Yesterday we went to one of my favorite events of the year, a local antique and vintage Toy Show. It's held in a shared venue with a farmer's market, which makes it very crowded, and lots of fun to people watch (little old ladies gently pottering along with their shopping bags, looking for fresh produce, are jostled by panicked vintage toy collectors, reminiscent of the Comic Store Guy from the Simpsons, racing towards the rare find they can see in a booth across the room.)
We raced and jostled with the best of them, and, although I missed out on a 1950s Mr. Potato Head set in its original box (I could SEE it, but just couldn't get around the corner of the table fast enough...darn little old farmer's marketing ladies...) we came home with lots of fabulous finds, including:
-4 vintage games: the Dark Shadows Game made by Whitman in 1968; Mr. Mad, a battery-operated, marble-spewing robot game made by Ideal in 1970; Kerplunk, another Ideal creation, from 1967; and an early edition of Barrel of Monkeys
-a fantastic 1950s felt beanie hat, loaded with vintage Cracker Jack and gumball machine charms
-2 German dollhouse tables, circa the 1920s, priced at only $5.00 each!
-a tiny set of German porcelain dollhouse dishes, circa the late 1900s, with a tureen, gravy boat, cream pictcher, vegetable dish, plates, and tray, found in an old candy box beneath a pile of junk, priced at just $10.00!
- a little Scandia House pencil top troll from the 1960s, 1 1/2 inches tall, still in her original outfit, spotted in a grab bag of (mostly) junk, for just $5.00, too!
-4 vintage dexterity puzzles, mostly from the 1950s: a Cracker Jack prize; a fortune teller; a space-themed dome shaped one with great graphics; and a nursery rhyme design
-a fantastic space-themed card game from 1952 called Space Race; it features fabulous illustrations of mid-century rocketships, spacemen, and aliens
-a set of tiny 1960s robot figures, possibly gumball machine prizes
-a huge lot of R & L cereal premium figures from the 1960s-70s: Astro-Nits, Funny Fringes, Toolie Birds, Crater Critters, etc.
-and 3 interesting old Valentines
Seen, longed-for, but not purchased were a German-made, mohair clockwork cat from the early 1900s (standing and dressed, like Puss in Boots, it danced when wound, and was incredibly beautiful); and a whole booth full of vintage monster movie posters and ads, along with the much-sought Green Ghost and Outer Limits board games. Everything in the monster booth was priced at the very top of "book values" and, consequently, has remained in this booth, unsold, for the past several years...I have a feeling the dealer doesn't really want to sell any of it; he just wants to show it off, a sadly not uncommon thing among some rare toy dealers...)
Pics to come later this week!
What a haul! It must be frustrating to see these dealers with overpriced monster goods. At the same time, there is (maybe?) something touching about them wanting to hang on to their treasures.
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