I make no secret that I am on an endless quest to recapture my childhood. Was childhood really better in the 1950’s and 1960’s than it was (or is) for later generations? Most of us who were alive at that time would say yes. Most of you who were unfortunate enough to be born later would probably disagree. Of course, you would be wrong, but there’s not a lot you can do about it.

Besides playing with all our “Made in USA” toys, we had a lot of time to go outside and “run around”. Parents weren’t quite so worried that every waking minute of childhood be taken up with some organized activity designed to make you outstanding enough to get into an Ivy League school. Since we also didn’t have video games to keep us quiet, we were encouraged to go outside and entertain ourselves.

This well-worn pair of PF Flyers has been preserved for over half a century.

Anyway, running around is actually the point of this article. Running around in PF Flyers that is! Brand loyalty meant something in those days, and when it came to “sneakers,” you were most likely a “Keds” or “PF Flyers” kid. I was definitely in the latter category.

PF Flyers were manufactured by the tire company B. F. Goodrich and first introduced in 1937. PF stood for “Posture Foundation” which meant there was a wedge inside the shoe that more evenly distributed your weight. The promise was that you could “run faster and jump higher” with a pair of “PF’s” strapped to your feet. I totally believed this to be true! Putting on a new pair of PFs felt like you were walking on a cloud, and running as fast as you could to test out your new superpowers was part of the routine. Unfortunately, one of the more negative realities of growing up in the 1950’s and ‘60’s is that dog poop seemed to be everywhere. Once, while racing down the street, I managed to find a fresh pile with my brand new sneakers. What a mess!

I found this vintage and well-worn pair of boy’s sneakers at a flea market last year. Why they got saved is anyone’s guess. They are marked Hood PF Flyers. I found out that BF Goodrich purchased Hood Rubber Company in 1929 and the Hood named was used until the late 1950’s on some PF Flyers. I also found a reference indicating that the Hood name was used in 1962. I think it’s safe to say these sneakers date from the late 1950’s to the early 1960’s.

Of all the things I have collected, I think these old sneakers represent the essence of boyhood in the middle of the twentieth century as well as anything. After all, no matter how humble your upbringing, just about everyone had a pair of worn out sneakers at some point in their youth.

PF Flyers sponsored The Mickey Mouse Club, and here’s a cool cardboard counter-top display piece from the 1950’s.

Here’s another PF Flyers cardboard advertising display for another, lesser-known Disney show called Adventure Time.

Based on the girl’s hair style as well as the style of shoe, this cardboard Keds advertising display piece probably dates to the 1920’s or 30’s.

This large pin-back button shows “Leave It to Beaver” star Jerry Mathers promoting Keds, the main competition for PF Flyers.

PF Flyers are once again available thanks to the company New Balance. At least there’s less dog poop to worry about these days.

The post Vintage PF Flyers – Superpowers for Kids appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Since that time I have added a few more examples to my collection which I would like to share with our readers.  I am still somewhat picky about what enters my collection, and I also remain somewhat cheap as well.  These three examples ranged in price from $25.00 to $40.00 and I think are among the best ones I have found.

I particularly like the one with the shoe painted on the side complete with “shine” lines on the toe included to exemplify the quality of their work.  Who wouldn’t want shoes with shine lines emanating from them?

I also like the one that wants to almost shame you into getting a shine.  I think the phrase, “Your Shoes are Showing” is a take-off on, “Your Slip is Showing,” something husbands would have to tell their wives before leaving the house in the morning in the 1930’s, 40’s or 50’s.  “Hav Ya Shind Em,” however, is the icing on the cake with this one. The bad spelling only adds to its charm.   I purchased this in Florida from a dealer who told me that this box had recently come out of the ghetto of Flint, Michigan.  I have no reason to doubt him.

The last one is painted silver to give it a classy look to go with the classy shine you would have gotten.  This is the box of an upscale establishment.  Either that or they were just using up a can of radiator paint.

I still feel that shoe shine boxes are great Americana and remain underpriced.  They are great folk art for the budget minded.

After each purchase, I still get the same question:  “Are you starting a new business?”

