"Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier" came to the big screen in 1955 after enjoying a wildly popular television series. Along with the movie was the song, "Ballad of Davy Crockett," which landed on the Hit Parade.

In that era, children far and wide were whistling the song and buying merchandise with his likeness sprayed across it.

Today, those '50s children are still buying the merchandise, only as collectibles to remind them of their childhood hero.

Fess Parker, the star of the Davy Crockett TV series and big screen movie once said, "I've walked around for 40 years in the warm glow from people enjoying and remembering that series." Parker now owns a very successful winery in southern California and brings home awards for his wine instead of Emmys for a television series.

Back in the day, a kid wasn't cool unless he or she owned one of Davy Crockett's coonskin hats. Today, one of those hats would probably sell for around $20. A full outfit lists on eBay for around $50. Interestingly, eBay has more than five pages of listings for Davy Crockett goods. The most expensive seems to be sets of picture cards, some signed by Parker and some not, advertising for several thousand dollars.

Besides toys, records and cards that can be right pricey, there is the lunchbox. As we know, most every kid packed his or her lunch in the 1950s, and having just the right lunch box was important. There were four different lunchboxes, and they can now sell for hundreds of dollars.

What is interesting about the Davy Crockett craze is that the story was based on a real character. Crockett was actually a frontiersman who rose to the ranks of United States Congressman from Tennessee. He would later die at the Alamo with his good friend Jim Bowie. So this opens a whole new element to the collectibles that one could investigate. A signature of the real Davy Crockett and one from Fess Parker might be a dynamo pair for a collector.

There have been many books published on the real Crockett and several on Davy Crockett collectibles. There are several Web sites devoted to the real Crockett, plus some about the memorabilia from the '50s. This is a fun topic to investigate, particularly if you are one of those folks who can still hum a line or two of the ballad.

Jean McClelland writes about antiques for The Herald-Dispatch.