A HOLIDAY TRADITION PERSISTS, PRECARIOUSLY.

Between sugar subsidies raising the price of candy ingredients in the States, and free trade agreements reducing tariffs on manufactured goods imported to the States, it has been a tough quarter century for candy manufacturers, including the old New England Confectionery Company, which used to produce its NECCO wafers in Wisconsin.

The wafers ("the communion wafer of candy"), Valentine hearts, and Clark bars might still be with us, if perhaps again originating in the Midwest.

The Ohio-based Spangler Candy Co. had the winning $18.83 million bid for the New England Confectionery Co., or Necco, at a federal bankruptcy auction in Boston.

The deal from the company that makes Dum Dums lollipops will most likely ensure a future, at least in the short term, for some of the nation’s most familiar candies.

“They’re a crowd favorite,” said Chris Baker, who sells Necco candies at his Old Country Store & Emporium in Mansfield, Massachusetts. “I like to see our traditions continue. Any time we lose one, it’s a loss for all of us. And this is something that everybody’s had a million times.”

Necco’s court-appointed bankruptcy trustee, Harry Murphy, said the company’s suitors were mainly interested in its “sugar line” – its tubes of wafers, sheets of candy dots, and the conversation hearts popular on Valentine’s Day for phrases such as BE MINE.

The future of Necco’s other products – including the chocolate Sky Bar, the Clark Bar and peanut butter-flavored Mary Jane chews – remains unclear, he said. The company would continue to be run out of its longtime headquarters in Revere, just north of Boston.

Hm, with marijuana becoming legal, that Mary Jane brand might be more valuable for its rights than for its sugar highs.