Miniature Groceries

Antique dollhouse grocery shops are some of my favorite things to collect. Most were made in Germany, from the mid 1800s all the way through the 1960s. Here are a few accessory pieces I found recently to restock my shelves.

Miniature canned goods (milk, coffee, and sausages): tin cans with paper labels, made in Germany circa the 1930s, 1 1/2 inches tall.

Tiny cheeses: cardboard, composition, and glass. Dish is 1 1/4 inches in diameter, circa 1930s.

Vintage Charlie's Angels Doll

Rooting around in a box full of manky 1990s Barbies a few weeks ago, I found this treasure: a vintage Charlie's Angels doll, made by Hasbro in 1977, in its complete original outfit, and priced at just $5.99! This particular Angel is Kelly, originally played in the TV show by Jaclyn Smith, and the likeness is quite remarkable, I think (although I don't expect Jaclyn's head was quite this disproportionately large in real life...)

When I got her home, a happy discovery was made: she's just about the same scale as my vintage Mego Batman doll!

Batman was clearly happy about it, too: he's callously tossed Robin aside for Kelly. Poor Robin...I hope those menacing robots don't get him. He may be okay, though, as they appear to be looking the other way.

Strange Easter Postcard

This very strange German made Easter postcard from the 1900s features all the holiday sights one would expect (chicks, colored eggs), but also a little boy chef who is smoking a cigar while balancing a tray with an apparently live chicken on his head. I do not know why. Perhaps this is some little known European spring time custom, or perhaps the German Easter Bunny also brings stogies.

The Weirdest Board Game Ever Made: Remco's Pinhead

One of the oddest board games ever made must be Pinhead, released by Remco in 1959.

The first inkling of strangeness comes right away, as you peruse the cover. Why is a "game of hide and seek" called "Pinhead"? What does a deforming neurodevelopmental disorder have to do with a classic children's playtime activity? Why is the one boy so much bigger than the other children? Is it also about dwarfism and/or gigantism?

You might expect some answers to these baffling questions once you open the box, but no: the oddness just intensifies. There is, in fact, a pinhead on the house shaped game board, and he is "hiding" out in the open, in the middle of what appears to be a hallway. So...not hiding, then. I mean, wouldn't it have been more like hiding if he was tucked away in the attic clutter, or stuck behind one of the basement appliances??

The pinhead in question: 











Remco games were notable for: 1. being strange, and 2. having unusual methods of rolling the dice. Remco's "Tumblebum Dice Games" included an hourglass shaped device with dice inside. Tipping the device over essentially rolled the dice. Pinhead features a different mechanism: a dice box, in which the dice are shaken while the lid is closed. These elaborate dice rolling devices seem to have been Remco's attempt to enliven games that were otherwise rather simple, straightforward "tracks", wherein players simply moved their markers along a course. Remco games are relatively scarce, and strange though they may be, are worth snapping up when found.

Teddy Bear Buddies

I found these two antique American bears a year apart, and on different continents, but they look to me like they belong together, and have been so for a long time...