Chiquita Banana Ride-On Toy

It's been a busy summer here, with not much time left for posting my latest finds. In fact, today is really the last day of summer for most people, as schools reopen tomorrow. But today is all about lounging outside and enjoying the sunshine, as Americans flock to beaches and parks for the Labor Day holiday.

And what better way to do that than by banana car? This fabulous 2 foot long ride-on banana was made in the late 1960s - early 70s and sold in grocery stores as a promotional item, along with its partner, the Heinz Pickle car, featured in the previous post.

For another unusual vintage ride-on toy, check out the Mr. Potato Head car.

Heinz Pickle Ride-On Toy

The winter weather has finally begun to lift here in the north, and that means it's time to get back outside. Let's head out with one of my favorite vintage ride-on toys: the Heinz pickle car. 

Made in the late 1960s-early 1970s, the pickle ride-on was apparently a promotional item featured in grocery store displays. Measuring 2 feet long, the sturdy plastic pickle had a companion piece, a ride-on Heinz ketchup bottle, which is even more elusive than this scarcely seen toy.

For another odd vintage toy vehicle, take a look at my Mr. Potato Head ride-on.

Antique Dollhouse Candy Store

After years of collecting, I've learned that the best toys sometimes come in the plainest of boxes. The simple cardboard container below gives no hint of the beautiful antique toy within. It measures 5 inches tall by 9 1/2 inches wide.

When the lid is lifted back, the front panel drops, revealing Pets Candy Store, a miniature shop made in England circa the 1890s.

To set up the shop, a pink candy counter slides out of the base. Then the counter can be set with its accessories, including tin candy and biscuit containers; glass bottles of faux candies; a tin scale, scoop, and dish; and cardboard coins.

All the accessories are original to the store. The doll was added later but suits it perfectly, a close match to the little girl depicted on the shop's lithographed sign in the box lid.

Some of the containers originally held real candies and biscuits, fossilized remnants of which were still intact when I opened them. The tiny Peek Frean & Company biscuit tins are two inches tall.

The Pets Candy tins are a bit bigger at 3 1/2 inches tall, and feature colorfully lithographed labels.

A little glass bottle holds faux candies made of gilded wood.

Completing the set are tiny tin accessories including a scale, molded dish, and scoop, along with cardboard coins.

The shop is the perfect size for miniature teddy bears in search of sweets.

Vintage Playtown Luncheonette

Welcome back to Playtown: I've posted before about this line of miniature shops and accessories made in New York from the 1940s - 1950s. The sets ranged from a small, simple grocery store to a deluxe diner called the Playtown Luncheonette, while other items included a bakery and a meat market. Sold separately, together they made up a miniature municipality able to meet the shopping and dining needs of most small doll and teddy bear inhabitants.

The Playtown pieces have a devoted fan base, spurred both by nostalgia and the considerable charm of the toys' design.

Here's the luncheonette, which I found unplayed with in its original box, its accessories still sealed in a brittle cellophane bag. (Which is not the case any longer...)

The luncheonette measures 10 inches wide by 6 high, and came packed in this cardboard box.

The diner came with wooden stools, bowls, plates, cups, and bottles; an assortment of plaster food items; a plastic Renwal radio; and metal accessories including a cash register, toaster, and waffle iron. I added the pastry case, coffee pot, soda dispenser, and plate of donuts (a diner has to have donuts.)

The diner features very authentic stencilled signage advertising its specials, including grilled cheese, pancakes, and a banana split (only 25 cents!) along with very vintage images of a waitress and chef. The Coca-Cola logo is original to the luncheonette, and makes this Playtown set also sought by Coke collectors.

The plastic Renwal radio is the same one used in dollhouses of the period.

What's to eat? Hot dogs and hamburgers, of course! These examples are of molded and painted plaster.

The plaster desserts in the display case are also original to the set, but a bit mystifying. Are they Jellos? Cakes? A Jello and a cake? I suspect the yellow one on the left may be an apple dumpling.

While the Playtown shops are fantastic toys on their own, and loads of fun to set up and accessorize, they also make great display props for miniature dolls and bears. The little dolls made in this same era by the Flagg company are perfectly sized to staff the luncheonette.

Order up!  A slider and two dogs on a bun.

Bears get hungry too. This miniature Steiff is just the right height to eye the pastry case.

Antique Bear & Badges: Mr. Oddfellow

I've posted once before about this bear, shortly after I found him, but he's had a lot of work done since then and I thought he was worth another look. One of the favorites from my collection, this large, 20 inch British bear dates from around 1915, and came wearing an antique child's coat of cranberry colored wool. His original owner had added a few school pins to the coat, including a prefect's badge and what might have been a track and field medal.

I added an old Oddfellows pin, given that the bear has a rather odd, yet endearing, appearance. At some point in his long life, he experienced eye replacement surgery, and apparently his doctor was all out of matching shoe buttons. I wouldn't change it though: the mismatched eyes give him great character.

Anyway, every time I'm antiquing I keep an eye out for more badges for Oddfellow's coat. Here's what he has so far:

Some of my favorites are in this closeup: another Oddfellows badge, a "23 Skidoo!" pinback from the 1920s, and a teeny tiny Charlie McCarthy.

The large Oddfellows badge below dates to the early 1900s.