For more examples of shoe shine boxes, please see my first article right here on The Collector Gene.

The post Shoe Shine Boxes – Part II – More Shine Is Just Fine appeared first on The Collector Gene.

It seems as though every Happy Meal toy is a promotional tool used to get children to beg their parents to see the latest computer animated theatrical release or buy them the latest Mattel ™ toys. However, it wasn’t always like this. McDonald’s use to come up with their own ideas all the time so that kids would be sold on their love for Ronald McDonald and his friends at an early age.

The best promotion by far had nothing to do with Ronald and the gang. Instead, it had to do with transforming things, which was an inevitable recipe for success for toys in the 1980s. McDonald’s released Changeables, a series of robots disguised as your favorite McDonald’s meals. Sure, like all Happy Meal toys, they weren’t QUITE as good as their expensive, branded counterparts, but for FREE toys, they were amazing. We hadn’t seen anything quite like them. A hot cakes box and a French fry container transforming into robots?

Courtesy of neogaf.com

Who would have thought that you could have food containers transforming into awesome robots?

The Japanese. That’s who.

Yes, if you grew up in Japan in the mid-1980s, you had us Americans beat by a couple of years when it came to the transforming food objects market. That’s because if you grew up in Japan, you might have owned Telecoma toys!

This amazing artwork let's you know about the eternal food war going on in Japanese supermarkets.

These toys, affectionately known by American collectors as “Canned Food Fighters,” take containers of popular branded foods and meals in Japan and turn them into an army of food fightin’ warriors! Unlike Food Fighters, which definitely took their inspiration from the American military, Telecoma figures were more akin to Kinnikuman or M.U.S.C.L.E., where a wide variety of characters settled their differences in a stadium for mealtime dominance!

What I love about the toys is that they actually use real food products on their labels. When McDonald’s made Changeables, they didn’t have to worry about licensing their own food. With Telecoma, this was more like Computer Warriors using a Pepsi can in their toy line or Monster in my Pocket featuring Tony the Tiger, except on a much grander scale. The Pepsi can is certainly the most recognizable design for us Americans.

While most of what I write about it something that I know quite a bit about and feel the need to get the info out on the Internet, I can’t say that I know a whole lot about Telecoma other than they exist. My collection is rather small, and all of it has come courtesy of a series of Japanese online auctions. I learned about the line through the Little Rubber Guys message board and decided I would see what was out there.

These characters all resemble cans...

...and these are more bowl-based characters.

Two of the sets that I have fall into the “keshi” or little rubber guy category. I’m guessing one boxed set is one faction and the other contains the guys they fight with or something. They are packaged very similarly to most kinkeshi lines of the era. I don’t know if these two boxed sets represent a complete set of figures or not, but it must put me pretty darned close.

The third boxed set I own is a deluxe set of sorts. In addition to containing a handful of the kinkeshi figures, it also contains two of the transforming figures that are very similar to the way McDonald’s constructed its Changeables line.

These figures came in the above boxed set.

There is a whole line of these figures numbering almost as many as the keshi line, and I have seen a transforming shopping cart vehicle, which as you can imagine is amazing. This deluxe set comes with a wrestling ring, which is not quite as amazing as a transforming shopping cart.

Now, some of you might say, “Wait a second, Ben, I’m pretty sure I had these figures as a kid, and I never lived in Japan!” And you know what? You’re absolutely right.

Though I own one of these, this image comes from dinosaurdracula.com!

This is a card that would have been placed in a grocery store vending machine. As you can plainly see, the designs of these characters come right from Telecoma. Several collectors have documented finding these figures in a wide variety of colors, and a few of them have found examples with the stickers still attached, which feature more recognizable American food brands on them. Sadly, I have not stumbled upon any examples of Telecoma knock-offs at any flea markets in the couple of years that I’ve been on the lookout for them, but they are definitely out there.

While Telecoma has a much richer universe than the McDonald’s Changeables, it’s funny to see how East and West developed what is essentially the same idea. Throw in Food Fighters to the mix, and there’s no question that kids will never get tired of playing with their food.

