It’s already been a few weeks since my previous Treasure Box post, and, as promised, this one has a little bit of everything in it. Although I’m positive all these items came home with me from Mexico, I’ve long since forgotten the exact way in which I acquired them. I’m also not including here my beloved stack of Mexican comic books, since they were never kept in the cigar box. Some of these treasures are clearly touristy items, like the one above; my favorites are the small toys, often freebies that came included inside some food packaging.

This is meant to be the Mexican flag, depicting an eagle sitting on a cactus, grasping a snake in the claws of one foot. In reality, aside from the colors it doesn’t look much like the flag — all I can see is an overweight vulture sitting inside a Christmas wreath.

A temporary tattoo that I never quite got around to using

Hand-carved miniatures — the rolling pin is barely 3 inches long

The tiny ceramic pot shown above was a gift from one of the families we stayed with; it was originally filled with some sort of sweet paste that was delicious but extremely spicy!

Mexico City hosted the Olympic Games in October 1968, and I somehow came into possession of four small metal discs commemorating the gold medal winners of the fencing, sailing, rowing, and pole vaulting events. Even though some of the finish has worn away, it’s still possible to read the information on the back of each disc. Above, Rumania’s Ion Drimba took gold in the Foil Individual, Mens.

Robert Seagren (USA), pole vault, 5.40 meters

Ulf, Jörgen, and Peter Sundelin (Sweden), Sailing 5.5 meter

Sass/Timoshinin (USSR), Double sculls

Candy wrapper from a flight I took with my mom on the national airline, Aero Mexico

In the summer of 1976 my dad made the trip to Mexico on his own; when he returned he gave me this pamphlet containing his bus ticket for a journey from Guadalajara to Tepic.

You may have heard of Mexican Jumping Beans before; although they’re not truly beans, they are a real thing, and they tend to twitch more than jump around. Either way, these are NOT real Mexican Jumping Beans (as you probably already realized). They are a toy version made of hard plastic with a small pellet of lead inside. I originally had more than two of them, but the others disappeared… much like the painted-on eyes of the “bean” on the right.