What’s inside of a Huckster Truck Mystery Box?
Late last year I started seeing chatter about Huckster Truck and their Mystery Boxes in the Field Nuts group on Facebook. I was very curious, so when I saw that they had restocked this year with two varieties of mystery box, Economy and Penny Pincher, I thought I’d take the plunge, and see what was inside.
Let me start by disclaiming that I purchased this Economy Mystery Box at a discount using a coupon code. And speaking of the box, Bill Black, the man behind Huckster Truck, has pointed out that it is the perfect size to serve as an economy priced archival box for your Field Notes and other pocket notebooks.
I realize I’m just dragging out the unboxing here, but indulge me for one more moment as I share with you the care that goes in to the individual parcels that one finds upon opening the box.
Starting with the pencil pouch, inside we find a variety of items. We have Field Notes and Huckster Truck branded pencils, we have a couple of neat little DDC Brand items, we have some fun stickers, and we have a few rolls of smarties. And, of course, we have the pencil pouch itself, which is long enough to fit a full length Blackwing, so that’s useful in its own right.
Next up, we open our first parcel, and we find two items. The first is this past Winter’s edition of the Log+Jotter notebook, featuring the image of none other than the Tiger Electronics Talkboy, made famous in the 1992 film “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.” I desperately wanted a Talkboy back in the early 90s (but made do with my classic brown FisherPrice Tape Recorder) so I appreciate the reminder of this fun little piece of my childhood. Also included in this parcel is a Magnetic Finger Glove that I hope will come in very handy the next time I’m swapping out the battery in my doorbell, or doing other repairs around the house.
Opening our second parcel, we find a sealed three pack of standard kraft graph Field Notes. Not a super exciting thing to find in a mystery box, I’ll admit, but that’s part of what makes a Mystery Box so exciting. There’s no telling what you’re going to find inside, it’s not all rarities and windfalls.
Speaking of rarities, our final parcel is quite the find. All the way from China, this sealed package of two oversized Field Notes books is only available for purchase at the Starbucks Reserve Roastery that was opened in Shanghai in December of 2017. Hailing from the purported “largest Starbucks in the world”, these notebooks are a gorgeous shade of red, with gold foil stamping. Definitely something on the opposite end of the spectrum from standard kraft graph.
So, closing thoughts time. My thought is this: this is a box intended for a diehard fan of Field Notes. Someone who feels better about themselves throughout the day knowing that they combed their hair with a Draplin Design Co. branded comb. Someone who is psyched to find a plain pack of kraft graph notebooks because it it means that they can engage in their own “arts & krafts” decorating the cover themselves. As a big fan of red colored special editions, I was very excited to find the Shanghai Roastery pack in my box, but I also realize that if there had been a different edition in its place that didn’t specifically strike my fancy I might have been disappointed in the box overall. Huckster Truck does offer a money back guarantee if you receive your box and find yourself disappointed by its contents. At the moment Huckster Truck is sold out of mystery boxes, but they do sell the Economy Archival Box, sans mystery, for $2.95. When the mystery boxes are in stock, the Penny Pincher Mystery Box costs $29.99 and the Economy Mystery Box runs $49.99. According to Huckster Truck the difference between the two is that the Economy box comes with more products and, of course, the archival box itself. If the below picture of the complete contents of my box excites you, then I’d recommend keeping an eye on the Huckster Truck website for a restock.
