Vintage King Kong Toy Ring

I felt I had found a treasure with this great vintage 1960s King Kong ring in its original packaging.
The front of the package reads, "10 cents: GENUINE KING KONG RING. Feel like the King!" (I'm not sure what a non-genuine King Kong ring would be like, but at least we're assured that this one is the real thing...)
The back of the package features a cut-out membership certificate for the official King Kong Klub, with the club's creed, which reads: "I am entitled to membership because I like King Kong and my Aunt looks a lot like him!"

Vintage Monster Gumball Machine Toys

Probably from the early 1960s, this vintage vending machine display card is one of my favorites. It reads: "Monsters...HEADS. GHOSTLY! HEY KIDS: They stick on your head!" And indeed they do: the tiny monster heads are still sticky after all these years. Or, you can string them on a necklace for a fabulously ghoulish fashion accessory.

Vintage Addams Family Colorforms

Here's one of my favorite vintage Colorforms sets: The Addams Family, from the 1960s. This was a super hard set to find, so even though it's missing a few bits, I don't mind too much. I just pretend Lurch has his arms tucked behind his back...

Mandrake the Magician Magic Set

I love vintage magic stuff, and October, with its aura of spooky mystery, seems a suitable month to post some.

Here's a vintage Mandrake the Magician Magic Kit, dating to the 1940s or 50s.

My brother Jody gave me this for Christmas a few years ago: its one of the greatest toy gifts I've ever received!

Voodoo Doll Game

One of the most longed-for games on my wish list was this, the Voodoo Doll Game made by Schaper in the 1960s.

The box alone is fantastic, with great graphics. The voodoo doll offers you handfuls of pins, while a ghoulish witch doctor lurks in the background. The game itself resembles a playset: there's a 3-D jungle hut, a witch doctor figure, and a giant voodoo doll.

The game is really fun to play: you and your opponent take turns putting pins in the voodoo doll. If the witch doctor jumps out of his hut at you, you lose! (I always lose, and it's really quite startling when the little figure comes hurtling out of the hut...)

Vintage Addams Family Games

Over the summer, I was really lucky and found both vintage 1960s Addams Family board games at yard sale prices, and have been saving them for an October post.

The boxes aren't the best, but the games inside are great, with really colorful, fun graphics.

1970s Ghostland Lunch Box

I love lunchboxes, board games, and spooky things, so this 1970s haunted house lunchbox with a game on the back is about as good as it gets for me! I remember wanting this as a child, but either it wasn't available in my area, or it was too expensive. When I finally found one last year, I felt like I was 8 years old again...

Here are the side views: 

And closeups of the  spinner and directions:

1948 - 1950 Television Set

I just found this vintage telvision, minus the insides, but with the window intact. It's totally cool on its own, but for
Halloween I put a jack o' lantern inside...
















A friend found this original ad for my tv: thanks Joe!

Tourist Traps and Souvenirs

Here's a post about Some Other Stuff I like to collect, besides toys.

I have a tremendous love for tacky old roadside tourist attractions, and am fortunate enough to live in a state that still abounds in them.
Last week my friend and I took a little vacation and went up to the Mackinac Straits, visiting Mackinaw City (below the mighty Mackinac Bridge) and St. Ignace and Whitefish Point (above the bridge). This area is rich in many things: history, as it was home first to Native American tribes and later to scuffling between the French and British militaries; great natural beauty, as it's the spot where Lakes Michigan and Huron meet and the forested bluffs of the Upper Peninsula begin; and lots and lots of tourist attractions, as we're drawn to it for all three of these reasons.

I was delighted to find that several of the old souvenir shops of my childhood still exist, and what's more, they still have abundant caches of old store stock: vintage tchotchkes dating back to the 1940s and occasionally even earlier.
In Mackinaw, I found this great 4 inch souvenir plate, Made In Japan and dating from the 1950s or thereabouts.



Also found was this souvenir postcard packet from Mackinac Island, printed in 1935. It's a beautiful vintage object in its own right, but its made even more fascinating by the inscription on the address lines, which reads: "Day Jack Porter will never forget. August 10 - 1952. 3rd Honeymoon." At first I thought, "oh, how sweet, that Jack Porter, whoever he is, was so romantically inclined that he penned this little note on their souvenir". But then, inside, he wrote: "Jack Porter and his wife June walked about 8 miles on August 10, 1952."

Now, for those who don't know, Mackinac Island is a beautiful and remote resort island in northern Michigan. It has an historic old fort, Victorian period shops and hotels, and spectactular natural beauty. It is also car-free, so to get around you have to walk, ride a bike, or hire a horse drawn carriage. I can't tell from his words whether Jack enjoyed his walk around the island with June, or if instead he secretly resented it, but I find myself wondering. Are they still married? Did they ever go back to the island? Did he hold a grudge for the next 40 years?

Next, here's a peek into one of my favorite attractions from this area: Castle Rock in St. Ignace. The rock is a huge limestone outcrop that rises over 200 feet above the Lake Huron shoreline. From the top, there's a breathtaking view of the waters and forests of the Straits area. People love to climb it, so naturally an enterprising person built a souvenir shack at the bottom, and later added giant homemade sculptures of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox, just for good measure. From inside the gift shop (where you can buy Paul and Babe salt and pepper shakers), you follow Paul's footprints along the floor and out the door to the climbing trail (after you pay your .50 admission, that is). Here's a picture from inside the gift shop showing "Paul Bunyan's Footprints", along with old and new postcards from the attraction.

