Angry Eyebrows Pixie

This guy is one of my favorites.  It’s the angry pixie.  At least his eyebrows and sinister grin suggest to me that he is angry, or maybe a sociopath.  I first saw one at the National Christmas Center in Paradise, PA (Go if you are in the area!).  They have a pixie tree in their Woolworth’s Display (which is awesome!), and probably have no idea how excited I got when I saw this pixie.  I wanted to track one down.  Thankfully my mom found one in her travels, and I got him as a Christmas present last year.  If Elf on a Shelf isn’t getting your kids to behave at Christmas, this terrifying little guy might do it!  His eyebrows will haunt my nightmares!

I will haunt your nightmares!

Wind-Up Drummer Pixie

This one is truly weird.  It is a pixie head on a wind up drummer toy.  This toy is made in India, which is not something you see everyday.  It has a few condition issues, but I had to buy it since I had never seem one like it.  Pixie heads got used on everything!

Flat Pixies

Yes, the pixie head was even flattened for Christmas stockings and wall decorations.  Take these two decorations with flat pixies.  One is a stocking and the other is just a wall decoration.  Both are kitschy to the extreme!

Giant Headed Pixies

I have some big headed pixies, but none are quite as impressive as these.  While there are a lot of pixie designs that you see many times over, these are a little bit more unique.  I don’t think it makes them much more valuable, but it does make them more interesting to me.

Mrs. Claus Knee Hugger

I see Santa knee huggers occasionally, but rarely do you find a Mrs. Claus.  Here she is in all of her glory!  Again, not terribly valuable, but just fascinating that she exists.

Winking Devil Knee Hugger

Not all Knee Huggers are for Christmas, and this guy eluded me for some time.  More, I didn’t want to pay eBay prices.  He is a more valuable pixie, and fairly coveted by knee hugger collectors.  This one is missing his collar, but he was $1 at the flea market.  I will upgrade him eventually, but I was just happy to find one in the wild.

Ridiculous Looking Hillbillies

For some reason there are a lot of hillbilly dolls that use pixie heads and/ or are knee huggers.  I could do an entire article on hillbilly knee huggers, I am not even kidding you.  These fellas are a bit more unusual since they have unique head sculpts.  They have a bit of a Mortimer Snerd vibe going for them.

Big Eye Knee Hugger

With the big eyed paintings and dolls of the 60’s also came some big eyed knee huggers.  While this one doesn’t have terribly sad huge eyes, the aesthetic is definitely there.  She has some literal flower power going on there.

Witch Candy Container Knee Hugger

This one, I think, is pretty special.  Halloween knee huggers tend to be a bit more desirable, and the Witch with the black body from my last article is pretty well known.  I had never seen one with a clear body until we found this one, though.  She has a zipper on the back, so I assume she is a candy container.

And finally, to bring it back to Christmas in my favorite pixies I have found in a long time I present to you…

The Three Wise Pixies

Yes, someone thought that these were the appropriate heads for the three wise men of the nativity.  Not only are they pixie heads, but they are the “Dopey” style heads often used on hillbilly knee huggers.  In a Kitschmas miracle I found these a few weeks ago, and I was way more excited than I should have been.  Now I have to wonder, though, if there is an entire pixie Nativity.  I can dream, can’t I?  These are in such poor taste!  Ultimate kitsch!

Are there even more ridiculous pixies out there for me to collect?  Absolutely.  Have a Merry Kitschmas from all of us at The Collector Gene!

The post For The Love Of Christmas Pixies: Part II appeared first on The Collector Gene.

I started amassing vintage Santa & Me photos several years ago and this is one of my favorites.  Not only does the Santa look pretty good (albeit a tad young if you took those whiskers away) and the little girl is adorable. but it’s hand-tinted, which is quite unusual.  Most Santa & Me photos from the late 1940’s through the mid-1950’s, like this one, are black and white.  The one thing they all have in common is their charming innocence.  It was a time when Christmas decorations were simpler and a visit to see Santa was a highlight of the season.  Enjoy!

