1930s German Toy Grocery Shop

Another addition to my growing collection of toy grocery stores, this is my first German shop. Dating from the 1930s, with a great deco design, it measures about 15 inches wide by 13 inches tall. The little wooden drawers still have their original handles and labels for salt, pepper, rice, pickles, cookies, and tea. It came with some lovely accessories: miniature boxes of Knorr products (soup mixes?), tiny tins (for cookies?), a cheese on a glass dish, and a fantastic and very old compote of fruit. A 1920s Schuco bear watches over the cheese and sausage counter.

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Antique Doll Cupboard

Just got this interesting antique toy: a homemade doll cupboard constructed from an old Waterbury clock case long, long ago. Measuring just over 13 inches tall, it's the perfect size for this early 1900s German bisque doll. Looks like she's making donuts today...

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...