Antique Snow Baby Doll

Who is this cutie? A Snow Baby Doll, from the early 1900s. And she's not just cute: she has a fascinating history, too.

In 1893, Marie Peary was born in the wilds of Greenland, the daughter and first child of Arctic explorer Robert E. Peary and his wife Josephine. "Society" was shocked that he had taken his wife along on this expedition, and were concerned for the child's health, but she and her mother seemed to thrive in the Arctic. Mrs. Peary, a former society figure herself, actually hunted caribou and fought off attacking walruses alongside her husband and their guides. Marie and her mother accompanied Peary on several more trips, and photographs of blond, blue eyed Marie dressed in her Arctic furs made it back to America, where enthralled readers followed her exploits in the newspapers. Entrepreneurs were quick to capitalize on Marie's popularity, and produced this novelty, the Snow Baby Doll, in many forms. The best were delightful likenesses of Marie, and appear to be based on this most famous photo.

This example is tissue mint in its original box, which is covered with blue paper dotted with white stars, reminiscent of the polar sky. The doll is 11 inches tall, with a bisque head inserted into a wool bodysuit, the hood still tied with its original ribbon. Integral white felt mittens and boots, trimmed with red laces, distinguish the Snow Baby from the otherwise similar Teddy Girl or Teddy Doll.

A wonderful book about Marie Peary's Snow Baby years was recently released; read about it  here. It's full of incredible images of Marie, her parents, and their adventures.

Vintage Gumby

Ooooooh: just found a vintage, MIP 1970s Gumby. I feel a compulsion to free him from his plastic prison...poor guy, he's probably so tired of holding his arm up for the past 30 years.

Spy's-A-Poppin

The spy craze of the 1960s turned out tons of related toys, and one of the best was Transogram's 1966 Spy's-a-Poppin, a target game/playset with fantastic design and tons of action features. The huge, 27 inch tall set enabled the player to enter the world of spy films, complete with exploding bombs, damsels in distress, sinister cloaked spy masters, secret hideouts, and, of course, a really cool (dart) gun. Sadly, the gun is almost always missing from this rare set when found (although mine does still have the "Magi-scope"): kids would, naturally, have used the gun in all sorts of other play. Even without a gun, though, the set is a precious find. Its fragility and size led to most being thrown away by spring-cleaning parents.

Box detail, with directions for play.

Here's how it worked: you, the good spy, are in pursuit of a bad spy. You've tracked him to his secret lair, tucked into a dilapidated brownstone next to a pawnbroker's. See your shadow on the steps? You're even wearing a trenchcoat and fedora!

Now, you have to get into the hideout. You decide to blast your way in. Subtle, you are not. The instructions tell you: "First you must get into the house. How can you do this? Well, the only way is to 'blow up' the front...and that's just what you'll do." On the top right of the building is a giant red plastic bomb. The instructions say: "Take careful aim at the bomb with your gun and shoot! Hit the bomb on top of the chimney and the front of the house falls down!" And it does!

The whole front panel of the building falls forward, revealing a tense situation: a beautiful blonde girl tied to a box of TNT. The instructions make sure you realize the gravity of the situation: "Holy Fallen Arches! You must watch your step because there is evil afoot inside!"

Next, you are told to "slowly study the situation. Look through the infra-red scope on your gun to see what danger lurks behind those innocent looking pictures on the wall." And danger does indeed lurk: the red filter on the gun's "scope" reveals a spy hiding behind the picture. If you look very closely, you may be just able to see his outline here: 


"Behold! There are two sinister looking characters watching your every move!" continue the directions. "You must erase them from the scene."

Shooting the pictures with the dart gun knocks them clean out of their frames, along with their hidden spies, presumably. But what's this? Apparently one of the spies was "only wounded," and has given "a signal to the Master Spy hidden at the top of the stairs! THE JIG IS UP! OH, WOE, WHAT CAN YOU DO NOW?"  The instructions are just as fabulous as the game itself, really. I'm guessing an unemployed screenwriter or English Lit. grad wrote them. But incidentally, wouldn't the "jig is up" moment have been when you blew the front of the hideout off? A logical misstep, there.

Anyway: as the top picture is knocked from its frame by your dart, it releases a catch holding the Master Spy in place behind the curtains. He begins clacking his way down the staircase, "hurrying to the bottom to 'do in' that poor, innocent girl tied to the TNT box..."

This is when the tension really ratchets up: the Master Spy descends alarmingly quickly on his way to the detonator, and as usual, the instructions convey the seriousness of the situation: "Take aim...steady now...mustn't bungle it! You must hit him before he reaches bottom. If you don't, he'll push the lever and...ZOWIE! But...if you're quick and have a sharp eye, you can save the girl...you're a HERO!"

The Master Spy and the girl who needs saving. 

Looks she's done for this time...

You can see more pictures of this set, and read the complete, fabulous original instructions, at Sam's Toy Box.

Display Case of Fisher Price Toys

I couldn't decide what to post this week, so I just took a few pictures of my vintage Fisher Price display case. Let me know if there's anything in there you'd like to see!

Antique Photo: Boy with Bear on Wheels

An anxious looking little boy and his bear-on-wheels, early 1900s. 