And may the upcoming holidays be filled with delightful memories of Christmas Past as well as delightful experiences of Christmas Present!

The post Christmas Wishes – A Hand-tinted Vintage Santa & Me Photo appeared first on The Collector Gene.

New to our Christmas display this year but not new to our collection is this Bliss Adirondack Cottage circa 1905.  When we bought it from a small local antique shop almost three years ago, we weren’t sure how to display it, but we said even then that it would make a great Santa Claus workshop.  That vision was finally realized this year.

Here you see the front of the cottage with German bisque elves playing on the upper and lower porches while a nice old composition German Santa sits on his wooden sled.

Here you see the back of the cottage just filled with toys and decorated Christmas trees and another playful elf.

This doll house came with a paper from an auction when it was purchased by someone else in 2005.  It was described thus:  Bliss Adirondack Cottage – an unusual doll house with lithographed paper exterior, stained wood roof and base, 4-room interior with period wallpaper, 17.5 inches tall.”

We have loved Bliss doll houses from the moment we first saw them early in our collecting years, and we have been fortunate enough to acquire about four of them at affordable prices.  Bliss doll houses are characterized by their wood construction and beautiful chromolithographed paper coverings.  The peak of production was at the turn of the century, and the most elaborate houses are beautiful miniature renderings of highly Victorian-style houses in all their gingerbread glory.  This “cottage” is unusual and, we believe, rare because it is quite simple in style and decoration.  The very realistic-looking logs are, indeed, just printed paper.

Rufus Bliss went into business as a carpenter in Pawtucket, Rhode Island back in 1823.  He was highly skilled and inventive in his carpentry techniques, becoming best known for his lathe-turned wooden screws and clamps.  He took on a partner, A.N. Bullock, in 1845 and the name of the company became R. Bliss and Company.  In 1867, several years before the company first advertised the making of toys, Mr. Bliss withdrew from the business.  In 1873, Mr. Bullock died.  However, the company continued on with Mrs. Bullock retaining an interest, and a stock company involving Bullock family members among others was formed in 1874.  The company continued to make practical things like wooden screws, clamps, and tool handles, but they expanded further into croquet sets, tennis racquets, and paper-lithographed toys.  Today, their doll houses, wooden boats, and pull-toys are among the most prized and expensive of American antique toys.  A Massachusetts company bought out the toy-making end of the business in 1914 and kept the name, but it ceased production in 1935.

The post Season’s Greetings from Santa’s Workshop – Our Bliss Adirondack Cottage appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Yes, even though Santa Claus was around before Stan Lee and Jack Kirby were creating the Marvel Universe, it certainly seems as though Jolly Ol’ St. Nick is the product of the Marvel Universe.

I’d like to think that if Santa Claus was the star of his own monthly recurring comic series, he’d have to battle various villains whose sole purpose is to thwart Santa on the one day where he really matters, and it stands to reason that other Marvel Superheroes would have to come help Santa get his work done on the big day.

That’s the story I’m telling myself for why this set of dime store or rack toys (most certainly intended to be stocking stuffers) features Spiderman and the Hulk.

These toys are part of the “Santa’s World” line by Kurt S. Adler. The Adler name is synonymous with this festive time of year, as they claim to be “the leading importer of holiday decorations for 60 years.” In the 1970s, products like the Hallmark Keepsake Ornaments were still in their infancy, so the idea of a company churning out a specific line of various holiday decorations was still relatively new. What sort of shocks me is that with a little bit of digging, I’ve been having difficulty scrounging up any other licensed characters used in the “Santa’s World” line, at least while the same packaging was used.