The post Telecoma Canned Food Fighters by Takara (Yet More Mealtime Combat) appeared first on The Collector Gene.

This tenth anniversary issue of Life magazine shows the first issue with the famous Margaret Bourke White cover.

I’m sure my love affair with Life began when I was about ten years old. Unlike just about every middle class family in America in the 1940’s, 50’s, and 60’s, my family never had a subscription to Life magazine. However, my aunts and uncles did, and they would pass along their outdated copies to us when we came to visit. Indeed, I really looked forward to riding home with several stacks of magazines piled up around me in the back of the car. Life, McCall’s, Ladies Home Journal, and National Geographic were eagerly read by me even when I was still in elementary school. Sometimes I would cut the magazines up and put photos and articles in my scrap book. When I was about 13 or 14, I started making a gigantic collage of famous people’s faces, and most of the clippings came from Life.

Now you know what a weird kid I was and how my addiction to printed matter, especially magazines, began.

Early on, when Jim and I first started going to flea markets and into antique shops over forty years ago, I would be drawn to any old magazines that I saw, and if they were affordable (i.e. cheap), I would usually buy them. With thousands upon thousands of each copy sold during its heyday, old Life magazines were not hard to find. I could usually pick up nice examples from the 1940’s and 50’s, my favorite era because the magazines were bulging with fabulous advertisements and interesting articles, for fifty cents or a dollar. Once, about thirty years ago, I came upon a table at a flea market piled high with the old Life’s for a quarter each, and I bought a couple dozen.

However, that was nothing compared to what happened about ten years ago. Our county library holds a book sale a few times a year. When I first discovered this, I went crazy and was coming home with two or three boxes full of printed matter after each sale. This is not a good thing when we already have many, many boxes full of books and magazines in the basement. On this particular occasion, I was trying to behave by avoiding the sale, but Ben ended up checking it out. At lunchtime, he reported that they had “tons” of vintage Life magazines for ten cents apiece. Ten cents! Heck, that was the original cover price in the 1930’s and 40’s! The sale closed at 3 pm, so I hopped in the car and headed to the library. My willpower had crumbled.

Ben was right. Almost as soon as I walked in, I saw several piles of Life from the 1940’s and 50’s. Why they hadn’t all sold at that ridiculously low price was beyond my comprehension. Within minutes, my stack was an impressive size – and I’d only spent about $2.00. Then one of the volunteers at the book sale said the fateful words, “We have more magazines in the back if you’re interested.” Of course, I was. So I accompanied her to a large employee office/workroom, and there were about three or four eight-foot long tables just piled with Life magazines. I was stunned. It turned out that it was the entire archive that the library owned, and they had decided to get rid of it. There literally were hundreds of Life magazines from about 1937 to 1999. Obviously, it was not a complete collection. Certain issues had probably been lifted forty or fifty years ago. Others had probably been sold that morning at the book sale. Still and all, there were many, many issues from just about every year of publication.

Again, I dove in and started making a hand-selected pile, probably another $2.00’s worth. Then I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my mouth. “Would you be willing to sell all of them to me for one price?” I asked, knowing full well that if I bought them, Jim was surely going to kill me. In my mind, I thought that any price of $50 or less would be an absolute steal that I couldn’t turn down. Any figure above $50 would have caused me to hesitate and perhaps regain my sanity. Naturally, the woman said, “You can have them all for $50.”

And that’s how I came into possession of our county library’s Life magazine archive.

There was no way I could fit them all into the car on one trip. I took several boxes with me, and over the course of the next month or two, I would make a trip every week or so and pick up another five or ten boxes. Into the basement they went, and in the basement most of them still are.

Quite honestly, I have sold a few. I’ve certainly gotten my money back and then some. I’ve even given a few away as gifts. Life magazines are the perfect birthday or anniversary gift. It’s always fun to see what products were being advertised, what big stories were in the news, what the fashions looked like and what famous person might have been interviewed.

Whenever I go through the “archive” and try to choose a few magazines to get rid of, here’s what happens: First, I’ll see a great cover photo and be attracted to it.

