Confuse your grandkids, use the term milk nickel: "Would you like a milk nickel?"

[rickandcindy23]

This is for older folks like me. I am 70. Rick and I still call them milk nickels. The looks on the grandkids' faces mirrors the faces we got from our kids in the early 1980's, when we offered them milk nickels.

Of course, the phrase came from what it cost in the 1960's. Just like candy bars and a pack of gum were 5 cents, so were milk nickels. A box of six could be purchased at the local market for thirty-nine cents, just like a box of candy bars were .39.

The Haagen Daaz (spelling?) at Sam's Club are pretty good, smaller bars, about .40 each in the giant quantity box, so not bad.

 

[tombanjo]

confuse us old folks too, never heard of them

 

[rickandcindy23]

Really? Never heard of milk nickels? We just generically called any brand a milk nickel. The term generically was probably never even in the vernacular back in the '60's.

My grandma always called them milk nickels and bought them for us, when we went to town to shop for groceries.

 

[Passepartout]

I'd never heard of these either. Was it ice-cream or just candy? I suspect ice-cream because of the penguins on the wrapper. My Wisconsin raised DW has never heard the term either.

 

[rickandcindy23]

It was an ice cream bar.

 

[Luanne]

Nope, never heard of them.

 

[clifffaith]

I thought you were talking about going to school with a nickel for milk (although we took a dime for “nutrition” — a cookie or piece of bread with milk or juice at 10am). Only because @tombanjo posted a picture did I realize you were talking about Eskimo Pies! Never saw a Milk Nickel in Los Angeles (I’m about to turn 69; 86 year old Cliff never saw them in the Dallas area, but allows they may have been “after his time”). BTW, we call all sweets “pie” so a brownie can be pie just as easily as an Eskimo Pie!

 

[WaikikiFirst]

still call them milk nickels.

Local thing? Never heard of em

 

[Luanne]

From the picture that's what we just called an ice cream bar.

 

[slip]

Nope, never heard of it either.

 

[easyrider]

Really? Never heard of milk nickels? We just generically called any brand a milk nickel. The term generically was probably never even in the vernacular back in the '60's.

My grandma always called them milk nickels and bought them for us, when we went to town to shop for groceries.

Never heard of a milk nickel. I was never a fan of plain milk and probably never will be with the exception of using milk as a mixer for whisky occasionally. Were these wooden nickels ?

Bill

 

[vacationtime1]

We had "milk money" (milk cost a nickel) and "milk machines" (the coin-operated machine dispensing the 8 oz. containers of milk).

 

[Dori]

Nope, never heard the term before.

Dori

 

[rickandcindy23]

Colorado and Nebraska thing, maybe? That was what everyone we knew called them.

 

[1Kflyerguy]

I am 63, never heard this term. Guessing it was not common in California.

 

[mentalbreak]

Colorado and Nebraska thing, maybe? That was what everyone we knew called them.

just polled my family and the term didn’t make it to our family in MN or IA

 

[Passepartout]

Colorado and Nebraska thing, maybe? That was what everyone we knew called them.

Face it, Cindy, it's a regional thing. Everybody has 'em. water flows in 'cricks', and 'Spuds' can either be light brown and come from cellars or be nougat wrapped in chocolate with coconut outside. Like this:

 

[b2bailey]

Nope, not me.

 

[pedro47]

Never heard of it. Virginia

 

[Brett]

Never heard of it. Virginia

yeah, must be a regional thing
I once had a wooden nickel

 

[DRIless]

It was an ice cream bar.

Actually, no, it was an ice milk bar.

 

[rapmarks]

No never heard of it in Chicago

 

[rickandcindy23]

Actually, no, it was an ice milk bar.

Yes, more milk than cream, I think.

Love the spud candy bar. Never heard of it. I also never knew about some marshmallow cookie pie things until we traveled east.

 

[joestein]

I thought you were talking about going to school with a nickel for milk (although we took a dime for “nutrition” — a cookie or piece of bread with milk or juice at 10am). Only because @tombanjo posted a picture did I realize you were talking about Eskimo Pies! Never saw a Milk Nickel in Los Angeles (I’m about to turn 69; 86 year old Cliff never saw them in the Dallas area, but allows they may have been “after his time”). BTW, we call all sweets “pie” so a brownie can be pie just as easily as an Eskimo Pie!

I thought the same thing. I think either 5 cents or 10 cents was the price of milk in high school in the 1980s. I think the full cost for lunch in high school was 80 cents?

 

[clifffaith]

35 cents bought lunch in grammar school in the mid-60s. I lived less than a block from school so I only ate there on hamburger/hot dog days unless my stay-at-home mom had something else going on. By junior high and high school everything was priced individually and you paid for what you wanted. Thinking back, I know there were severely disadvantaged kids in junior high (1967-68), but I don’t know if there were free lunch programs then. One of the things that impressed me during Covid was that families could still pick up free breakfast and lunch, and you could take meals for yourself or grandma too. I have to admit to this news catching my eye because See’s was donating candy from their closed stores to the lunch programs in Los Angeles.