I Finally Found Sweethearts Candy Hearts, But There’s a Problem

Valentine's Day of 2019 was a dark year for candy lovers. It was the first time since 1901 that there were no Sweethearts conversation hearts. You know the ones with sayings like "Be Mine" on them. Well they're back this year, but there's good news and bad news.

First what I think is the good news. The company that bought NECCO, who made Sweethearts before going bankrupt, promised to have Sweethearts conversation hearts back in 2020. The Spangler Candy Company made good on their promise and I saw them on the shelves at Hannaford in Portland on Tuesday, so I grabbed four boxes at 50 cents a piece. Good deal!

Spangler changed the flavor of the Sweethearts back to the original flavor, which are made the same way NECCO wafers were made, just smaller, thicker and shaped like hearts. People either love NECCO wafers or hate them, but most people didn't seem to mind when they were shaped like hearts. I love NECCO wafers, so this is good news for me.

But after I ate a couple I noticed something was missing, so I emptied the box onto the table and look what I found.

Not a single heart had anything printed on it. Completely blank! All four boxes. Not that I really care because I'm it for the candy not the messages.

It turns out the machine that prints the messages on the hearts broke and Spangler couldn't get it fixed in time for Valentine's day, so if you get a heart with something printed on it, consider yourself lucky. 65% of all the hearts produced this year are blank. 24% aren't readable and 8% only have a partial saying.

That means of all the Sweethearts Conversation Hearts out there, only 3% will have a saying you can read on them. If you get one, it's almost like winning the lottery. Save that sucker and put it under glass. It's a collectible. (No, don't do that. It's not collectible at all.)