Then I’ll see some ads that are colorful, nostalgic, or fun.

Then, invariably, there’s an interesting article to skim or scan or even read in depth. I swear to you that it’s a rare Life magazine that doesn’t have at least three or four different things going for it. And sometimes that’s what makes it difficult for me to part with some of them. They are like little weekly time capsules. Sometimes they capture an era with which I’m familiar – like the 1960’s or 70’s. More often, though, they bespeak a time that I either never lived through or was too young to remember.

It doesn’t matter. I love Life, and that’s that. I have promised that I will begin parting with them more seriously, and I will keep my promise. But will I always have some Life magazines in my possession? Yes, without a doubt.

The post My Love Affair With LIFE (Magazine) appeared first on The Collector Gene.

It’s October, the month when grown men do crazy things like this.  This vintage photo, most likely from the 1960’s, is from my collection.  It’s hard to say why these men are in costume, but let’s assume it’s a Halloween party at the local American Legion or men’s club.  The guy who’s supposed to be Mr. Clean REALLY looks like Mr. Clean.  My favorite is the “house frau” on the right.  Note that the youngest guy has the lamest costume.  One of the best parts of getting older is not caring what others think.  By that measure, I’ll bet the man in the coconut bra is the oldest!

Get your costume on.  Halloween is coming!

The post Mr. Clean & Friends – Grown Men in Costume appeared first on The Collector Gene.

My apologies on the flash flare. This thing wasn’t easy to photograph!

It probably isn’t much of a secret that circuses would sometimes exaggerate in their advertising. A case in point is the subject of this article. Were the Giraffe-Neck Women from Burma really the “Greatest Educational Discovery of the Century”? I doubt it.

Were their necks really THAT long? I doubt that too.

Nevertheless this circa 1930 Ringling Brothers poster has great imagery and if I were a kid back then I would be pestering my parents to drag me to the circus ASAP!

Sometimes you have something so long that you start to take it for granted. This poster has been in our collection since 1975 when we purchased it at an antique show in Atlantic City. A dealer was selling off the contents of the “Merle Evans Circus Museum”. We purchased this and several other circus posters for five dollars each. This was by far the best one, so we had a frame specially made for it and it has been hanging on the wall in various locations ever since. Merle Evans, by the way was the band director of the Ringling Brothers circus for many years.

I haven’t checked values recently but I think it was a really good investment.

I wish I had bought more.

The post Giraffe-Neck Women from Burma Circus Poster appeared first on The Collector Gene.

I purchased this skull a few years ago at a Pennsylvania flea market.  I walked into the market with $52 in my wallet, which doesn’t usually go a long way at an antique flea market.  So of course I found this piece in the first booth I went in, and it was priced at $50.  Needless to say, I was frustrated.  I really liked the skull, but buying it would wipe me out before I was even finished my first row of dealers.  We were also going to check a few more flea markets and shops later that day, which made it even tougher to fathom spending all of my money immediately, especially on an object I knew nothing about.

At first I left it on the table and walked away figuring I would probably go back to buy it after I made sure that there was nothing I wanted more at the flea market.  However, a few minutes later and about half way down the second row of the market, I realized that I didn’t want to risk it.  I really liked the skull, and I knew I would be upset if someone else bought it while I was walking around.  The more I thought about it, the more I wanted it.  I cut back to the dealer’s booth again and bought it, and I have had no regrets about blowing all of my money in the first booth I went in at the flea market that day.  There was nothing else I wanted more, and in my opinion this piece would have been hard to top.  A lot of people like to collect what they know, but I find that the objects I tend to like best in my collection are the objects I didn’t know I needed until I saw them.  Some of the fun of collecting, to me, is finding an object you love, and then finding out you love it even more as you learn more about it.  The Le Macabre skull did that for me.

