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Conversation Hearts
Conversation hearts trace back to 1866, when Boston pharmacist Oliver Chase's candy company — the New England Confectionery Company, or NECCO — adapted a candy-stamping machine originally built for medicinal lozenges to press short printed phrases directly onto small candy tablets, creating one of the earliest examples of mass-produced novelty candy with text printed on it. The heart shape and the format's specific Valentine's Day association arrived in 1902, when Daniel Chase, Oliver's brother, introduced the small pastel candy hearts stamped with short romantic and playful phrases like "BE MINE" and "KISS ME" that became the format's enduring signature. NECCO manufactured the candy continuously from its Massachusetts factories for well over a century before the company went bankrupt and closed in 2018, a shutdown that briefly threatened the future of the candy entirely before Ohio-based Spangler Candy Company purchased the Sweethearts brand and resumed production in time for the following Valentine's Day. Its combination of one of the earliest mass-produced printed-message candies in American history and a genuine brand survival story after its original manufacturer's collapse has made conversation hearts one of the most nostalgic and distinctly old-fashioned Valentine's Day gifts still produced today.
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Box of Chocolates
Whitman's Sampler, introduced by the Philadelphia-based Stephen F. Whitman & Son candy company in 1912, is widely credited as one of the first nationally distributed boxed chocolate assortments, and its now-iconic quilted-pattern box became a Valentine's Day staple almost from the start, sold with a printed guide inside the lid so buyers could identify each individual chocolate. The heart-shaped candy box specifically became a Valentine's Day signature in the following decades, with major candy companies including Russell Stover and Whitman's both building dedicated heart-shaped packaging lines specifically timed for release each January and February. The gift's enduring popularity rests substantially on its built-in variety — a single box lets a giver offer a range of flavors and textures without having to guess a single "correct" chocolate, a practical advantage that's helped keep the assorted box format dominant over single-flavor chocolate gifts for well over a century. Its combination of one of the earliest nationally distributed boxed candy assortments and a purpose-built heart-shaped format that candy companies still manufacture specifically for the holiday each year has made the box of chocolates one of the most enduring and recognizable Valentine's Day gifts in American history.
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