1970s British Mr. Potato Head

Part of a collection of vintage German and British Potato Heads I recently purchased, this boxed version was made in England by Peter Pan Toys in 1974. Licensed by Hasbro, it is nonetheless strikingly different from the American original. The plastic potato is a different shade of brown, and most of the accessory pieces are also differently colored and shaped. There was also a licensed character unique to England at this time: Mr. Egg Bodd, a hard-boiled egg man with an egg cup outfit he could wear. Sadly, I've yet to find one, but I remain hopeful.

Even though Mr. Potato Head came with a plastic potato by this time, this box depicts his friends made from real fruit and veggies. The art design of this box is quite crude compared to the richly illustrated German examples posted yesterday, but it has its own naive appeal.

Here's the British Mr. Potato Head inside his box,

surrounded by his simply drawn but charming friends.

West German Mr. Potato Head Sets

I recently acquired several vintage 1950s-60s West German and English Mr. Potato Head sets. Some are knock-offs, some were licensed by Hasbro, but they're all fascinatingly different from their American counterparts.

First up: three 1950s knock-off sets made in West Germany. They are all housed in flat cardboard boxes, the same size and shape as those a paper doll set would come in, or a tiddlywinks game. They were released at the time Mr. Potato Head still used real potatoes; the toy sets were comprised solely of accessory and limb parts, and it would be several years before the plastic potato was introduced.

"Mr. and Mrs. Funny Face" features intriguing illustrations of some rather sinister looking potatoes.

Inside, the parts are inserted into holes in the liner, and an illustration of an anxious-looking potato head with a Salvador Dali mustache serves as an example of a completed toy.

If Dali were a potato...

The next West German set features marvelous illustrations of fruit and veggie people on the cover.

The caption reads:

"MANY AMUSING CHARACTERS CAN BE MADE UP WITH THE AID OF

FRUIT OR VEGETABLES."

The interior is similar to that of the previous set:

Kinda creepy Mrs. Potato Head, no?

The last German set is more colorful and friendly seeming,

with bright colors and a happier looking Mr. P-Head.

Inside the "Mr. and Mrs. Funny Face" box.

This one's a jolly potato head, with a prominent pipe.

Coming up tomorrow: a licensed Mr. Potato Head made in England in the 1970s.

1972 Milton Bradley Ice Cube Game

Recently acquired: the holy grail of vintage board games! The now oh-so-rare-and-insanely-pricey Ice Cube was made by Milton Bradley in 1972, and is one of the most sought and most expensive vintage board games in existence. How expensive? Well, a mint example recently sold for as much as a brand-new iPad...so if you spot one at a yard sale, snap it up!

Inside the box.

Here's what happens: basically, players take turns torturing ice cube men (made of real ice) with devices like "The Salt Mine," "Warm Shower," "Hot Head," and "Bucket of Warm Water." The last ice cube man to melt wins the game, although this is a short-lived victory at best.

The game has elaborate prep: first, the tray of specially molded ice men (called "Meltin' Miltons") has to be filled with water and put into the freezer. It takes a couple of hours for the ice men to solidify, and, speaking from experience, you'll be sorry if you try to rush it. If the player's interest hasn't waned by the time the ice men are ready, they are popped out of their tray and...oh, look! They have cute little faces! They're even smiling at us! How adorable! Of course, the cheery, trusting faces of the ice men make their ensuing tortures even more horrible to behold.

Turns out taking a photograph of an ice cube's facial features isn't easy. If you look very closely, you may be able to make out an ear on each side, a big nose, 2 eyes, and a smiling mouth. It's a little clearer in the box illustration:

The newly molded ice men are inserted into little stands, which enable the players to move them around the board. The stands consist of a pair of plastic feet and a dapper little hat with a bow. A spike attached to the feet slides through a hole in the center of each ice man and sticks out the top of the hat, holding the assembly together and providing a handle for each player to grasp.

