fairware

The bartender at Patrick Sullivan's said the cups were new. After all, who would want to drink from a 25 year old plastic cup? Despite what the bartender said, I want to believe that they were the real deal, not a reproduction. In my imagination, a box full of the 1982 World's Fair cups must have been recently uncovered in a dingy back room of the 119-year-old former brothel.



I brought some of the cups home from the bar. The words "Comet" and "Chelmsford, Mass. USA" are on the bottom in tiny molded letters. The cups are probably not old enough to interest the "History Detectives" on PBS, so I tried searching the Internet myself for anything I could find about them.

Cometware is made by a company called Waddington North America. I got the impression from their website that the Cometware brand is separate from their line of souvenir cups. I wonder if Comet was an older brand that was acquired by WNA and if so, when? If the World's Fair cups are new, would they say "Comet" or "WNA" on the bottom? Does anybody remember seeing a cup like this at the World's Fair in 1982?