I love old collectible drinking glasses, despite the fact that they may or may not be bad for your health due to the levels of lead supposedly used in the paint. Thrift stores and antique malls are loaded with these things, but like everything else, prices have risen over the past 5-10 years. My limit for these character glasses is about $5, so I was thrilled to find these glasses marked for a buck each at a Ft. Worth antique mall!

From what I can find, these are from the “Action” series of McDonald’s drinking glasses, released in 1977. I have never seen these before so I was thrilled to find four of the six all for a dollar each. (I’m only missing Hamburgler and Big Mac.)

Compare these to the “Collector” series, also released in the late 70s.

I do have all six of these — I just took a picture of the same four characters for consistency. I also have all of the McDonald’s Sports Mugs, released around the same time.

Collecting these things can be a slippery slope as there are so many of them. For the most part I’ve tried to stick with the McDonald’s characters and the classic Star Wars trilogy glasses, although occasionally I’ll pick up a Great Muppet Caper, Peanuts, or Smurf glass if the price is right. I keep one of each of the glasses on the shelf and if I find duplicates they go into regular drinking glass rotation, lead paint be damned.