The Le Macabre skull is made out of plaster, with the name of its place of origin, Le Macabre, Meard Street SOHO, stamped into its forehead.  It is just about life-sized, though it is stylized and kind of elongated if you look at the skull from its side.  The back of the skull is flat and hollow, and the eye sockets are hollow as well.  It has a little metal hook imbedded in the plaster so you can hang it on the wall.  The skull is probably from the 1950’s, which is part of what made it appeal to me, and for some reason I like skulls, so it had double appeal.  The damage to his chin was there when I bought him, and even though I could totally restore it myself, I haven’t done it yet.  I don’t know why. Maybe sometimes I like to think that he received his battle scar in some really epic way and it is a part of his history.  He is a very intriguing advertising piece, and the more I learn about him, the more I love him hanging on my wall.

One of the biggest mysteries with the Le Macabre skull is this: How did it end up in the United States?  Le Macabre was a coffee and espresso bar in SOHO London.  This I knew when I bought the skull because it is stamped on his forehead, and I got an original postcard from Le Macabre with it.

I love this postcard.  The imagery is great, and it adds a sense of humor to the skull plaque.   I have it framed and hanging under the plaque on my wall.  None of this, however, explains why these two pieces crossed the pond and ended up in New Jersey, and the more I research Le Macabre, the more I still don’t understand how these two ended up here.

When I first went to research this piece on the internet back when I bought it, the only information I could find out at the time was that Le Macabre existed from the 1950’s through the 1970’s, and that it offered a place for London jazz musicians and rock musicians to perform.  There was also some reference to Orson Wells hanging out at Le Macabre, which I thought was pretty cool.  Le Macabre had coffin shaped tables and skeleton murals on the wall, but there was never any mention of skulls like mine hanging in the bar anywhere.  I was happy to know that Le Macabre played an integral part in the early history of jazz and rock n roll in England, but there were no pictures to help me understand what part my skull played in the bar.  Were there more than one?  Was it for decoration or a souvenir?  For several years I just assumed that I would never fully understand the skull plaque, but that was okay because I liked it, and I liked that it represented pre-British invasion rock and jazz in London.

It wasn’t until late last year that I decided to research my skull again, and a lot more information has surfaced on Le Macabre thanks to two British news reels, one from 1958 and one from 1959, that have since been posted to the internet.

The first newsreel I found in the internet was the 1958 newsreel called “It’s the Age of the Teenager”, and I couldn’t believe what I saw when I watched it.  If you go to the 00.32 minute mark right in the beginning of the film and look behind the bartender’s head, you will see a skull just like mine hanging on the wall!  Mystery solved!  Well, sort of.  If you keep watching through the rest of the “Le Macabre” section of the film, you will see several other skulls hanging up throughout the joint.  Some are used over light fixtures, and others are just hanging on the wall as decoration.  I still can’t believe that these films exist, and that through them I could finally learn in some capacity why my skull plaque exists.  The rest of the film is an interesting look at British teenagers in the 1950’s.  It doesn’t spend too much time in coffee bars outside of Le Macabre, but it is definitely worth watching and kind of funny by today’s standards.  Follow this link to the website for Pathe to watch the filmstrip.

The 1959 strip is in color and called “Look at Life: Coffee Bar”, and it shows Le Macabre at about the 07.01 minute mark.  If you look towards the ceiling in one of the early scenes, you might catch skulls like mine hanging up near the ceiling.  They are covering light fixtures that will make the eyes glow when they are lit.  The whole news reel is a rather interesting look into the rise of the coffee bar in London and its clientele and significance.  It is fascinating and worth watching if you want to learn more about the “coffee craze”.    Apparently there were dozens of coffee and espresso bars in SOHO in the 1950’s, but there were so many that it became difficult for them to thrive with all of the competition.  The “coffee craze” in London was certainly not a point in history on my radar before buying the Le Macabre skull, but this is why I love buying pieces of history that I know very little about until I get them home to research them.  You never know what you will find out.   Look at Life: Coffee Bar

Of course, there are still a lot of things I do not know about this skull and about Le Macabre.  I still don’t know if they sold these skulls as souvenirs or if my skull was salvaged when Le Macabre shut down in the 1970’s.  Are there many other skull plaques still in existence out there?  I have never seen another one, but then again, I am nowhere near London.  If anyone out there has any more information about this skull or Le Macabre itself, please share it on the comments section of this site.  I would love to know any information that I can get.

