Deep inside McDonald’s Chicago headquarters is a nondescript room that holds 71 years of fast-food history. The McDonald’s archive is a veritable McMuseum packed with giant stuffed Big Macs, a four-eyed Grimace, shelves of Happy Meal toys and even a 2020 Travis Scott Chicken McNugget body pillow, Restaurant Business reports.
Senior archive manager Mike Bullington has overseen the collection for 21 years. He says the most valuable item is a 10-year anniversary ring Ray Kroc once wore. There are also Kroc’s Multimixer milkshake machines that he sold when he met the McDonald brothers in 1954.
The archive is closed to the public, but company teams use it for research. When McDonald’s upgraded its burgers, Bullington showed them a 1972 Quarter Pounder training tape. “It’s not a closet of curiosities,” he says. “This is a business resource.”
One item has eluded Bullington and he wants to get his hands on it: a 1983 nine-piece Chicken McNugget box, from before the chain switched to 10 pieces in 1993. He has the six and the 20, but the nine in his white whale. Got one in the attic? Make him a McOffer.
