, I am 72 years old and I still keep a sleeve of Necco Wafers in the glovebox of my truck. Always have. My wife rolls her eyes, the grandkids think they taste like sweetened drywall, and I do not care. That is the thing about retro candy. It is not really about the candy. It is about being eight years old, walking into a corner store with a quarter, and walking out feeling like a millionaire.
So if you are trying to track down the stuff you grew up on, here is the deal as it stands in 2026. Most of it is still out there. Some of it costs more than it should. And a couple of these online shops will treat you right while a couple will not. Let me walk you through it.
What is actually still being made
First, the good news. A lot of the candy you remember from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s never went anywhere. It just left your local drugstore shelf and moved to specialty shops. We are talking about:
- Tootsie Rolls — Same recipe, more or less, since 1896. Still chocolate-flavored, still will not melt in your pocket, still tough enough to pull a filling.
- Bit-O-Honey — Honey-almond taffy. Pearson's, the Minnesota outfit that also makes Salted Nut Rolls, has been running it for years now.
- Mary Janes, Charleston Chews, Sugar Daddies, Sugar Babies, Junior Mints — All still in production under Tootsie Roll Industries.
- Mallo Cups — Boyer Candy out of Altoona, Pennsylvania, still cranks them out. Same play money inside, too.
- Goo Goo Clusters — Made in Nashville since 1912. You can find them at the airport down there if you are passing through.
- Clark Bars — Boyer also picked these up after the original company went under in 2018. Took a couple of years, but they are back.
- Double Bubble — Tootsie owns this one too now. Still pink, still loses its flavor in about ninety seconds, just like 1957.
Now, a few things to know. Necco Wafers went away in 2018 when the New England Confectionery Company went bankrupt. Spangler Candy bought the brand and brought them back in May 2020. Same eight flavors, same chalky pucks. If your grandkid will not eat them, that is a feature, not a bug. More for you.
The genuinely hard-to-find stuff
Some of the old standards are real ghosts now. Bonomo Turkish Taffy has been on and off the market more times than I can count. Chuckles, those jelly squares with the sugar coating, are still around but harder to spot. Zagnut bars are still made by Hershey but you will not see them at a 7-Eleven. Slo Pokes turn up on retro candy sites but I have not seen one in a regular grocery in twenty years.
If you cannot find a thing in the wild, that is what the specialty shops are for.
Where to actually shop online
I have ordered from a few of these. I am going to give you the straight skinny.
The ones I would use
Vermont Country Store — Catalog people. They have a candy section that reads like a 1962 drugstore inventory. Wax bottles, candy buttons, Necco wafers, the works. Not the cheapest, but they ship clean and they answer the phone. Their print catalog is also a fine thing to read on a Sunday morning.
Candy Warehouse — Big selection, decent prices, ships fast. Good if you are buying in any kind of quantity, like for a party or a grandkid's birthday gift basket.
True Treats Historic Candy — This one is a little different. The owner is a candy historian, of all things, and she organizes the inventory by era, going all the way back to the 1700s. If you want to mail your brother a box of stuff from the year he was born, this is your shop.
Blair Candy — Family operation out of Pennsylvania. Good for nostalgic stuff in bulk. Their wholesale prices on the loose penny candy are reasonable.
Candy Favorites — Decade-by-decade browsing. Useful if you cannot remember the name of what you are looking for but you know it was that brown wrapper you got at the pool in 1968.
One I would steer clear of
Old Time Candy Company out of LaGrange, Ohio used to be the gold standard. The decade boxes were a great gift. But the reviews on them have gone south. Trustpilot and Sitejabber are full of people complaining about stale product, broken shipments, no refunds, and coupons that expire in five days. Their sales have dropped by half two years running. That tells you something. If you want to risk it, fine, but I would send my money to one of the other outfits first.
What about candy cigarettes
Yes, they are still legal in most of the country. Maine and Tennessee have banned them. Everybody else, the manufacturers just took the word "cigarette" off the box and now they are "candy sticks." Same chalky stick, same little red tip, same questionable life lesson. You can find them on most of the retro shops above.
Am I going to tell you whether to buy them for your grandkids? No. That is between you, your daughter-in-law, and your conscience. I will say I had a pack a week from age six to age twelve and I never picked up the real thing, so make of that what you will.
A few things to watch for
Two warnings before you hit "add to cart" on any of these sites.
One: Watch the shipping. A small box of nostalgia candy can run you eight or nine dollars in product and twelve dollars to ship. Some of these sites build it into the price, some pile it on at checkout. Read the total before you commit.
Two: Watch the freshness. Retro candy by definition is slow-moving inventory. The good shops rotate stock. The bad ones do not. If something shows up tasting like cardboard, send it back and write the review. That is the only language some of these outfits understand.
The takeaway
Most of the candy you remember is still out there. Some of it tastes exactly like 1962. Some of it has been reformulated and you will know it on the first bite. Either way, ordering a small box and splitting it with your spouse on the porch is one of the cheaper pleasures left in this life. Twenty bucks, an afternoon, and a conversation about the corner store you grew up around. Worth every penny.
Just keep your dentist's number handy.