The toys are fairly basic. Among the three that I own, I have pinball games featuring Spiderman and the Incredible Hulk delivering gifts. Spiderman could easily swing through chimneys, and he sort of specializes in stealth. But Hulk? Sure, he’s big and strong enough to wield a magical sack filled with millions of toys and gifts, but how is he going to get down the chimney? Also, he’s looking rather festive and happy. Isn’t he angry at something? Perhaps the Hulk was angry at Santa for not bringing him, like, a new pair of purple pants or something, so he incapacitated the jolly old elf and took his job from him. Merry Christmas.

On that delightful note, my favorite of the lot of toys that I own is this Hulk-as-Santa pull puppet. It’s a whimsical take on a gamma radiated-super being that will likely destroy us all if his alter ego gets the least bit upset. It’s old world meets modern (well, 1970s modern), in that it’s a popular character in the form of a toy that would have been much more popular decades prior when this didn’t have Mego’s World’s Greatest Super Heroes toys to contend with.

What I particularly love about all of the imagery is that it’s so straightforward. You can tell the artists are having fun with the characters, but they’re not trying hard to be overly ironic or stylish. It’s Spiderman and the Hulk pretending to be Santa, plain and simple. These are fun in the same way all those wonderful Hostess Fruit Pies advertisements are fun.

A cursory search revealed that these are pretty hard to get. The Santa’s World line was also responsible for a series of comic books featuring a variety of Marvel characters.

While these aren’t exactly the most exciting superhero toys ever made – although that statement might be the biggest understatement on all of Collector Gene – if you are even mildly a fan of either Marvel Superheroes or Christmas, these are just about the perfect stocking stuffer that was ever made or will ever be made.

The post Santa’s World Marvel Stocking Stuffer Toys: Spiderman and The Incredible Hulk See You When You’re Sleeping! appeared first on The Collector Gene.

These vintage Christmas decorations date to the 1920’s and 30’s.  Only one is marked “Japan,” but I suspect that that’s where all of them were made.  A combination of cardboard, composition, and cotton batting, they have that old-fashioned charm that just can’t be duplicated.  These decorations have been a part of our collection for quite a while, but Jim found a new place to display them this year.  Can you guess where that might be?  If you’re a regular reader of “Collectorgene,” you might be able to tell.  The “rocky mountains” that these little guys are perched on were featured in an article several months ago.

The following pictures tell the whole story.

Yes, indeed, those whale bone fossils that we now display in our living room window have become a part of this year’s holiday display.  Collecting to the extent that we do forces us to be creative when it comes to squeezing one more thing in!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

The post Oh, What Fun!!! Where Exactly Are These Vintage Skiers and Sledders Skiing and Sledding? appeared first on The Collector Gene.

She introduced us fifties kids to Popeye, the Three Stooges, and Clutch Cargo, that animated series in which the characters had weird, human mouths.  And in an era when cowboys were king and almost every child, male or female, had six shooters and cowboy hats, she was a genuine cowgirl, dressed to the nines in a shirt and skirt trimmed with fringe, her blonde hair usually pulled back into a ponytail and topped with a white Western hat.

I think what made Sally Starr so popular, however, was her warm personality.  We kids could tell that she genuinely liked us.  As happens to most performers, Sally’s show was eventually cancelled in the early 1970’s and she ended up moving to Florida.  However, as soon as she returned to the Delaware Valley, she was warmly embraced by the public who never stopped loving her.  All through her sixties, seventies, and into her eighties, Sally made lots of personal appearances.  Though I never saw her in person as a child, I saw her a couple of times as an adult, and she was just as warm and lovely and gracious as I expected her to be.  I collected an autographed photo from her each time.  I suspect that thousands of those autographed photos are out there in drawers and boxes in baby boomers’ homes, so, as a general rule, I don’t believe that a Sally Starr autograph is ever going to be extremely valuable.

That said, as soon as I saw the following autographed photo of Sally for sale at a local flea market last summer, I had to have it.

Sally Starr was a beautiful woman, and this photo proves it.  I believe it dates to the mid to late 1940’s when she would have been in her mid-twenties and her career in the Philadelphia area was taking off.  For those of us who never saw her without her cowgirl outfit, it’s a little disconcerting but sort of fun to see her in a low-cut, lacy (racy?) number like this.

