An unofficial fan site

Every head tells a story.

A little brick of candy, a flip-top dispenser, and nearly a century of characters perched on top. This is a home for the people who love them — the history and the hunt.

Play the games Read PezLife

Go ahead — tilt a head.

1927the year the mint was born
1949the first dispenser
12candies in every roll
80+countries where PEZ is sold
The 60-second version

How a breath mint grew a head

PEZ did not start out as a toy, or even as something for kids. Four moments turned it into a collecting phenomenon.

1927

The mint

Austrian confectioner Eduard Haas III creates a small peppermint for adults and first sells it in Vienna. The name is cut from the German word for peppermint: PfeffErminZ.

1949

The dispenser

A slim, pocketable dispenser makes its debut at the Vienna Trade Fair. No head, no character — it looks like a cigarette lighter. Collectors call these “regulars.”

1950s

The heads

PEZ crosses to America in 1952, swaps mint for fruit and aims at kids. A full-body Santa and Robot arrive in 1955; the first character head, a Halloween Witch, in 1957.

1987

The feet

Little tabs are added to the base so dispensers stand up on their own — 1984 in Europe, 1987 in the U.S. “Feet or no feet?” is still the first thing a collector checks.

Fun facts

Small facts, big at parties

It began as a quit-smoking mint

The first PEZ was a peppermint for grown-ups, sold as an alternative to smoking. The slogan: “Smoking prohibited, PEZing allowed!”

Twelve to a roll

Every roll holds exactly twelve candies — one full load for a dispenser.

3,000 pounds

That is the pressure PEZ says it takes to press sugar into one little brick.

Five billion a year

By PEZ’s own count, about 5 billion candies and 70 million dispensers are made every year, and sold in more than 80 countries.

No, eBay was not built for PEZ

The famous story — that eBay was started so its founder’s fiancée could trade dispensers — was invented in 1997 by the company’s PR manager. eBay later admitted it was “slightly blown out of proportion.”

A donkey for the President

When John F. Kennedy visited Vienna in 1961, PEZ made a Political Donkey dispenser as a gift. PEZ says it is one of only three known to exist.

The $32,000 question

A prototype made for the 1982 World’s Fair reportedly drew eBay bids past $32,000 in 2006. It gets quoted everywhere as a sale — but nobody has ever confirmed what was actually paid.

Screen time

A Tweety dispenser stole a whole episode of Seinfeld in 1992. And in Stand By Me, the one food Vern would eat for the rest of his life? Cherry-flavored PEZ.

Pezheads

That is what collectors call themselves. Their first national get-together was on June 15, 1991, in Mentor, Ohio, and it carries on today as PEZamania.

New · games

Liked tilting the heads? Pop them off.

Two fan-made games, free in your browser: a shooting gallery where a candy blaster pops the heads off dispensers, and a candy toss with a basket that will not sit still.

Play the games
New · the comic strip

Meet the Tiltons

PezLife is our four-panel comic about an ordinary family of flip-tops with one small problem: laugh, nod or sneeze, and a candy comes out. Start with the family photo nobody can get through.

Read PezLife
The first PezLife strip: the Tilton family tries to take a family photo, everyone laughs, all four heads flip back and candy flies at the camera.
Speak the language

Pezhead lingo

Pezhead
A PEZ collector. Worn as a badge of honor.
Regular
The original headless dispenser — just a stem and a flip-top cap.
Stem
The body of the dispenser. Its color can make or break a variation.
Feet / no feet
Whether the base has the stand-up tabs added in the mid-1980s. No feet means older.
MOC & MIB
Mint on card and mint in bag: still sealed in the original packaging.
Variation
Same character, different mold, color or country. Where the real hunting happens.
The club

Your shelf, online

A database made for dispensers, so every collector can run their own — and a price guide that shows its work, open to everybody.

Free to join

Your own collector database

Catalog every piece you own, keep a wishlist, add photos, and import or export a spreadsheet whenever you like.

 Open · early days

A price guide that shows its work

What sellers are asking today, how many listings each figure came from, and which way it is moving. Updated through the year, not once a year.

 In the database

Lists you can share anywhere

A link to your wishlist or your trade list that you can paste into the groups and chats where collectors already are.

Where the facts come from

The dates and facts on this site were checked in September 2026 against the sources below. Where sources disagreed we went with the manufacturer’s own records; where something could not be traced, we left it out.