It is very rare to buy an object with very little information and to find out as much as I did from the Le Macabre skull plaque.  Most of the time you aren’t that lucky, and you are left to speculate as to the purpose of an object.  I certainly never could have dreamed that somewhere along the line someone, and in this case more than one person, would post video evidence of my find in its original context.  When we first started this website almost a year ago, I was planning on writing about the Le Macabre skull. However, because I knew very little about it, I was just planning to post a picture and what little bit I knew in hopes that somewhere along the line a person who knew more about it would comment on the site and I would have an answer.  Then the internet surprisingly answered a few of my questions for me.  It has been a fun ride so far figuring out the origins of Le Macabre and the little piece of it I hang on my wall and look at every day, but I have a feeling there is still a lot to learn.

Article Update:

Hey everyone!  This is the first time I have had the opportunity to update an article after gaining some valuable information on its subject matter from another passionate collector.  Hopefully this will be a trend!  Since posting my article about Le Macabre and my skull I was contacted by Del Fuller, another fan of Le Macabre who was actually fortunate enough to visit Le Macabre before it closed in the 70’s.  He and his friend Keith Ryan have supplied me with the following images of other Le Macabre memorabilia and were generous enough to let me share it with the internet.  Please enjoy!

This is a different post card made to promote Le Macabre.  Skeletons and naked ladies were kind of Le Macabre’s thing.

This is an original menu from Le Macabre.  They used the same image from my postcard on the cover.  It is kind of fascinating to see how they made changes to the menu by just crossing things off and adding other things in.

This is a smaller skull than mine measuring about 3″ by 2 1/4″.  We aren’t quite sure of its practical purpose, but it was used on the tables at Le Macabre and has “Saturday 17^th Jan 1959″ written in ink on the bottom.
We still aren’t sure as to whether they sold Le Macabre skulls or if patrons just swiped them, making Del, Keith, and I lucky enough to own what we have.  Either way, it is a fascinating place, and I am so grateful to learn from other collectors and fans about the objects I am passionate about.

The post The Le Macabre Skull appeared first on The Collector Gene.

This all happened a few years ago – 2005 to be exact, when through a happy turn of events Ben was able to secure tickets for all four of us to go to the “Roadshow”.  The bad news was that the closest event to us that year was in Providence, Rhode Island, about a seven hour drive away.  Even so, we weren’t about to pass up the chance to see our favorite show in person.  Since we knew the odds of getting on TV were less than one percent, we pretty much abandoned hope of making it to the little screen.  We figured the best thing to do was to use this experience as an opportunity to find out more about some of the stuff we were having trouble finding values for on our own.  We wanted to hear what the experts had to say.

One of the items we determined to be “Roadshow” worthy was our little Michelin statue. Purchased by Carol in 1987 for the grand sum of seven dollars, she found it at the yard sale of an auctioneer.  I received it as a birthday present that year.   Standing just fourteen and a half  inches tall, this little guy doesn’t look much like the cuter powdered doughnut version of Bibendum (yes, he has a name) that we see in commercials today.  Bibendum’s origins go all the way back to 1898 in France.  The Quaker Oats guy and Aunt Jemima have been around longer but they have human forms, they’re not made out of, well,  tires after all, nor do they smoke, drink and dance with women in their early ads either!  Leave it to the French to have an advertising icon with a true joie de vie!  Indeed, Bibendum, by the way, is Latin for “drink to be done”!  He was sort of the bad boy of early advertising icons!  Like all bad boys, however, that made him kind of cool.

We arrived at the Rhode Island Convention Center at about 8:30 that June morning and were greeted at the door by volunteers wearing light blue “Antiques Roadshow” polo shirts who directed us to go up the stairs and to the end of the ever growing line.  The line moved quickly, however and soon our tickets were checked and we each showed our items to a couple of ladies who determined which appraisers we would each see.  The Michelin Man earned me a ticket to the “collectibles” line which was understandably among the longest there.  In about only fifteen minutes or so though, I found myself face to face with Gary Sohmers (the guy with the white ponytail) who looked at my little tire guy and determined that Noel Barrett (at the adjacent toy table) would know more about it than he.  Suddenly there was Noel Barrett holding my little French advertising icon in his hands.  They seemed to be sizing each other up!  The seasoned dealer, auctioneer and appraiser looking down and Bibendum looking up.  There obviously was a bond forming.

Noel Barrett (the other guy with a ponytail by the way) then motioned that I come over to the toy table and have a seat behind the appraisers desk while he contacted his producer.  Holy cow, he wants to put us (mainly Bibendum) on TV!  I motioned for the rest of the family to join me and nobody seemed to mind all of us sitting there watching all the activity before us.  We also met a nice lady from Maine with her doll furniture, who was also waiting to talk with the producer.  She would end up on TV also.

Eventually the producer (Marsha Bemko) came over and talked first to the nice lady from Maine and then to me.  After a few question I was asked if I would like to be on TV and escorted to the “green room”.  The green room wasn’t actually green but was a separate area partitioned off by curtains.  There were several long tables by which to sit and wait your turn.  In each corner was a monitor showing the live raw feed of what was being taped.  There were also two make-up people.  The appraisers would go to one before their taping and the rest of us went to the other.  While in there we met Mark Wahlberg, who was on his first day on the job as the new host.  He, Noel Barrett, and everyone else was very nice to us.

My turn finally came and out I went holding the Michelin Man.  I was directed to one of the three tables in the center of the room set up for taping.  My microphone was hooked up and soon Noel Barrett joined me and off we went.  My three minutes of fame had begun!  I can’t say that I wasn’t at least a little nervous but I was really enjoying drinking in the experience (that would be bibendum in Latin) and I realized that I was actually living something that I had dreamed about.  One of the advantages that comes with age is that you worry less about what other people may think – even if there’s several million of them.  I had a great time.

I would have to wait eleven months to see if I made the cut that day.  As with most TV shows, the “Roadshow” tapes more material than it uses, so the possibility of ending up on the cutting room floor still existed.  Finally in May, 2006 in hour 2 from Providence, Rhode Island, there I was.  I was on TV.  I had made the cut.  So far my episode seems to run about every two years.  The last time I saw it on TV was last summer (2012).  It became the gift that kept on giving!

As far as the appraisal is concerned, below is the page from the 2010 “Antiques Roadshow” calendar which tells the story.  You can also view the appraisal on the “Antiques Roadshow” website in the archive section – just type in “Michelin”.

Watch the clip and read the transcript here at the Antiques Roadshow website.

By the way, the Michelin Man is still with us.  He wasn’t so valuable that we felt we had to sell him.  Valued at $1200 to $1800 he went right back to his familiar spot in our family room, but now he has a great story behind him.  He was, after all, on the “Antiques Roadshow”.

As for me, it didn’t exactly make me rich or famous.  Many people I knew told me that they saw me on TV but nobody ever asked for my autograph.  The whole experience, however, has only made me fonder of the “Roadshow”.  May it keep going for many years to come.

The post The Michelin Advertising Figure – Rollin to the “Roadshow” with Bibendum appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Well, what I collect involves a lot of characters from the 1980s and 1990s, and to cash in on the holiday spirit, many of these characters appeared in various Christmas specials or comics or whatever. From He-Man to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, there were a fair number of idols from my childhood who donned their gay Christmas apparel for the sake of my amusement.

It wasn’t until a few years ago when I rented my first house that I had enough space to really go crazy with my own Christmas decorations. A wreath and two three-foot-tall Christmas trees filled with ornaments just weren’t going to cut it though. I needed something BIG, a standout piece that said it was time to celebrate the holidays while also celebrating my everyday nostalgic existence.

I made that find at a flea market that fall for a whopping $10.

Walking in a science fiction wonderland…

This large cardboard display stands about four feet tall and a little over feet wide if it’s folded out flat. It’s a winter wonderland populated with some of Disney’s classic characters, from Mickey and Goofy and Chip and Dale to Tron and V.I.N.C.E.N.T. from Black Hole. Wait…what?