Vintage pins, including a University of Michigan football badge, an old State Fair souvenir, and a Heinz Pickles advertising pin adorn the left side of the coat.

Another favorite, these flight wings were a premium from the Captain Midnight radio show:

Swift's Space Guide Advertising Premium

This 1950s space guide is one of the coolest advertising premiums I've come across recently. Released by a meat products company called Swift's, the 5 1/4 inch space guide has a turning wheel and die cut windows that reveal all sorts of interesting astronomical trivia. Need to know the surface temperature of Mars? Just turn the wheel and find out.

If you find yourself wondering, as I did, what meat products have to do with outer space, the connection is revealed on the back of the guide:

I believe this is the same Swift's Premium Company that distributed this ham shaped charm or watch fob in the 1920s (seen here in the kitchen of an old dollhouse).

Antique Carnival Items: Signs, Games, Punks, & More

Hurry, hurry, step right up and see my latest find: a huge lot of antique carnival items!  Most of the pieces are from the 1930s, and have seen heavy use in traveling carnivals. With their handmade nature and patina of age, they have a folk art quality that is very appealing.

First up: this hand lettered wooden sign for a coin toss game,
5 feet long:

Here's a closeup of the hand lettering, 

a fascinating art form:  

 

And, if you look closely at the "5", you can see where the old price of "10" cents was painted over, I'm guessing during the Depression years.

One of the most unusual pieces in the lot was this gigantic wooden sledgehammer, almost 3 feet tall, with a head a foot wide. The bands around the head are thick steel. It was used in the classic carnival High Striker, or bell ringing game, in which a fair goer would attempt to ring a bell at the top of a tall platform by hitting the base. This hammer is so heavy, I have no idea how anyone would have managed to swing it. I had to drag it up my stairs, stopping for a rest along the way...

One of the most interesting finds was another classic game, the milk bottle knock-down. The 7 inch wooden milk bottles were heavily dinged and scraped from decades of use. The game came with a basket full of its original, accompanying baseballs.

The goal was to knock the 3 bottles over with a tossed ball. It sounds simple, but in actuality, it hardly ever happened. Turning over the bottles reveals why: one has been hollowed out, and a lead weight inserted. The hole was then plugged, and the weight made it very difficult to knock over. In the photo below, the gaffed bottle is on the top of the pile.

Some of my favorite items in the find were an assortment of 3 carnival punks, or knock down dolls. In a game similar to the milk bottles, customers tried to knock the punks over to win a prize. The most common form of punk was a clown with a crazy halo of hair, which was made of wool in the earliest examples, like these 11 inch varieties:

The other punk was very unusual; I've never seen one quite like it. Measuring a very large 21 inches tall, it features a hand painted cat on green canvas, with the word "Lux" prominently spelled out, and yellow tassled fringe adorning the sides. It's a little spooky...

Another big sign, a bit more recent than the first and not as skillfully painted, was this 10 cent candy advertisement:

From a selection of shooting gallery targets, I chose this cast iron duck, 5 1/2 inches wide. Like the hammer shown previously, this target is so heavy, I don't see how it could ever have been successfully struck. Its age, wear, and weathering have given it a wonderful primitive charm.

Also from a shooting gallery came this double squirrel target, made of wood, cast iron, and steel, measuring 7 inches tall by 10 inches wide. It would originally have been one small segment in a wide shooting range composed of many similar pieces. After knocking the squirrels over, a hit on the center white circle target makes them pop back up again.

Here's a closeup of the squirrels, 2 inches tall: 

This last item is a bit more recent than the others, probably from the 1950s. It's another great hand lettered sign, 16 inches wide, most likely from a ticket booth.

It's an incredible feeling to hold these items and imagine the places they've been and the people they've seen...I can almost smell the cotton candy and hear the screams of riders on the roller coaster.

Antique Cracker Jack Bears Postcard

I've collected antique and vintage Cracker Jack prizes for several years, but I didn't have one of their iconic pieces, a Cracker Jack Bears postcard, until we found one this weekend at an antique show, buried deep within a tray of old postcards and photographs.

The Cracker Jack Bears were a couple of characters, probably inspired by the contemporary Roosevelt Bears and the concurrent teddy bear fad, used to promote the company's product back at the turn of the 20th century. They appeared in a series of 16 beautifully lithographed full-size postcards, and children were urged to collect them all.

This is number 14, with a copyright date of 1907, measuring 3 by 5 1/2 inches:

The back of the card reads:

"Sixteen Beautiful Post Cards, No Two Alike, (without this printing), sent Free to anyone who will mail us ten sides from Cracker Jack packages, reading, 'The more you eat, the more you want,' or mail us 10 c in silver or stamps and the side of one package. A 2 c stamp is enough to mail ten sides. Rueckheim Bros. & Eckstein, Chicago, U.S.A."

Vintage Invisible Man Weeble

Back in the 1970s, Scotch brand tape released a series of very creative television commercials featuring the Invisible Man, who promoted their product's high-quality "invisibility" when used for repairs.
Scotch also worked with the Hasbro toy company to create a promotional Weeble of the Invisible Man: a solid black Weeble with glow-in-the-dark hands, feet, and hat.
I didn't know anyone who had one of these back when we were kids: they were scarce back then, and are consequently even rarer today. Thank goodness for eBay...