Dark Shadows Game

Dark Shadows, the 1960s supernatural soap opera, spun off a couple of vampire themed board games. This one is by Whitman, and dates from 1968.

 Illustrations of Barnabas Collins and Collinwood mansion 

feature on the box cover.

 The "board" is actually a giant paper mat, and consequently rather fragile. A simple track runs though representations of Collinwood and its grounds.

 Players select a pawn (a gravestone, howling wolf, drippy candle, or grandfather clock about to strike midnight). Cards direct their movement along the track, and the first one to the finish wins.

I'm guessing most kids would have wanted to be the wolf, 

as opposed to being a candle...

The draw and discard piles on the board are an empty coffin and an open grave, respectively.

For all its spooky cool art, one would expect this to be an exciting game to play, but sadly it's rather dull, just a straightforward track. The other Dark Shadows game is anything but boring though, and it's coming up tomorrow.

Milton Bradley Bigfoot Game

Bigfoot, he of the infamous giant footprints, scored his own board game in 1977. A scarce find today, it's one of my favorite monster themed games.

 If this Bigfoot was meant to look friendly, the artist really missed the mark. He is clearly considering eating these children.

 

Players select pawns, which appear to be mountaineers, explorers, or possibly Bigfoot hunters.

The game track takes players through prime Bigfoot habitat, including snowy slopes and dense forests. A mining town, lumber mill, gold mine, and supply store appear to offer shelter.

The pawns are moved according to the roll of the dice, but if they land on a Bigfoot space, a subsequent roll moves the monster, a hefty plastic figure, along the track:

As Bigfoot crosses or lands on a pawn, he dispenses a disk, which may or may not bear a footprint. If the print appears, that pawn is out of the game. Last player left unstepped upon wins!

 This is good.

This is bad.

To learn more about Bigfoot, or possibly to report a sighting of your own, contact the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization. (Oh yes: there really is one!)

                      

Mackinac Bridge Dedication Postcard

Old postcards are some of the "other stuff" I collect. This one features the Mackinac Bridge, the beautiful, five mile long engineering marvel that connects Michigan's Upper and Lower Peninsulas, spanning the deep, cold, and dangerous waters of the Mackinac Straits. It marks the division between two of the five Great Lakes, Michigan and Huron.
The bridge opened to traffic on November 1, 1957 after decades of planning, three years of construction, and the tragic deaths of five crewmen, including a diver, welders, and iron workers.

Although the bridge opened in November (a notoriously unpredictable weather month in northern Michigan), the official dedication ceremony didn't take place until June 25 of the following summer. Bernice and Larry Kopp of Royal Oak, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit, attended and cleverly mailed themselves this souvenir postcard. "Here for the dedication of the big Mac, June 26-27-28," Bernice wrote, before addressing the card to their own home on 1503 Mohawk.

Carnival Chalkware Prize

This carnival chalkware prize is Bimbo, Betty Boop's doggie boyfriend. Bimbo starred in his own cartoons, with the first appearing in 1930. As Betty's star surpassed his own, he was relegated to boyfriend/sidekick status before disappearing altogether, allegedly due to concerns about the interspecies nature of their relationship...

7 inches tall, circa the 1950s.

Antique Show Find: Mentor Game

Found this far out game at a summer antique show: Mentor, the Electronic Wizard, made by Hasbro in 1960. The giant bronze plastic head is Mentor. He looks like something out of Metropolis, an Art Deco robot with a mind of his own. To play, you select one of the cardboard game tracks, and insert it into the board. You and Mentor then take turns moving the pawn (a giant finger) along the track. Mentor tells you how many spaces he wants to move by flashing the lightbulbs on the base. First one to the finish wins, and it's usually Mentor.

Mentor, in a characteristically thoughtful mood.

Mentor game boards.

 The moving finger, wired up to Mentor.

Antique Show Find: Mr. Potato Head Knock Off

Mr. Potato Head and I have a longstanding love affair, but occasionally I succumb to the charms of one his imitators. This "Funny Face Kit" was made in Hong Kong in the early 1960s, a low grade knock-off of the original. The whole set is just 5 1/4 inches tall, made of cheap plastic attached to a thin card. Potato Head experts have discovered these originally came in cellophane bags, and were distributed via dime stores or as carnival prizes. Visit mrpotatohead.net, source of my arcane knowledge, to see more fun fakes.

Tiny Treasures: Vintage Gumball Machine Prizes

As a kid, I adored the gumball machines full of tiny toys in the entrance of the grocery store. I would save my change for weeks and then, like a casino slots addict, feed coin after coin after coin into my favored machine, never giving up my belief that if I put in just one more dime, I'd finally get whatever must-have item had obsessed me.

Once I grew up, I was delighted to discover that private citizens can buy their own gumball machines, and I now have 5 vintage venders full of fantastic treasures in my dining room. Still, I'm always on the lookout for cool gumball prizes when I'm antiquing (and actually, still at the grocery store too.) I found this lot at a show this summer, and it had some really great pieces, mostly from the 1960s-70s.

