Spangles belong to a small club of discontinued British sweets that still get brought up in conversation decades after they disappeared — helped, in part, by one genuinely clever piece of 1950s sweet design.
Launched into rationing, and built around it
Mars launched Spangles in the UK in 1950, during a period when sweets were still subject to rationing. Most sweets at the time cost two ration points; Spangles needed only one, which gave them a real practical edge over competing sweets quite apart from how they tasted. That timing advantage, combined with being a genuinely well-regarded boiled sweet in its own right, helped the brand build a following that outlasted rationing itself by decades.
The mystery wrapper
Each flat, squarish, individually wrapped sweet came in a range of flavours sold together in one packet — but the format had a built-in game attached: one wrapper in every pack carried a question mark instead of a flavour name, marking a genuine mystery sweet whose flavour you wouldn't know until you'd unwrapped and tasted it. It's a small detail, but it's one of the things people most consistently remember about the brand decades on.
Discontinued in 1984, revived once, then dropped again
Spangles were discontinued in 1984 after roughly 34 years on shelves. A brief comeback followed in the mid-1990s, sold through Woolworths in a reduced range of flavours — accounts vary on whether it was two or four — but the relaunch didn't catch on commercially and was quietly dropped a second time. Tooth-decay concerns are sometimes cited as a reason for the original discontinuation, though that specific claim isn't well documented in verifiable sources.
What's left of the brand today
Tunes, a throat lozenge that shared Spangles' distinctive packaging style, is often mentioned as the closest surviving relative — though it's no longer in production either, having been discontinued itself in 2017. There's no current path back to shelves for Spangles, which leaves it firmly in nostalgia territory. For the closest modern equivalent of an individually wrapped boiled sweet, our Retro Sweets collection is the better place to look.
Frequently asked questions
What were Spangles?
Individually wrapped, flat boiled sweets made by Mars from 1950, sold in mixed-flavour packets with one mystery wrapper per pack.
Why were Spangles so popular when they launched?
They needed only one sweet-ration point rather than the usual two, on top of being well-liked in their own right.
When were Spangles discontinued?
1984, with a brief, unsuccessful mid-1990s relaunch through Woolworths.
Can you still buy Spangles?
No — there's no current production, and the similarly packaged Tunes lozenge was itself discontinued in 2017.
Sources: Wikipedia: Spangles; Wikipedia: Tunes.