In the same box was this Christmas card that Sally probably sent out sometime in the late forties or early fifties when she was a pioneering female disc jockey.  I love Christmas ephemera, so I had to have this, too.

I put the Christmas card out on display this past Christmas, never thinking it would be Sally’s last.  She passed away on January 27, two days after her 90th birthday.  When I heard the news, all I could say was, “Noooo!”  It felt like a door had shut on a little room in my childhood.

If you want to learn more about Sally Starr, she has an entry on Wikipedia or you can follow this link here to her obituary in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The post A Tribute to Our Gal Sal: Sally Starr As You’ve Probably Never Seen Her appeared first on The Collector Gene.

Earlier this year, we posted pictures of this fantastic miniature house that Jim found at a local flea market.  Here it is all dressed up in its Christmas finery.  We considered it a fabulous find when Jim first brought it home, and as 2012 winds down, we’ve decided that it’s our favorite find of the year.

The post Happy Holidays from Collectorgene! appeared first on The Collector Gene.

While Hallmark seems to have a monopoly on well-made pop culture ornaments these days, it hasn’t been too hard to find Christmas ornaments of your favorite characters for quite some time. I think the success of the Star Trek and Star Wars ornaments in the early and mid 1990s showed that geeks don’t want snowmen or angels or Santa gracing their tree if they can spend their money on something much nerdier instead.

However, if you grew up in the 1980s and early 1990s like me, getting characters on your tree was much more of a challenge. Sure, I’ve had Disney, Warner Brothers, and Sesame Street characters on my tree since I was very, very young. But finding ornaments based around “action heroes” (not just action figures, but fictional heroes of my youth) is fairly challenging. I had a few as a kid, like Michelangelo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles building a snowman, but it was the exception to the rule.

In recent years, I’ve come to appreciate these types of ornaments more, and so I was thrilled when I found three ornaments based on characters from G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero (ARAH) posted on a message board earlier this year.

Standing a couple inches tall, these are ornaments of Dee Jay, Countdown, and Alley Viper from the 1989 batch of new ARAH figures. If you love G.I.Joe, I’m sure you were expecting me have ornaments of Duke, Snake Eyes, Storm Shadow, Cobra Commander, Destro, Baroness, or any of the other myriad of far more memorable members of the Joe and Cobra teams. Hence, these ornaments are a bit of a mystery to me. Even in 1989, there were new versions of Snake Eyes and Rock N’ Roll.

My first thought was, “Well, if it was 1989, maybe whoever made these ornaments was simply trying to promote some of the new and exciting characters that kids are sure to love!” That hypothesis was quickly refuted when I saw that all three ornaments were dated 1991, two years AFTER these third-tier ARAH characters premiered. Additionally, these ornaments are copyrighted “Hasbro,” although that copyright might represent the company that owns the rights to ARAH and not necessarily the manufacturer of these ornaments.

I cannot find any information on these ornaments and whether there are more in the set. This is such an odd combination of ARAH characters that I feel like more popular characters had to be represented as well. If you have any information on these ornaments, please let me know! Regardless of how these ornaments came to be, I currently have them proudly displayed on one of my Christmas trees this year, and I plan to do the same for many years to come.

The post G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero Christmas Ornaments appeared first on The Collector Gene.

One of the most popular Krampus collectibles is Krampus postcards.  Krampus became a very popular subject for holiday postcards in the mid-19^th century as postcards became a huge craze in Europe.  Even though Krampus’ job was mostly to punish and scare children, many postcards of Krampus exist that show him reacting more to the sins of adults.  The only card I have obtained (because Krampus postcards can get mighty expensive) is this one from about the 1960’s.  It is a great card with a sort of child Krampus sitting on a pretty girl’s lap.  Clearly, this Krampus is being seen as a more humorous figure than a scary one, and this card was made for adults to send to one another.  Another thing to note about Krampus is that, because he is an Austrian figure, almost everything you find with Krampus on it is in Austrian or German.  “Grub vom Krampus”  translates to “Greetings from Krampus”, and is found on almost every Krampus postcard you find.

This next Krampus piece I have is a paper cutout of the Christmas devil himself.  He is seen here with red skin, but the switches in his hand, the shackles, and the tongue let you know that this is Krampus, not an ordinary devil.  Paper cutouts were used for a variety of purposes in decorating, and there are several designs out there that are being reproduced today.  This piece is one of the more common Krampus pieces that I see, so it is a little bit more affordable for a new Krampus collector.  I found mine in a local shop, but they show up on eBay fairly regularly.

Little fuzzy animals made in Austria similar to this fellow were very popular in the 1960’s, so it isn’t too surprising that they produced a Krampus.  Again, this is a red Krampus, but you still know it is him because he has a little orange tongue sticking out, and switches in his right hand.  This might be the cutest Krampus ever made.  There is nothing imposing about this little guy at all.  He stands about 4 inches tall, which is fairly large for the little creatures made by the ARA company.  Clearly Krampus took on more of a comical role in the 20^th century, which is why some of these cuter and less ominous Krampus items can exist.

My mom found a few of these Krampus ornaments at a flea market.  The dealer she got them from said he bought them in the Czech Republic.  They are really cool, but pose a bit of a mystery.  This ornament is made in the Dresden style, but looks awfully clean and new for a vintage ornament.  I have always heard talk about people finding warehouses with vintage holiday stock and toys in them in Germany and Eastern Europe, but there are also a lot of reproduction holiday pieces that look a lot like the original pieces floating around on the market.  This can make you wonder if the “warehouse” stories are true, or if they are made to fool people into spending more money on reproductions.  Could this Krampus be a great, vintage piece?  Maybe.  Could he be a new piece done to look old?  Maybe.  The bottom line is, he is really cool looking, and I haven’t seen any others on the market to compare him to.   It is probably best to error on the side of caution and say that there is a good chance that he isn’t too old, but he looks great and we love putting him on the tree.  And if he is old warehouse stock, that is a bonus.   There is a whole discussion that could be created right now on vintage a reproduction Christmas decorations coming out of Europe right now, but right now I want to divert into a conversation about some of Santa’s other ominous sidekicks from Europe.

Before learning about Krampus I was in introduced to Knecht Ruprecht, a similar character from Germany, by one of my high school friend’s mom who happened to be a German teacher.  Knecht Ruprecht is a very similar character to Krampus in that he punishes bad children, but he has a beard and looks more like a creepy and mean Santa.  Another similar character is Belsnickle, who is also associated with Germany and the Pennsylvania Dutch.  I think this ornament most likely represents one of those two fellows. He is just another one of St. Nick’s friends doing all of the dirty work, while Santa rewards the good kids.  There are many other mean Christmas characters besides Krampus, but I think Krampus fascinates the public so much because he is so scary and disturbing.  I mean, I wouldn’t want a scary old man hitting me with switches, but I would take that over a devil licking my face and hitting me with switches.  This nice early Knecht Ruprecht/ Belsnickel ornament is a perfect segue into our favorite Krampus piece, a fairly early unassuming box with a fantastic surprise.

