Dam Troll

Although I have no interest in the cheap, China-made trolls of today, the original 1960s trolls made by Dam, Scandia House, and Uneeda captivate me. The early Dam trolls in particular are quite artistic, with an almost sculptural quality, and full of character.

This little 3 inch troll is one of my favorites. An early original Dam troll, it sports a remarkable crop of turquoise mohair in an "Albert Einstein" 'do. Just a fantastic troll!

Troll Weather

In my part of the world, March is the month when winter very slowly and reluctantly gives way to Spring. When I was in elementary school, I stumbled across a story set during this tempestuous season, called Troll Weather. Troll Weather became one of my most beloved books, and I still re-read it every year.

Written by distinguished children's author Elizabeth Coatsworth and delicately illustrated by the equally esteemed Ursula Arndt, it tells the story of a little girl named Selma who lives on the shores of a Norwegian fjord. One day Selma, sent on an errand by her mother, takes a basket of food to the Widow Paulsson, who lives high up in the mountains. The weather turns wild, as frequently happens in March, and the Widow Paulsson tells Selma stories of the trolls, who revel in such storms. Selma becomes a bit obsessed with trolls as the story unfolds, and anxiously asks her older sister, Sigrid, for information. One of my favorite passages describes Selma taking out the family's pine cone trolls who are on display in the space between the inner and outer windows of the kitchen:

"On the sill of one of the windows facing the road stood the pine cone trolls, with their wooden faces and their big wooden hands and feet and their long gray lichen-colored hair. Their kingdom lay between the inner and outer windows and each year it changed. Sometimes they peered from caves among piled-up stones; sometimes they were in a mossy forest of little pine trees. This year Sigrid had stood them on a mountain of cotton-batting snow. Selma ran to fetch their box from the back of the cupboard. First she carefully put away the cotton. Then she paused with the man troll in one hand and the woman in the other, their mouse tails hanging down. She didn't put them in their box at once. The woman troll was smaller than the man and had a cotton handkerchief tied over her coarse gray hair. But otherwise, they looked alike. Their eyes were little and their noses were long and their mouths were crooked. Selma stared at the little trolls and the trolls stared back at Selma. When Sigrid went by, Selma said in a whisper, 'Are they real, Sigrid? Are there real trolls?' 'There they are, right in your hands,' said Sigrid, laughing. 'They are as real as bread and butter.' But that wasn't what Selma meant. Whenever she asked about trolls, Sigrid wouldn't take her seriously. At last, sighing and wondering, she put the pine-cone trolls safely in their box until, in November, the cold and darkness of autumn should bring them back to their narrow kingdom between the windows."

For some reason, this beautifully written passage just captivated me as a child. Like Selma, I became obsessed with the idea of a little family of troll dolls, living in small spaces within our house. Perhaps they could move into the pigeonholes of the roll-top desk, I reasoned, or the little cupboard above the sink that was too high to be of much use. Unfortunately, I had missed the 1960s troll craze by several years, and it wasn't until recently that I began amassing my own troll collection. This month I'll highlight some of my favorites.

I'll start with these two homely specimens, of a similar variety to Selma's pine cone trolls. Made in Scandinavia from native wood, rabbit fur, and pine cones, they offer a tangible link to the story of Troll Weather. What makes them even more special, though, is that they came from the estate of Pat Peterson, who wrote one of the best books on vintage trolls, Collector's Guide to Trolls, published in 1995. They can be seen on page 72, looking a bit fresher than they do now!

Vintage Archer Space Men in Original Box

Yesterday my 1950s Archer Space Men in their original dime store box arrived (see my earlier, very excited post from the day I found them). They're in fantastic, factory mint condition.
Check out the pics:

 Top of the box. The "Archer" logo and spaceman pop up
to make a display.

 End of the box. It holds 2 dozen space men...

 

 ...and here they are! (Also 4 really cool robots.)

Here's a close-up of the space men. Several have lost their helmets, which are floating around loose in the box. Vintage Archer Space Men are frequently found with missing helmets. Design flaws caused ill fits, and the plastic used for the helmets tended to warp, crack, and discolor over time. These poor helmetless guys will likely suffer fatal embolisms when exposed to the vacuum pressure of space...

Dotty Teddy Bears

Just got another bear made by Peng Peng, teddy artist extraordinaire: Domino, this little 4 1/2 inch panda wearing her fab polka-dotted dress. Here she is with her new friend, my 1950s British Merrythought teddy who is also into dotty fashions.
I love the Merrythought's big nose: 

it gives her such a comical look.

Here's Domino doing a little spring cleaning 

(she's overly optimistic: we just got 6 inches of snow yesterday...).

Mattel's Blaze Horse

It's been the month for finding horsies: first two antique wooden rocking horses, then the fab 1950s Harry the Hairless Horse ride-on, and now this: Blaze, the talking, galloping horse made by Mattel in the early 1960s. 

At first glance, Blaze looks like just another variety of the ubiquitous spring horse (the kind most of us children of the 70's remember for their tendency to flip over during exuberant riding and pinch our fingers in their springs), but he's got a few features that take him to a whole new pedigreed level.
First off: no springs! Blaze is mounted instead on an "untippable", according to Mattel, tubular steel frame. Secondly, as you ride Blaze up and down, his legs move independently in a quite realistic horsey gallop. As if this wasn't enough, Blaze also talked, courtesy of Mattel's patented pull-string technology. He said several phrases, including "How about some hay?" He also whinnied and neighed.
Naturally, the price for all this innovation was steep: $48 (that's a lot for a kid's toy now, let alone back in 1961!). Consequently, no one I knew as a child had Blaze, and I'd never seen one in the horseflesh until last week, when I found this one.

Mine no longer talks, as is typical of most Blazes found today, but he gallops great. We haven't tested the "untippable" claim, but if I crash, I'll let you know. I've installed my Blaze next to my dining room table. Guests can now pull up a chair, or a horse, as they prefer.

Blaze was heavily marketed on TV, and his original ad is now considered a classic. Click the link below to watch it, courtesy of  TV Days: it's fantastic:

Mattel's Blaze Commercial

And here's a print ad for Blaze, in which he apparently helps capture an evil fire hydrant: