Look What Santa Could, Should, MUST Bring! (1951 Children's Toys)

Good afternoon!

I didn't forget about you today, but whoooo-eee have things been busy at the library. We've moved on past most of the renovations on the one side of the building, and Metro Archives is in its new home on the third floor, but the reference division is still being carpeted in bits and pieces and wow, there have been a lot of reference questions in the 1-3 shift. However, I'm back at my desk now, and though it is covered in poor, pitiful books in need of repair, I thought I would take a moment to tell you about my finds for the day. Subject? Toys, toys, and MORE toys!

I've been working through House and Garden 1951 volumes and the thing that stopped me in my tracks this morning was the spread they did in November, anticipating their readership's 1951 Christmas season buying habits. TO BE A CHILD OF THE MODERATELY WELL TO-DO TO AFFLUENT IN 1951! The sky seemed to be the limit in this spread of what Santa should bring good little girls and boys as they prepare for life as a child in 1952. Let's look:

The article starts out sedately enough with a number of baby doll and traditional girl toys, such as this Alice in Wonderland doll-- as the Disney movie had just come out in July of this year, there were other Lewis Carroll themed gewgaws throughout the spread of equal cuteness. I'm partial to the Swiss chalet and its tiny little folk furnishings, but that's mainly because I like anything tiny and impractical and folksy. Look at the little hope chest, the wardrobe, the canopied bed, BUT MOST IMPORTANTLY, those spindly little dining room chairs. [PS chairs call me]

Now take a look at what may be my favorite, the "Ring N Buzz" switchboard:

COULD YOU DIE. There's a whole subgenre of  toys, the "vocational toy", that I feel like aren't as popular or don't exist anymore on the children's toy market-- a Fisher Price vacuum of 2014, for example, can't hold a candle to this 1966 practically the real deal model (though this Dirt Devil does seem to come close). But do you really think a red blooded American child in the 21st century is going to ask for a vacuum for Christmas? Speaking as a confirmed weirdenstein from birth, I can say with confidence that I would have wanted this switchboard set as a child, and STILL want one to this day! My grandmother held a job for about a year in the forties' as a switchboard operator for the phone company in Massachusetts, and I can see a tiny me trying to emulate her/Lily Tomlin with a victory roll and this set to guide me. "Number, please?" Though it's been through some stuff, you can see a version of it below from Ebay...isn't it thrilling that it would work in those pre-battery, pre-everything-singing-at-you toy days?

VINTAGE TIN Toy Telephone Old Fashioned SWITCHBOARD PLASTIC RING A PHONE 

There's something adorable about a miniature version of anything realistic, right? How about this real aluminum grill? Can you imagine the Ward Cleaver dad showing the overjoyed five year old how to properly light a grill while practicing fire safety, and giving them the responsibility of one little hamburger patty to cook? This blows the Easy Bake Oven right out of the water. "Honey? Junior's making shish kebabs for dinner!" Not putting much of a premium on not getting your kids eyebrows burned off or worse, but act like you would not be the most over the moon seven year old ever to receive this next to the Christmas tree on December 25, 1951 (size alone prevents it from going under said tree). Another thought, though-- you wouldn't be able to use this until like five months after you bought it, unless you live in a sunny climate, in which case you would have been triply blessed as a fifties' child-- grill, indulgent/incautious parents, great weather. I am jealous.

The next toy's caption reads "Auto Road teaches driving fundamentals, works by remote control. $26, Playhouse." This does not feel like near enough information. Also, notice the Disney licensed White Rabbit photo bombing my clipping. "HI!"