This little paper lithographed box holds a secret, and since you already know that we are talking about Krampus, I am sure you figured out that there is a Krampus in that box…

I am a little bit embarrassed to say that we did not know that this piece was most likely a Krampus when we bought it.  The dealer selling it made no mention of Krampus on his price tag, and we just took it for a really neat gag gift with a devil.  After several years of owning this piece, we learned about Krampus and started putting two and two together.  This devil head has black skin and a pronounced tongue, his box has Christmas colors on it, the sentiment of “Think of me” could mean that children should be thinking about Krampus to help remind them to behave at the holidays.  It really makes sense for this piece to represent Krampus.  The one thing that throws me off more than anything is that the box is in English.  Krampus didn’t infiltrate the pop culture of Americans much at all until probably within the last decade.  In Europe his reign of terror was seen only really in Austria, some of Germany, and a little bit of Eastern Europe, but not English speaking countries.  This piece isn’t marked, but is probably German, and the Germans imported a lot of decorations and toys to America.  I propose that this toy might have been produced as a Krampus piece in Europe, but that they sent it to America to represent more of a novelty.  It does work as such.  You don’t have to know who Krampus is to see the humor in handing a person a box with a sentimental message on it, and then laughing at their shock when a devil pops out.  Anyway, that is my thought on the matter.  It is a great Krampus piece, and by far the favorite in our collection.

I am all about festive cheer at the holidays, but I can’t help but be fascinated by Krampus.  Clearly I am, because I made a Krampus knee hugger this year…

…which is sold out on Etsy.com at the moment, but more will be available soon.  There is always something interesting about learning about strange traditions and characters, and that is why Krampus has become a part of our holiday decor.  He is just a scary little reminder to be extra nice at the holidays.

The post When Your Holidays Need a Little Less Cheer and a Little More Fear, Bring in the Krampus. appeared first on The Collector Gene.

I should note a little history about the stereoscope (sometimes also called a stereoptican) and the double-image cards that it used.  This simple, hand-held device was found in most American homes between 1860 and 1920.  It allowed the viewer to see a 3-D image when the two photos “blended” into one.  Subjects on the stereo cards ran the gamut from tourist views of famous sites and cities around the world to humorous images that told a little story.  Presidents, kings, generals, and other people of note also had their likenesses appear on stereo cards.

The Keystone View Company was founded in Meadville, PA in 1892 and continued operation until the 1960’s.  They really cornered the market on educational stereo views and eventually survived longer than any of their competitors.  In 1905, a year before our set of cards was copyrighted, Keystone was the largest stereographic company in the world.  In addition to educational views, humorous cards were a mainstay of the company’s vast catalog, and that’s where our cards come in – if you can call them funny.  You be the judge.

Card #1 shows a “real” Santa with a real, somewhat short beard peeking out of a snow-covered lair.  The script reads:  This is the cold little home in the North, from which old Santa is just starting forth.

Card #2 shows the same Santa hugging one of his reindeer (which happens to look very taxidermied).  Here’s what it says:  This is the deer old Santa loves best, ready to travel away with the rest.

It’s a bit hard to make out, but the third card shows a Santa with a much longer beard cracking the whip and urging his team of deer on.  It says:  This is the good old saint on the road, skimming along with his precious load.

Here’s where the happy story takes a sad and dramatic turn.  Yes, that is a hunter firing on Santa’s reindeer.  The card says:  This is the hunter with intention good, shooting a deer as he roams through the wood.

It goes from bad to worse.  Not only does a deer lie dead, but jolly old St. Nick is clubbing the nasty hunter with a stick!  Here’s the next line:  This is the mischief that hunter did cause, and the awful wrath of old Santa Claus.

Now we see our Santa, in a terribly fake wig and beard, dragging along on foot with his giant pack of gifts on his back.  The end of the story goes like this:  This is poor Santa, feeling so blue, for fear he’ll be late and disappoint you.

Now I ask you, would we subject our children to a cruel and humorless story like this today?  I think not.  Yes, we certainly have movies about “bad” Santas, and there’s a very famous Christmas movie in which a cat gets electrocuted, but parents would be up in arms if a movie depicted Rudolph – or Prancer or Vixen for that matter – being shot point blank by a hunter.  Times have certainly changed, and, maybe in this instance, it’s for the better.

The post Pick of the Week: Sad Santa Story Told in Six 1906 Keystone Stereo Cards – Or a Real Nightmare Before Christmas! appeared first on The Collector Gene.