Vintage Dexterity Puzzles

Vintage dexterity puzzles are some of my favorite toys to collect. The little worlds behind their windows are so inviting, their lithography is lovely, and they're just fun to play. Here are some of the highlights of my collection. These were all made in England by R. Journet & Co., I'm guessing in the 1940s.



























Besides the games on the front side, each of these puzzles features this tongue-twister on the back. See how quickly you can say it!

Fisher Price Wooden Pull Toys Display Case

I originally began collecting Fisher Price with the intention of replacing the long-lost classic Play Family/Little People playsets of my 1970s childhood. But, as so often happens with toy collecting, one thing led to another, and before I knew it I had accumulated a whole display case full of Fisher Price's wonderful lithographed wooden pull toys, some dating back to the company's founding in the early 1930s. How different these beautiful toys are from the plastic, battery-powered, noisy, flashy products Fisher Price currently imports from China...

Yard Sale Find: Star Wars Land of the Jawas

This past Saturday, I went yard saling and scored some great finds. One of the best was this hard-to-find vintage Star Wars playset, Land of the Jawas, from the first movie. No one I knew as a child had this set; I didn't even know it existed until I was a grown-up toy collector. It's a relatively scarce piece because half of it, the sandcrawler backdrop, is made of fragile cardboard.

Vintage Vending Machine Prize Cards

I love, love, love vending machine toys: to this day I can't go to the grocery store without checking out the machines by the door and feeding them fist fulls of quarters.

For me, the holy grails of vending toy collecting are the original display cards that were placed in the front of the machines to tempt little shoppers. Here are some of my favorites. Dating from the 1960s and 70s, these cards are chock-full of the tiny treasures we all hoped to get from these coin-eating machines, but usually didn't. False advertising abounded in these display cards, although that doesn't seem to be the case so much today: maybe some consortium of disappointed little kids sued in the 1980s or something...

Game Cupboard

Here's a peek into one of my game cupboards. So much to play, so little time...

BASH! Game

Mere words cannot describe how incredibly satisfying this toy is. Dating from 1965, BASH! was one of the hardest-to-find games on my wish list. Now that I have it, I can't get enough of it. Game play is simple: stack up the yellow and red plastic slices that comprise the BASH man's body. Then, using the special hammer, take a WHACK at the slices, trying to smack one the heck out of there! If you do it right, it's like that old gag where someone yanks a tablecloth off a crowded table without any of the dishes falling: BASH's head will simply plop down onto the remaining slices. But if you do it wrong, the whole thing crashes apart in a magnificent cascade of clattering plastic. It took me a few days to get the technique down, but now I can BASH happily away, thinking all the while of things that are stressing me out. A few WHACKS and the stress is gone! Loads cheaper than therapy, I highly recommend a few sessions of BASH for all your troubles.

Vintage Colorforms Set: Twisto - Change-O

I loved Colorforms as a child, and still do today: they're a great calming, soothing stress-reliever. (Try it, you'll see!) This set, Twisto - Change-O, was introduced in 1972, and featured an innovation for the Colorforms line. After suiting up the little boy, you turn the red knob on the Twisto - Change-O machine, and different faces appear where the boy's head is, courtesy of a cardboard wheel under the picture featuring several different faces that revolve into view. Simple yet ingenious and lots of fun to play with, this device was used again in Colorforms' Tricky Mickey Magic set (which I'll try to post soon. It's way cool...).

Vintage Lithographed Rocking Horse

I love old ride-on horses. They're wonderful toys in their own right, but they're also fantastic display props for old teddy bears. This is one of my favorite rocking horses, made by the Gong Bell Company, probably in the early 1940s. The American-made horse is beautifully lithographed paper over wood, with a metal frame and wooden rockers. Underneath the horse is a little bell that rings as the horse is rocked. (Consequently, this is not a good choice to ride if you're pretending to be a wild west lawman sneaking up on the bad guys...)

Book Review

Collector's Guide to Housekeeping Toys, 1870-1970, by Margaret Wright. Published by Collector Books, January 2007. ISBN 978-1574325409. $16.95. 285 pages.

While not a comprehensive reference source, this charming paperback provides a fun introduction to its topic, presented in full-color with great, crisp photography. Toys covered include American-made stoves, miniature cupboards, grocery stores, cookware, tea sets, wash day and housecleaning items, and much more. The author admirably conveys her delight in these objects as both simple toys and important sociological artifacts, writing in the introduction: "toys...are historical documents...American history can be taught with 20 items on a table, beginning with an 1880 cast-iron stove and ending with a plastic tea set, components of the Industrial Revolution and modern technology." Her love for these toys is infectious: you'll find yourself wanting to "play house" after you finish reading this wonderful little book!

1940s American Toy Grocery Store

I just love these little toy grocery shops! They're perfect for using in displays with small antique dolls and teddy bears (who like shopping too, you know!).
I'm thinking this is American, probably from the 1940s, and many of the products shown are original. The set measures about 10 1/2 inches high. The little cans and packages are all wooden with paper labels, while the breads, ham, and steak are plaster.
(See the entry for the 1914 Cass toy grocery for an antique example, the 1950s British toy grocery for a very different style, and the 1930s German shop for another.)

1950s British Toy Grocery Shop

A wonderful find from England: a toy grocery shop from the 1950s, complete with original products (lots of tea, of course!). The shop is 15 1/2 inches tall.