Do you spot in the above montage a weirdly realistic horse on wheels, a Dream Pets kangaroo,  and a giraffe I'd like to get for Christmas? I know I do! I was about to applaud how "normal" most of these dolls and stuffed animals look until I came across the following two panels:

Uh.....um....so I think I'm looking at stuffed toy vegetables with a p-r-e-t-t-y good representation of the produce department here in attendance. The two that bother me the most? The pea pod (WHY DO YOU HAVE THREE HEADS WHAT HATH GOD WROUGHT) and the asparagus, the latter of which should really be in his own David Lynch production of Asparagushead (giving Jack Nance a run for his money in hair height and creeping horror). I like how the cricket is like "Pleased ta meetcha! Let me introduce you to some of the things I would like to eat! Mr. Eggplant...yep, looking delicious. Better if you were a couple weeks old though. Lady Carrot Face, where have you been all my life? Onion Man, my main man!" etc, etc. Wholly disturbing. Iiiiii love it.

Ok, this next piece comes with a story. I was interested in whether or not the delightfully named "Susie Keane's Puppeteens" was in any way related to the famous Keanes of the "Big Eyes" school of art, and then went, naaaah, that was Walter and Margaret Keane. TURNS OUT, Walter and his first wife, Barbara, WERE the people behind these dolls, long before the second wife and Walter gained fame as waif portraitists. From Wikipedia:

His wife Barbara studied cooking at Le Cordon Bleu, and also studied dress design in various Couturier Houses in Paris. When they returned to their home in Berkeley, began an educational toy business called "Susie Keane's Puppeteens", teaching children to speak French through the use of handmade puppets, phonograph records, and a book. The "ballroom" of their large home became an assembly line of hand painted "wide eyed" wooden puppets, with various intricately made costumes. The puppets were sold in high-end stores like Saks Fifth Avenue.

Wow, right? And for the curious, $13 in 1951 was about $115 in today's money. Not cheap, folks! Not cheap!

Here's a wild west town with all the trimmings...I love the cabin to the right:

And a book about animals in cages that is actually shaped like a cage! I appreciate that they chose these cutie white mice to use as the main example. I am secretly hoping there's a lizard in the back of this book.

At the back of the book, there were a rash of paid advertisements, in classified type listings, for other toys directly from the manufacturer. The most disturbing of which, naturally, I've reproduced for you here. Including, but not limited to:

This eerie "put your face on a paper doll!" set sounds a little like the My Twinn and American Girl doubles you can make today, but in paper doll format, which makes it the weirder for thinking of a photograph of my head on an illustrated child's body. I'm not going to knock it til I try it (and believe me, I do want to have like my head on Lana Turner's body in my Christmas stocking, because come ON)...but I will say the rhetoric of the second ad, in particular, is slasher-film-esque:

"My Twin Doll Looks Just Like Me: The living image of your own child" might be the title and subtitle of an episode of the Twilight Zone, OR it might be the ad copy that this My Twin Doll Company ad man came up with as the best representation of his product to the public at large. "Haunts my dreams while I sleep!" or "Comes alive at night!" were rejected for obvious reasons.

Another, far too large doll (and with that creepy, Dutch milkmaid face no less):

But the kicker of all the doll ads is Sandy. And if you read the ad, you will know why:

And I reiterate, the ad portrays this Rapunzel like infant as saying "Hello! I'm Sandy! I drink I wet I sleep and you can WAVE MY HAIR! I have RUBBER WONDERSKIN!" Rubber wonderskin, right from the rough draft journals of Stephen King. I understand that all these things are important selling points in the mind of a 1950's consumer, as you do want a baby doll to do as many things as possible, but good Lord. "You can...make her stand, walk, and sleep." No comment, just horrifying.

And last but not least, the Benedict Arnold of 1950's toy dolls, and a commentary on the futility of the Indian Wars, no doubt:

Steve Adams turns into Straight Arrow...or does Straight Arrow turn into Steve Adams? The mystery was solved with this entry in an Old Time Radio website and the truth of the matter has apparently been misconstrued over the years! In 1948, Shredded Wheat sponsored a kids' Western called "Straight Arrow", starring:

a Comanche Indian named Straight Arrow, who disguised himself as Steve Adams (note the same initials), the owner of the Broken Bow cattle spread. His secret identity was known only to his grizzled side-kick, Packy McCloud...When this adventure program debuted, Straight Arrow, like Superman before him, began his series as an adult, with the "origin story" of his childhood to follow. (However, unlike the Man of Steel, the origin story of the Comanche warrior never aired.)