This may look like a pile of cheap plastic, and it is, 

but it's also full of tiny treasures.

My favorite piece was this little pink guy with a really big nose.

The oldest item was this Barney Google charm: 











Monster charms are always a good find; these are from the '60s.

Oh joy of joys: a bunch of Funny Froot rings! I lusted after these as a child, but sadly, only ever got the Avocado Man (second from right).

Keeping with the anthropomorphic theme: a smiling radish guy pin:











An itty bitty parachute toy, barely an inch long, and never opened:

And last but not least: tiny fish and clamshell charms. I can remember seeing these as a kid, too, and being profoundly disappointed when, several dollars worth of dimes later, all I had gotten were lame stickers.

Antique Show Find: Vintage Spacemen

Vintage space toys are some of my favorites, and I'm always on the lookout for them at antique shows. Recently I found these 3 fabulous space guys. At 3 1/4 inches tall, they're smaller than the famed Archer Space Men, but they have their own great style.

Marching into the future, circa the 1950s.

Antique Show Finds

I only made it to one big outdoor antique show this summer, but it was a good one. Finds included, in descending order of expensiveness:

-3 antique teddy bears, great characters all
-a set of beautiful antique lithographed wooden blocks
-some vintage plastic space guys
-a bag full of vintage gumball machine charms, rings, and tiny toys
-a vintage Mr. Potato Head fake
-a 1960s Mentor board game
-and a vintage Weeble


Coming soon!

Yard Sale Find: Vintage Hasbro Inchworm

My favorite yard sale find of this summer was a vintage 1970s Hasbro Inchworm ride-on toy. I had one of these as a child, and it was one of my most loved toys. As the rider propels it along, the Inchworm bounces up and down on its accordion-style body...eventually producing the sort of damage seen in this example.

(Click here to watch the original Inchworm TV commercial: it's adorable, and you'll get to see the Inchworm in action.)

Their fragility makes vintage Inchworms scarce, and they are much sought after. I've seen them reach prices of $300+ on eBay during particularly desperate bidding wars. Glad I held out: this one was just $5 at a Yard Sale Trail flea market!

 How cute is he? Super-cute.

Speaking of cute things: here's a picture of me with my brand-new Inchworm, on a Christmas morning sometime in the 1970s. (I'm also holding a just-opened Viewmaster, effectively multi-tasking as I motor around the living room.)

Coming up tomorrow: my final, and oldest, yard sale toy find of the summer... 

Yard Sale Finds: Vintage Toys

This year's Yard Sale Trail, a 200+ mile route along the shoreline of eastern Michigan, turned up some nice finds (although nothing can really top last year's discovery of a vintage playground spring rider).


First find: a 1972 Come Home Snoopy! Colorforms set. I adore Colorforms, and Snoopy stuff is pretty cool too, but what really made this a great score was the fact that its original owner wrote her name and the date she received it inside the box lid. If only all old toys came with such provenance...

Janice Blackburn, I've got your Snoopy Colorforms! 

(Also, thank you for taking such good care of your toys.)

The next find was also a character toy: a 1962 Barney Rubble doll (of Flintstones fame) made by Knickerbocker. 11 1/2 inches tall, the odd doll retains its original clothes. I don't know why they made his hair green, but that is also original. A few sales down the road, I got this little 5 1/2 inch vintage plastic Fred Flintstone, and happily reunited the two best friends. 

Spotted from the road was this 22 inch vintage tin dollhouse still full of its original plastic furniture, made by Wolverine. It's the epitome of suburban living, circa the 1950s-60s.

Coming up tomorrow: a long-lost childhood toy found again on the Yard Sale Trail!

1950s Funny Faces Puzzle

This Funny Faces puzzle from the 1950s features great characters, and is actually a lot of fun to play around with. Each character is die cut into sections that can be switched and rearranged to make "more than 1000 different faces!" I haven't actually tested that claim, as I imagine it would require more time than I can realistically spend playing with my toys.

The original four characters:

The illustrations remind me of those on Changeable Charlie, another vintage make-a-face toy.

Troll House and Family

I already had a couple of these vintage 1960s troll cave houses, but when I saw this one still filled with its original owner's much-loved trolls, their extensive wardrobe, and even a pet elephant, I just had to have it. That's a lot of vintage troll awesomeness in there.

The trolls are a Dam wearing a wonderful felt dress with flower applique; a Scandia House with beautiful green eyes and a charming outfit; and a tiny gumball machine prize troll in her original wrap and hair bow.

Dam troll with baby.

Gumball prize troll. She has a cool '60s bouffant!

Scandia House troll with bright green eyes, 

wearing a lovely pink and yellow ensemble. And shoes!

The troll sisters also had a pet: a blue troll elephant 

from a Japanese knock-off line called the Lovable Uglies. 

Uglie, and yet so Lovable.