These days, Disney is laying claim to all sorts of hot properties, including the entire Star Wars and Marvel universes. Back in the early 1980s, though, the Mouse House only dipped its toes into nerdy properties after the blockbuster success of Star Wars. Tron was only a moderate success, while The Black Hole barely turned a profit on its $20 million budget, the most expensive movie made by Disney at that point in time. These two properties weren’t profitable or popular enough to continue pursuing, but they had enough of a cult following to be remembered fondly.

The back of this display says Walt Disney Home Video, so my guess is that this is one part of a massive store display to promote Disney home videos in the early 1980s. Tron was first released on home video in 1983, so I think this is from around that time. If Tron and V.I.N.C.E.N.T. were not on display, I don’t think I could date it that specifically, although the other Disney characters are very reminiscent of how they looked in the 1980s.

Obviously, my main reason for buying the display was those two center characters. I usually place this in my living room around the holidays, and for some of my friends, it’s the first decoration they see in my house.

Since then, I’ve added many more items to my “pop culture Christmas” collection, but this was always the starting point, and I am thrilled that what was once a disposable store display has become a holiday tradition for me.

The post Have a Very Disney Christmas with Mickey, Goofy, Tron, and V.I.N.C.E.N.T. appeared first on The Collector Gene.

I really liked the Nashville store.  First of all, it’s in a great old brick factory building, the Marathon Motor Works.

We were heading into Nashville on I-40 from west to east, and our GPS took us through the city, past Fisk University, for quite a few blocks.  Getting back on I-40 was very easy.  The whole Marathon Motors complex looks like something being re-purposed into a trendy shopping area.  Next to the Pickers’ store, for instance, is a candy store.

Unlike the Iowa store, which had an intimate feel to it, the Nashville store is quite a bit larger.  I’d say it has close to three times the square footage.  If nothing else, it has very high ceilings.  Whoever arranged the stock did a great job.  It was almost like walking around through a really cool museum of wacky retro stuff.  (And, since the prices were astronomically high, just like in the Iowa store, we knew we couldn’t afford anything, so it WAS like visiting a museum.)  This is the view when you first walk into the store.

One of the recognizable things was the huge Piggly Wiggly head.

There was a fabulous canvas circus sideshow sign up on the ceiling.  Who wouldn’t pay money to see a pig with an elephant’s trunk?

There were great advertising pieces, funky one-of-a-kind things like the giant bib overalls or the 1940’s slacks with the first names of Big Band music greats (Benny, Bing, Frankie, Dina, etc.), rusty bicycles and motor parts, and manikin heads sporting hats, helmets, and goggles.

As we did in the Iowa store, we searched for something small and affordable.  It was tough.  They had a lot of 1990’s music trade magazines that were supposedly picked from Mickey Gilley.  Priced at $5, they fit the bill.  We also found a wire basket with a handful of paper items in it for $5 each.  There was an ad for the Chile pavilion at the 1901 Pan American Exposition in Buffalo.  (That’s the same exposition where William McKinley was shot by an assassin.)  Five dollars didn’t seem too outrageous at all.  Those were our “old” finds.

As with the Iowa store, there were plenty of t-shirts, hats, magnets, shot glasses, metal signs, paper fans, playing cards, etc., etc. for sale.  (I particularly liked the baby onesie that said, “Future Picker” on it.)   I’m sure sales of those items are the main source of revenue for the store.  There definitely were a lot of shoppers – or at least “lookers” – at this shop.  There were two counters for sales, one to the front left side of the store and one in the back, staffed by pleasant young people who looked like they could be college students.  Based on what the young man who waited on me said, it sounds like Mike shows up about once a month at the store.

We’re glad we’ve seen both of the American Pickers’ shops.  If you’re a fan of the show and ever get to LeClaire, Iowa or Nashville, Tennessee, do stop in.  Then, when you watch the shows, you’ll have a reference point when they show interior/exterior shots.  Believe me, things never look the same in person as what you imagined.

The post Last Travel-Log from the Road – 10/4/12: Antique Archeology-Nashville Submitted by Carol appeared first on The Collector Gene.