So this tie-in toy would make no sense to anyone who actually listened to the series, which ended in June of 1951. Still, please buy these dolls! We have a whole warehouse full of them! If only the series had been more popular!

ANYWAY, I gotta go finish up some stuff before I get out of here in this last hour of work, but do tell me what you think! Which toy would you actually no-lie like to have as an adult? Which would have thrilled you the most as a kid? Seen any vintage toys that left you scratching your head either for safety or sheer surrealism reasons? What's the last kid's collectible you added to your collection? I'd love to know!

That's all for today, but I'll see you tomorrow (and hopefully earlier!) for more vintage tips and tangents. Have a great Wednesday night! Til then.

Etsy Spotlight: Atomic Dimestore (Vintage Five & Dime Odds and Ends)

Good morning!

How'd your Saturday and Sunday treat you? I shopped my brains out Friday, went to a baby shower and a birthday party Saturday, and lazed around all day Sunday in between live texting my dad about the movie Face/Off ("Mom says that couldn't happen in real life she said to tell you" is my favorite text back I have probably ever received). The calendar was full, kiddos!

I have a couple weekend finds for you coming up later this week, but in the meantime, why not talk kitsch brass tacks with one humdinger of an Etsy store find from the weekend-that-was? I was ogling some celluloid pins on Etsy this weekend when, as often happens when one travels down the "I wonder what else is in this seller's inventory" rabbit hole, I was sucked into the tractor beam of Atomic Dimestore's Etsy storefront. With items like this Dick Nixon rhinestone pin...I mean, what was I supposed to do? Check it out for yourself:

Vintage 1968 Nixon presidential campaign pin with rhinestones

The story behind the store, in owner Joan Berglund's words:

I collected vintage clothing and my husband, Rick, collected comics for years....We focus on midcentury toys, ephemera, clothing, comics and home accessories. We generally have items from the 40s to the 80s, with a primary focus in 50s-70s. I like some earlier things, like 30s and 40s Miami Beach deco tropical styles, and Rick likes some 80s toys. We try to buy items that are very evocative of the eras they were made, so if we buy 50s items, it should scream 1950s at you. One of the reasons we’ve really begun appreciating the 1980s stuff is it has its own defined aesthetic, you might not like that aesthetic, but you can be damn sure it’s from the 1980s.  

In the early 2000s we purchased the estate of a man who was a wholesaler to novelty and gift shops from the 1940s to the 1980s and squirreled away all his old stock that did not sell when it was new. So we also have a large amount of 1940s to 1980s new old stock, including a lot of actual dimestore items like toys and knick-knacks. We have all kinds of collections ourselves. I like things that can actually be used, like home accessories, textiles and kitchenalia. Almost all of our lamps are vintage, usually 50s figural ones with tiered fiberglass shades, although we have some 70s chrome in our living room that actually belonged to my parents. We also collect Heywood Wakefield furniture, which we use in just about every room. There are so many different pieces. You can usually find something to suit your needs, even if it needs a little repurposing, like using a desk for a bathroom vanity or an end table for a printer stand. 

Oh, and Halloween! We have lots of vintage Halloween, that collection is pretty deep. And vintage Xmas too. And Rick loves “Monsters driving cars”, like Rat Fink, Nutty Mads, and Weird-Ohs.

