One Columbus man has turned a hobby into a museum exhibit that's gaining attention from The National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

And this collection had a little something for everyone.

There is every lunch box in this room you can think of. From Charlie Brown to the Muppet Babies most lunch boxes cost around 20, 25 dollars. But some, hundreds, even thousands of dollars.

“A 1954 Superman in mint condition, I've heard that one of them actually went for auction two or three years ago for over 5,000 dollars,” said museum owner, Allen Woodall.

Among approximately 2,000 lunch boxes in Woodall's collection is a 1954 superman. When the Smithsonian was looking to add to its collection of the mini-time capsules... it even paid Woodall a visit.

“You know, the dirty ones where they'd been hit on the corners where they might have had a little fight with the lunch boxes. They wanted to lunch boxes that had really been used and not the ones that were in mint condition,” he explained.

The Smithsonian bought some of Woodall's boxes. He donated others, even loaning out the most desirable, so called "holy grail" of lunch boxes. The 1935 Mickey Mouse.

“For a five year tour, that the Smithsonian did showing off part of their lunchbox collection. And it traveled all over the country,” he said.

That box is back home in Columbus now. Of all the things he's collected, Woodall said he can't believe how much interest people have in the lunch boxes.

“The lunch boxes show off a lot of our history of all the old TV sitcoms. All the big advertising agencies they figured well, a good way to reach the school kids is let's put our favorite characters on lunch boxes and they going to take that TV show to school with them,” he said.

This is the lunch box that started it all. It's the 1951 Hopalong Cassidy and once it became more and more popular everyone wanted to be on a lunch box.

For more on the Columbus Lunch Box Museum and the lunch box museum at the Smithsonian, tune in to the Today Show Monday morning. The museum recently relocated from 3228 Hamilton Road, to the International Marketplace Antiques and Flea Market at 318 10th Avenue.