Vintage Batman Board Game, Puzzle, and Colorforms

I was besotted with Batman as a child in the 1970s, and really, I guess, it hasn't abated much. Some recent Batman finds:

Batman puzzle, made by Watkins Strathmore and printed by Western Printing and Lithography Company, USA, 1966. Features the Batmobile, Batplane, and an unusual view of the Batcave:

Batman Colorforms, 1966, complete with original booklet. Although the box is pretty tatty, the contents were minty:

Batman board game, 1966:

Comes with itty bitty Batmobiles and villians: 
















The cover art is fantastic on the Batman game:

1972 Walk Lively Barbie

My sweetie found this Barbie for me recently at an antique shop, well-spotted in a case full of dolls. He thought this was "the most beautiful one," and indeed she is lovely, with her flower-child looks and fantastic Mod Era dress. From 1972, Walk Lively Barbie originally came with a platform which made her walk, swing her arms, and turn her head when the platform was pushed. The Mod Era dress from 1970 is called "Loop Scoop," and is one of my favorites from the time period.

 Groovy girl!

Vintage Gumby Costumes

I loved Gumby as a child in the 1970s, and can still remember going to the toy store with my mother to buy a "replacement Gumby" when mine would invariably wear out. The bendable 6 inch character was created in the 1950s by Art Clokey, and had his own television show, toy figure, and board game. In 1965, a series of costumes were released for Gumby, which allowed him to take on various exciting personas: knight, astronaut, cowboy, etc. Recently I found a few, and my latest Gumby has been trying them out.

 Gumbynaut makes radio contact from deep space:

Police officer Gumby holds back the rampaging robots:

Antique Carnival Items: Signs, Games, Punks, & More

Hurry, hurry, step right up and see my latest find: a huge lot of antique carnival items!  Most of the pieces are from the 1930s, and have seen heavy use in traveling carnivals. With their handmade nature and patina of age, they have a folk art quality that is very appealing.

First up: this hand lettered wooden sign for a coin toss game,
5 feet long:

Here's a closeup of the hand lettering, 

a fascinating art form:  

 

And, if you look closely at the "5", you can see where the old price of "10" cents was painted over, I'm guessing during the Depression years.

One of the most unusual pieces in the lot was this gigantic wooden sledgehammer, almost 3 feet tall, with a head a foot wide. The bands around the head are thick steel. It was used in the classic carnival High Striker, or bell ringing game, in which a fair goer would attempt to ring a bell at the top of a tall platform by hitting the base. This hammer is so heavy, I have no idea how anyone would have managed to swing it. I had to drag it up my stairs, stopping for a rest along the way...

One of the most interesting finds was another classic game, the milk bottle knock-down. The 7 inch wooden milk bottles were heavily dinged and scraped from decades of use. The game came with a basket full of its original, accompanying baseballs.

The goal was to knock the 3 bottles over with a tossed ball. It sounds simple, but in actuality, it hardly ever happened. Turning over the bottles reveals why: one has been hollowed out, and a lead weight inserted. The hole was then plugged, and the weight made it very difficult to knock over. In the photo below, the gaffed bottle is on the top of the pile.

Some of my favorite items in the find were an assortment of 3 carnival punks, or knock down dolls. In a game similar to the milk bottles, customers tried to knock the punks over to win a prize. The most common form of punk was a clown with a crazy halo of hair, which was made of wool in the earliest examples, like these 11 inch varieties:

The other punk was very unusual; I've never seen one quite like it. Measuring a very large 21 inches tall, it features a hand painted cat on green canvas, with the word "Lux" prominently spelled out, and yellow tassled fringe adorning the sides. It's a little spooky...

Another big sign, a bit more recent than the first and not as skillfully painted, was this 10 cent candy advertisement:

From a selection of shooting gallery targets, I chose this cast iron duck, 5 1/2 inches wide. Like the hammer shown previously, this target is so heavy, I don't see how it could ever have been successfully struck. Its age, wear, and weathering have given it a wonderful primitive charm.

Also from a shooting gallery came this double squirrel target, made of wood, cast iron, and steel, measuring 7 inches tall by 10 inches wide. It would originally have been one small segment in a wide shooting range composed of many similar pieces. After knocking the squirrels over, a hit on the center white circle target makes them pop back up again.

Here's a closeup of the squirrels, 2 inches tall: 

This last item is a bit more recent than the others, probably from the 1950s. It's another great hand lettered sign, 16 inches wide, most likely from a ticket booth.

It's an incredible feeling to hold these items and imagine the places they've been and the people they've seen...I can almost smell the cotton candy and hear the screams of riders on the roller coaster.

New Peng Peng Bear

It's always a happy day when a new bear by Peng Peng, one of my fave artists, arrives. Please meet "Saltine," a mere 3 3/4 inches of crazy joy.

Here she is with her new friends, two color coordinated vintage trolls:

Easter Weebles

Hoppy Easter from Tracy & her Toys

Hasbro Easter Weebles, 1970s

Vintage Playtown Meat Market

Dollhouse grocery shops are some of my favorite miniatures to collect. The tiny accessories (cans, boxes, packages, fruits, veggies, cheeses) are fun to find and stock the shelves with. This particular shop has a more limited product range, and it's one that will definitely not appeal to vegetarian readers.

The Playtown Meat Market was made in the 1940s -50s by Playtown Products Co. of New York. Playtown sold a whole range of these little shops, averaging 7 inches tall, including a bakery, general store, grocery shop, supermarket, and a fabulous luncheonette. (Click here to visit a great website featuring many of the Playtown Shops.)

The shops came filled with tiny items.
This one still has most of its original stock,
plaster meats housed behind sliding doors.













The market is just the right size for the contemporary Flagg Family Dollhouse Dolls, who are stocking up their freezer.