Do they not sound like exactly the kind of people you and I would like to hang out with? Look how cool the husband and wife owner team look in this vintage-in-its-own-right newspaper clipping about their vintage store (special mad props to her freakin' perfect swinging 60's, Apple Records secretary hair cut here, in spite of the year being 1990-something...you are KILLING IT, madame!) :

There are three places you can shop these vintage wares-- at the brick and mortar Atomic Dimestore in Hyannis, Massachusetts (you might even see a Kennedy!), the Ebay store, and the Etsy store. Here's what the real-life place looks like, and I am wanting to know more about that neon-pink looking dress there hanging in the window:

The Etsy store features beaucoup de old Woolworths-esque treasures. Thoughts about vintage dimestore treasures-- why do they not have things like this at the Dollar Tree? I'm in there all the time buying craft stuffs, party supplies, candles (2/$1, 50 cents a piece, baby), and silk flowers, but there's hardly anything kitschy in the whole store! I promise you, if I found a bracelet referencing the at-camp novelty classic "Hello Muddah", I would probably fall out right there on the nubby green carpet squares:

Vintage 1960s NOS bakelite or celluloid bracelets bangles Hello Muddah Hello Faddah

Vintage 1960s President and Mrs. John F. Kennedy small pitcher creamer

Vintage 1950s homemade barkcloth kitchen curtains plantation scene

Vintage 1950s LUCKY CHARMS make your own Charm Bracelet Novelty Jewelry MIP Prevue Plastics 

Vintage late 1940s or 1950s children at play novelty curtain panel 1 of 2

Vintage gold tonered rhinestone lobster brooch

The Ebay store has even more varied stock, as far as I can tell, ranging from 80's knock off Transformers ("VARIABLES: Three in One!") to The Amazing Moon Goon People (have YOU met them?). Here's some of the stuff from that front that I want to take home with me:

Vintage 1950s Irwin Tidee pony tail BARRETTE VLV Rockabilly Hair Accessory

Vintage 1960s BLACK SKELETON RUBBER MONSTER JIGGLERS Jiggler,
Vintage 1960s RUBBER UGLY MONSTER JIGGLER LARGE CREEPY WEIRD #4 Mutant Metaluna

((Have I ever loved two items more in my entire life...they were made to be together))

Vintage 1963 Hollywood FUNGLASSES Joke gag

Vintage 1977 SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN Book and Record Set SHRINK WRAP

Vintage 1953 the SHE-WOLF PRESS BOOK Dino DeLaurentis John LeBold Collection

Check out Joan's Pinterest boards here, the store's eBay listings here, and the store's Facebook page here. And go buy you some goodies! These ephemera lovers are living the dream, as far as I'm concerned! I hope if I get up to Massachusetts some day, I can see the store in person; in the meantime, I'll content myself with the internal struggle of which piece of Richard Nixon campaign jewelry I can't possibly live without.

I gotta get back to work, but how about you? Which of these wacky wares would you like to take home with you? Do you have any crazy dimestore relics in your collection, or remember when you could get ceramic crocodile soap dishes and tacky, gold tone charm bracelets at your local five and dime? As a vintage enthusiast, what is it that really gets you going about particularly crazy/out-there finds? Let's swap stories!

That's all for today, but I'll be back tomorrow hopefully with some real life photographs of my finds for you. Have a fabulous Monday! Talk then. :)

Weekend Finds 1: Eartha's Generosity!

Good morning!

Thanks for all your kind comments on my ma's wedding dress both on the Facebook page and back here on the original post! I will followup with that photo of the woman herself in the same gown some time soon! :) I've got wedding on the brain, but I'm fighting it tooth and nail this week to tell you about all the goodies I snagged in the last weekend or two that have yet to show themselves on the blog. Take a look!

Jamie posted the other day about Eartha Kitsch's awesome, "take anything you want, please, it's free, I need to clean out this garage" event at her house the other day. IT WAS AMAZING. I told her after I got home, I was surprised at all the neat stuff I had in my car when I got back home. I'd been so busy crackin' up with the assembled parties (Rae and Travis were there, too, and Mr. Kitsch of course, who added funny origin stories about some of the stuff we were taking off their hands), that I'd forgotten about the freaking amazing haul of goods exchanging hands! First of the very neat things I got? Board games:


Confession: I have a sick, Quentin Tarantino like weakness for any seventies' movie or tv tie-in merchandise period, but board games are really high on the list of things I won't pass up. I have board games for everything from Welcome Back Kotter to Dukes of Hazzard to Happy Days, so you can imagine my STUPID amount of glee at showing up first to Eartha's house and seeing not one but TWO amazing board games sitting on the drive way. First, this Planet of the Apes board game.

