Antique German Dollhouse Dishes and Tables

At a toy show last weekend, I found a wonderful, very tiny set of antique porcelain German dollhouse dishes tucked away in an old candy box, buried in a pile of junque under a dealer's table. Price: just $10.00!

(I cannot even count the number of times I've found fantastic things hidden in delapidated, unrelated boxes...it's always worth taking a look!)

The set, circa the early 1900s, includes a tureen, vegetable dish, gravy boat, cream pitcher, plates, and a serving tray. For a sense of scale, the itty bitty tureen is just 1 1/2 inches long.

At a different dealer's table a few minutes later, I found these German dollhouse tables, circa the 1920s, just 5 inches long and priced at only $5.00 each. They turned out to be the perfect size for the dishes, and my favorite small doll:

Tiny Troll

One of the dealers at a toy show I went to last weekend had tables full of "grab bags" she had made, each priced at just $5.00. Each bag, a large ziploc type, was filled with an assortment of small toys of varying age and quality. Mostly junk, yes, as is often the case with grab bags, but occasionally harboring a treasure, as is sometimes the case with grab bags, making them always worth a good look. In one, amongst the single doll shoes, broken barrettes, and unknown action figures missing an arm, was this tiny, 1 1/2 inch pencil top troll, made by Scandia House in the mid-1960s. She still has her original outfit (possibly a clown costume) unusual purple eyes, and her blue mohair. A hard-to-find and pricey troll!

Vintage Ideal Games: Mr. Mad and Ker-Plunk

Found some great vintage games at a toy show last weekend, including two classics made by Ideal in the late 1960s. Featuring fantastic design and graphics, they are also two of the noisiest games ever made, as each one ends in a cascade of clattering marbles.

Mark Rich, in his wonderful book, 101 Greatest Baby Boomer Toys, writes of these games: "The trend that started in 1961-62 reached its crest a few years later. Games once designed for family enjoyment, fairly quiet...and often dependent on mental agility and knowledge, gave way to bright, brilliantly designed, fast-paced, noisy games of impulse and chaos. Many games gained their feeling of mounting tension by creating an imminent disaster, which one player would set off. No one could tell at the beginning who that player would be..."

Mr. Mad, released by Ideal in 1970, was the epitome of such games. Players took turns dropping marbles into the mouth of a fearsome looking, 10 inch tall robot, Mr. Mad. If the marbles hit a button inside the robot, he would begin spinning and tilting, shooting marbles left and right out of holes in his arms. One unlucky player had to try and hit his "off" switch using a plastic "stopping" stick. By that time, dozens of marbles had usually scattered across the room (I've still got some stuck under my refrigerator from our test run...)

Isn't this just a fantastic looking robot?

The next game I found was Ker-Plunk, made by Ideal in 1967. This huge game box, 21 inches tall, features great graphics in day-glo '60s colors. The object of the game was to remove plastic straws one at a time from beneath a heap of marbles, held suspended in the top half of a clear plastic tube by said straws. When the wrong straw was pulled, the marbles came clattering down. This was not a good game for those susceptible to migraines.

1950s Felt Beanie Hat With Vintage Charms

At a toy show this past weekend, I found a long-sought item: a vintage felt beanie hat from the 1950s, loaded with Cracker Jack and gumball machine charms. These hats were very popular from the late 1940s - early 1960s; the character of Jughead was never without his in the Archie comics. I've occasionally seen similar hats, but never one that was "just right" until I spotted this one:

The hat is festooned with all sorts of vintage charms collected by its original young owner: tiny skulls, little footballs and baseballs, a Snoopy-esque dog, even a Heinz pickle advertising pin:

 

One of my favorite pieces is this tiny 1950s microphone:

Here's the hat modelled by my 24 inch antique American bear, who wears it tilted at a rakish angle:

Toy Show Report

Yesterday we went to one of my favorite events of the year, a local antique and vintage Toy Show. It's held in a shared venue with a farmer's market, which makes it very crowded, and lots of fun to people watch  (little old ladies gently pottering along with their shopping bags, looking for fresh produce, are jostled by panicked vintage toy collectors, reminiscent of the Comic Store Guy from the Simpsons, racing towards the rare find they can see in a booth across the room.)
We raced and jostled with the best of them, and, although I missed out on a 1950s Mr. Potato Head set in its original box (I could SEE it, but just couldn't get around the corner of the table fast enough...darn little old farmer's marketing ladies...) we came home with lots of fabulous finds, including:

-4 vintage games: the Dark Shadows Game made by Whitman in 1968; Mr. Mad, a battery-operated, marble-spewing robot game made by Ideal in 1970; Kerplunk, another Ideal creation, from 1967; and an early edition of Barrel of Monkeys

-a fantastic 1950s felt beanie hat, loaded with vintage Cracker Jack and gumball machine charms

-2 German dollhouse tables, circa the 1920s, priced at only $5.00 each!

-a tiny set  of German porcelain dollhouse dishes, circa the late 1900s, with a tureen, gravy boat, cream pictcher, vegetable dish, plates, and tray, found in an old candy box beneath a pile of junk, priced at just $10.00!

- a little Scandia House pencil top troll from the 1960s, 1 1/2 inches tall, still in her original outfit, spotted in a grab bag of (mostly) junk, for just $5.00, too!

-4 vintage dexterity puzzles, mostly from the 1950s: a Cracker Jack prize; a fortune teller; a space-themed dome shaped one with great graphics; and a nursery rhyme design

-a fantastic space-themed card game from 1952 called Space Race; it features fabulous illustrations of mid-century rocketships, spacemen, and aliens

-a set of tiny 1960s robot figures, possibly gumball machine prizes

-a huge lot of R & L cereal premium figures from the 1960s-70s: Astro-Nits, Funny Fringes, Toolie Birds, Crater Critters, etc.

-and 3 interesting old Valentines

Seen, longed-for, but not purchased were a German-made, mohair clockwork cat from the early 1900s (standing and dressed, like Puss in Boots, it danced when wound, and was incredibly beautiful); and a whole booth full of vintage monster movie posters and ads, along with the much-sought Green Ghost and Outer Limits board games. Everything in the monster booth was priced at the very top of "book values" and, consequently, has remained in this booth, unsold, for the past several years...I have a feeling the dealer doesn't really want to sell any of it; he just wants to show it off, a sadly not uncommon thing among some rare toy dealers...)

Pics to come later this week!