For sale is a 1950’s BILLY’S BRETZELS & PRETZELS TIN from W.M. R. Edmondson, Reading, PA. This green and silver vintage tin features the iconic flying pretzel logo. This tin is in very good condition but has some surfaces scratches and some small rust spots. The tin measures about 9 inches tall and 9 1/8 inches diameter. A nice collectible tin.
1827, the first pretzel in the United States is said to have been baked in the city of Lancaster. PA. A year or two before the Civil War, Benjamin Lichtenthaler, a baker, started making pretzel’s in Reading, PA which is known today as the pretzel capital of the world. At the time of his death in 1893, his factory’s output was 1,500,000 pretzels a year. In 1900, the Lichtenthaler Bretzel Company was succeeded by the Pennsylvania Bretzel Company. At that time the local pretzel bakeries, incidentally, spelled their product “bretzels”. In 1931, William R. Edmundson established Billy’s Butter Bretzels which was the last company in Reading that continued the original ‘Bretzels” spelling.