This is you, running through Earth in 3978 AD in your bearskin clothes, trying to stay alive on the ape planet. I love how the cover blares the stark truth of the game's goal: "OBJECT: BECOME THE LAST SURVIVOR". Yeah, don't help your friends, or try and salvage the space ship to get home, or acclimate to ape human society, JUST SURVIVE. I haven't gone through the game play rules yet, but Eartha forewarned me that if any of the pieces were missing, it was probably her brother in 1978 AD who misplaced them. Possibly, he is also the one who wrote "You are a dummy, dummy" in ballpoint pen on the inside of the lid. I actually laughed out loud when I opened that and read the secret message for the first time.

Hold up...why do I have to build my own ape prison? I have to construct the means of my entrapment? Not cool, Milton Bradley. Not cool.

Isn't the board itself magnificent? This score dulls the pain of the $25 Dr. Zaius bank I didn't buy at the flea market this weekend (I know, I know. I wasn't thinking. Forgive me, Dr. Zaius!). I love the black and white background photos and the colorfulness of the color portions of the board!

OH MY GOD. IT'S THE BIONIC WOMAN BOARD GAME. Obviously perfect for a couples game night in which we could play The Six Million Dollar Man and Charlie's Angels board games from my collection. I have to say the one disappointing thing about a lot of these games is how tedious the actual rules of playing go...for example, the Dukes game is pretty much Sorry with less continuity and more "You got chased by Sherriff Roscoe and ran into a ditch, go back two spaces" cards. Ah well. Look upon Jaime Sommer's illustrated visage!

Heck yes, it features her fictional character's signature. I mean, duh.

Also heck yes, she is trying to net a cougar on the cover of the box. What else would she be doing? Did you guys ever see the episode where she teamed up with Evel Knievel to fight the KGB on the wrong side of the Berlin Wall? THIS WOMAN KNOWS NO LIMITS. Bring it, cougar.

The board is ok, but the the gameplay cards on this one are just fantastic. The one you're seeing reads "ADVENTURE 3: ATTEMPTED PLANE HIJACKING! Jaime foils attempt and saves passengers." Naturally. See the illustration where she has the hijacker in a bionic chokehold? 

Another of the garage hauls? Home wares! You know how I am about coffee tables, and I SERIOUSLY needed a smaller one for the ad hoc trunk-as-coffeetable situation going on in the green room. I almost died when Eartha said this was up for grabs:

Seriously, could it be a better looking piece of furniture? She said the original glass top was broken in a cleaning casualty, but it's extremely lightweight and easy on the eyes in spite of its missing piece. I just love this! The whole room (I took it back into the living room for lighting purposes, but it actually sits in the green room) just looks better with this fancy little atomic piece. I love it!

Also, this lamp? Tiny, plastic, tiki-style perfection:

I haven't quite figured out where to put it, but it lights up a darkened room with a blue glow like an aquarium, and I am all about that.

This wasn't even half the box of stuff I took home-- two pairs of shoes, a blue vase, a porcelain pair of kitties resting under a sunbonnet, a Marshall Dillon Gunsmoke puzzle, a mostly-complete NUDIST CAMP puzzle ("I might have to mail you a boob if I find it," in the immortal words of Ms. Kitsch), two skirts, two pitchers, and some other odds and ends are still sitting in my den ready to be distributed throughout the house. I had so much fun AND got so many neat things to take home. So thank you, Eartha!! :)

Did you have any tv board games as a kid? Been the recipient of someone else's extreme generosity? Make any good scores at the flea market or estate sales lately? Let's talk, folks!

I've got two more posts of "junk I have known" coming this week, so stay tuned! See you tomorrow. 