Each ice man is placed at his starting position on the board, then it's just a matter of spinning the wheel o' tortures to see which fate will befall each one. Will he have to stand under the hot shower? Take a bath in a tub of warm water? Be doused with a sprinkling of salt? Have a bucket of water dumped upon him? Or perhaps the most dreaded fate awaits him: the "Hot Head," in which a heated metal washer is placed atop the ice man! The game instructions cheerily call these possible spin outcomes "mission events."

The wheel o' tortures with icicle spinner.

The Salt Mine sprinkling.

 

 

The Hot Shower.

The infamous Hot Head torture. Poor ice cube man...he's melting fast!

Whichever he spins, the ice man remains there, slowly melting away, until either his next turn or until another player spins that fate. If he's very lucky, he'll spin "enter Deep Freeze," which gives him a brief respite in a chamber of comforting crushed ice. The tortures continue until only one ice man is left standing.

Ice Cube is, as you may imagine, an incredibly messy game. Melted water, crusty salt, and flaky rust from the heated metal washer eventually coat everything if not carefully cleaned off after each game, and, if not dried thoroughly before packing away, the result is stinky mold. Countless spring-cleaning mothers tossed these games out in disgust. Consequently, Ice Cube is hard to find today, especially in good, complete condition, and when found, it commands high prices. Sure, you could buy an iPad for what you'll pay for an Ice Cube game...but would you have as much fun? I don't think so.

Vintage Valentine: A Very Odd Gentleman

This is one of the oddest valentines I've ever found. If it wasn't for the caption printed on his shirt front, would you ever have guessed this was a valentine? Made in Germany in 1903, the monocled man's head can be spun upside down, changing his tufts of hair to whiskers. Either way, he's pretty creepy.

Bandersnatch Game

 

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

 The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

                                          - Lewis Carroll 

No one but Lewis Carroll himself really knows what a Bandersnatch looks like, but Mattel's toy designers gave it a go in 1969 with their game of the same name. Players chose cards and spun trying to get all the parts needed to build a 4 1/2 inch tall Bandersnatch figure. This odd game is rarely found today, rather like the Bandersnatch himself.

The game box and components are all in bright, psychedelic '60s colors, and the spinner is a tiny little Bandersnatch. 

The giggling Bandersnatch spinner.

The completed figure is like a bizarre, nightmare version of Mr. Potato Head. Beware the Bandersnatch, indeed.

1968 Pie Face Game

Presenting one of the rarest vintage games of all time: Pie Face, made by Hassenfeld Bros (Hasbro) in 1968. Pie Face came with a spinner, score sheet, cardboard target with cut-out window, and a pie launcher. Basically, you placed a whipped cream "pie" on the launcher, then took turns spinning to find out how many times to crank the launcher's handles. It was randomly set to let the pie fly into the player's face, positioned within the target. Sort of a cream pie version of Russian Roulette.

It was billed as "the most fun-filled action game you've ever played!" If, of course, your idea of fun was getting a pie slammed into your face.

The 15 1/2" tall target was made of cardboard...which helps explain why this game is so rare. I can't imagine they survived many whipped cream pie hits. The target is designed to make the player look like a clown, further adding to the humiliation.

Here's the pie launcher in readiness:

 And post-slam: 


















I wonder how many players really bothered to keep score...if I'd had one as a child, I expect my friends and I would have simply used it to torture my little sister.

Click here to see the original Pie Face television commercial in all its awesomeness. The lyrics are quite catchy:

"Turn the handles, 

hear them click, 

you'll never know 

when you'll be hit!

It's Pie Face!

Ask your mom 

for some cream,

Pile it high,

It's a scream!

Now we spin, what's the score?

Never had such fun before!

It's Pie Face!"

Latest Find!

>happy dance, happy dance<  

I just found the rarest vintage game on my wish list, something I actually thought I would never, ever own. It hasn't arrived yet, but I'm so excited, I couldn't wait to brag tell everyone about it. What is it? Only one of the strangest, most possibly dangerous, family board games ever created. Watch the original television commercial here to get a glimpse of it in action!