1950's Pelham Puppet Skeleton (Meet Smiley!)

Good morning!

I thought I would start out the week with my number one find from this weekend. I've been so, so good at not picking up every knickknack in the living world, but when I saw this guy at a Patterson Estate sale in the River Plantation Clubhouse, how in the heck was I supposed to NOT get him?

 Folks, meet Smiley. Yes, I named him Smiley. Look at that face!!

 This charming little so-and-so was sitting in one convoluted heap on a card table next to some fabric scraps and 1950's baby clothes. I had somehow managed to convince myself out of a knit sweater with a dozen white sheep, the center of which was black (it was too big, but I should have got it anyway!) and two or three black nylon half slips (I have too many) and was about to get out scot-free when the what-is-that-over-there feeling struck seeing a tiny femur sticking out from the detritus as if at a crime scene.

Dance, man!

DANCE!

Does anyone know how to work this thing?

As is often my fashion, it took the moment I'd actually tracked down one of the people running the sale and the words "Do you know how much you all wanted for this?" to have left my mouth before I suddenly saw a price tag stickered to the wooden controller (or "airplane" as it's called by those in the know...certainly not me!). Fifteen bucks! I was smitten, so I took one last cursory look around the sale and then headed up to the checkout table. "You're not gonna untangle all those strings by yourself, are you?" the older woman asked, holding the hogtied Smiley in both hands as she examined the price tag. "I'm gonna try!" I chirped, and beamed all the way back to my car with the strange bundle in tow.

After a quick googling of "Pelham Puppet Skeleton" (there's a wooden tag that reminds us of his origins), I found this site, celebrating the history of the company. From the website:


Bob Pelham began making puppets in 1947 after he obtained some help from Jan Bussell and Ann Hogarth (who used to operate Muffin the Mule on TV) with designing puppets that would be simple enough for young children to use.

All the early puppets were made from recycled materials and Bob told how he used to rummage through his father's home and how he persuaded his friends and employees to do the same, searching out all sorts of bits and pieces would be useful for making puppets. The local scrap-yards received many visits from this tall, blonde rather loose limbed figure, who, at times seemed to look like one of his own creations.

Isn't that adorable? Pelham went on to enjoy success as a puppet manufacturer, with his models in production until the mid-eighties'. There's currently a new, revival line of Pelham Puppets, but the originals are apparently pretty collectible. How collectible, you ask? I did some ebay browsing, and past auctions of this same guy have sold, with and without his accompanying box, for between $30-$100. The only two active listings right now are for $80 and up! So I feel like I didn't get snookered on the price, which is nice when it's something you absolutely couldn't live without.

Matthew spent about three hours totally nimbly surgeoning this guy's strings back from the knotted mass the bones were cocooned in to begin with-- I spent about thirty minutes before he got home, and then got too disgusted with my lack of progress to continue. So way to go Matthew for sticking it out! Recreation of the process from Sunday afternoon:

Matthew [from kitchen table]: Hey, can I untie this guy's foot?
Me [from sofa, reading House of Mystery Vol 1]: No! Don't untie anything! We won't know how to tie it back!
Matthew: I just need to untie this one string and the leg will go through. Then I can untie this crazy knot in the middle.
Me: [suspciously, coming to look over his shoulder] Which foot is it?

And so on. But look! Smiley looks like a million bucks now!

We were so excited with our find that yes, we even took the most amateur marionette video you have ever seen in your living life. The humming is me doing "Keep Your Sunny Side Up" from the Paper Moon soundtrack, which was just the first thing I could think of. Aren't marionettes NEAT? Look at, even in our hopelessly unschooled hands, how his body moves!

Well, I'm off to the races, but what do you think? Do you have any neat, weird, awesome marionettes in your collection? Find anything crazy cool this past week? Had any frustrating brushes with trying to restore something that is above your skill set (knots, why do you torment me!)? Let a girl know!

Hope you had a good weekend, and I'll see you guys back here tomorrow! Til then.