Vintage Troll Planter

I stopped by a barn sale last weekend, and was about to leave after disappointedly poking about the rusty tools and old gardening things when I spotted this guy peeking out from behind a flowerpot. Yay: a vintage troll! I'm always on the hunt for those, and they're getting harder and harder to find.

Once I picked him up, it made sense that he was with the gardening things after all, as he is actually a planter. The ceramic troll, about 5 inches tall, is hollow, and was meant to hold a small plant, the foliage of which would eventually form his "hair." Brilliant, really...

The Weirdest Board Game Ever Made: Remco's Pinhead

One of the oddest board games ever made must be Pinhead, released by Remco in 1959.

The first inkling of strangeness comes right away, as you peruse the cover. Why is a "game of hide and seek" called "Pinhead"? What does a deforming neurodevelopmental disorder have to do with a classic children's playtime activity? Why is the one boy so much bigger than the other children? Is it also about dwarfism and/or gigantism?

You might expect some answers to these baffling questions once you open the box, but no: the oddness just intensifies. There is, in fact, a pinhead on the house shaped game board, and he is "hiding" out in the open, in the middle of what appears to be a hallway. So...not hiding, then. I mean, wouldn't it have been more like hiding if he was tucked away in the attic clutter, or stuck behind one of the basement appliances??

The pinhead in question: 











Remco games were notable for: 1. being strange, and 2. having unusual methods of rolling the dice. Remco's "Tumblebum Dice Games" included an hourglass shaped device with dice inside. Tipping the device over essentially rolled the dice. Pinhead features a different mechanism: a dice box, in which the dice are shaken while the lid is closed. These elaborate dice rolling devices seem to have been Remco's attempt to enliven games that were otherwise rather simple, straightforward "tracks", wherein players simply moved their markers along a course. Remco games are relatively scarce, and strange though they may be, are worth snapping up when found.

Siamese Twin Sock Monkeys

I love sock monkeys, especially quirky vintage ones. These aren't vintage, but they are nonetheless some of my favorites. Made by a crafter on the U.S. west coast, these siamese twin sock monkeys are one of her specialities.

Just in time for Halloween, may I present Julius and Edsel, in all their cuddly freakishness:

Hello hello!

Michigan's Antique Yard Sale Trail Report: August 13, 14, & 15 2010

Last weekend, we followed the Antique Yard Sale Trail, an annual 200 mile secondhand shopping adventure along Michigan's Lake Huron, St. Clair River, and Lake St. Clair shoreline that stretches from Algonac in the south all the way around the tip of Michigan's "thumb" to Sebewaing in the north. Besides enjoying the beautiful scenery from the bluffs along the lakeshore, we saw lots and lots of amazing things for sale, including old gasoline pumps, vintage televisions, and a taxidermied alligator (the highlight of the sale, in my opinion.) And I found several treasures, of course (although I didn't buy the alligator.)

"Fumes," a taxidermied alligator smoking a pipe 

in a relaxing, and utterly unnatural position, was priced at $325.

Can't you just imagine all the decor possibilities?

 

A 1949 "Suitcase" Sentinel, the first portable television, 

was available for $199.

One table held a beautiful display of vintage hatboxes, shoes, and ladies' accessories, including this swanky faux leopard print head wrap and scarf. I was mightily tempted...

At the other end of the collecting spectrum, a dealer had a yard full of rusty treasures, including vintage sleds and this old Gulf gas pump:

If, for some reason, you needed a Greyhound bus sign, 

this dealer could hook you up:

And what did I buy? Something I've always wanted (who wouldn't?!): a vintage cast aluminum kiddie spring-rider animal from a playground. 

We mounted it on a piece of plywood cleverly embellished with fake grass for an authentic outdoor look. It now serves as an additional seating option in the living room.