Mr. Clean & Friends – Grown Men in Costume

Posted on October 4, 2013 by

 

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!

Posted in 1960's, Advertising, Americana, Carol, Costumes, Halloween, Humor, Photography | Leave a comment

A Whale of a Tale – Our Yard Sale Whale Vertebrae

Posted on September 12, 2013 by

It has been said many times before in our blog and will probably be said many times in the future. When you collect to the extent we do, you never know what you’ll be bringing home after any given “hunt.”

Case in point: Our recent purchase of two whale vertebrae at a yard sale.

Priced at one dollar each, we weren’t about to leave them behind. They are beautifully sculptural and they just may be the oldest items in our collection – by a couple million years or more!

Of course, when you buy something outside your usual comfort zone, you don’t really know what you’re getting. We were told by the person selling them that they had been found at different times on the beaches near Wildwood, New Jersey about forty or fifty years ago.

I’ve photographed them next to an egg so that you have some idea of the size. The larger one is about ten inches high by 20 inches at the widest point. It’s surprisingly light for its size. The smaller one is about five inches high by fourteen inches at its widest point. It’s actually heavier than the bigger one.

Doing some quick internet research, I believe we have two whale vertebrae fossils. Apparently, fossilized whale bones turn up along the shores of the mid-Atlantic region, and the southern New Jersey coast falls into that realm. One site mentioned that the fossils are often light in weight. One site mentioned that mid-Atlantic ones are often a dark gray in color. Each of these bones fits one part of that description. The smaller one appears almost complete. The larger one, though more impressive, has one side broken off.

As for age, if they are, indeed, fossils, they could be two to five million years old! The Pliocene and Miocene periods are the ones I see mentioned.

Now that’s a whale of an antique!

Posted in Carol, Uncategorized, Weird | 3 Comments

Giraffe-Neck Women from Burma Circus Poster

Posted on August 5, 2013 by

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.

Posted in 1930's, Advertising, Americana, Ephemera, Historical, Humor, Jim, Signs, Weird | 1 Comment

1911 Beach Boys – A Photo Souvenir From Atlantic City

Posted on July 21, 2013 by

 

This photo was a recent addition to my collection.  How can anyone view it without smiling at least a little?

These men, who look to be about sixty years old – give or take a few years, are obviously good buddies.  They  visited a photography studio in Atlantic City and commemorated their vacation with this photo.

Are the bathing suits studio props or their own suits?  I guess we’ll never know, but I’m sure, based on other photos and postcard views of the era, that this is, indeed, what men in the early part of the 20th century would wear to the beach.  Made of itchy wool that clung to the body when wet and took forever to dry out, those early bathing suits seem like torture devices to us.  But in an era when even the wealthiest person sweated in the heat and humidity of summer without benefit of air conditioning, a trip to the beach and a dip in the cool waves of the ocean was a welcome respite.  And as silly as those suits look to us today, I’m sure they felt comfortable when compared to the long sleeve shirts, stiff collars, and long wool slacks that every man wore no matter how hot it was.

How do I know for sure that this was taken in 1911?  Here’s what it says on the back of the card:

 

Posted in 1910's, Americana, Carol, Ephemera, Photography | Leave a comment

Reversible Plush Gremlins (Mohawk and Daffy)

Posted on July 9, 2013 by

It took me a very, very long time to get over my fear of Gremlins.

As a kid of the 1980s, I was inundated by product after product of all the various popular movies, television shows, and toys that a kid had to choose from in terms of entertainment. I didn’t have to see the movie Gremlins to know what Gizmo looked like. His adorable furry mug was plastered on a wide assortment of toys and plush dolls.

But Gizmo was a Mogwai. Those Gremlins (the creatures Mogwai transform into if they eat anything after midnight…I’m assuming Eastern Standard Time) terrified me. Ugly scales, sharp little teeth, evil red glaring eyes…to me, wet little monster puppets are far more realistic than anything anyone will ever be able to recreate with CGI these days. And because I was so exposed to entertainment as a kid, it was difficult for me to differentiate between reality and fantasy. So I knew that if I avoided watching either of the Gremlins movies, I wouldn’t have to fear them when the lights went out at night.

Here’s the thing: my fear of Gremlins is exactly what the filmmakers of the 1984 movie wanted me to experience. Not just anyone can create a piece of cinema where you can completely lose yourself in the moment even though you know that you’re watching puppets. As such, Gremlins holds up quite well today.

Several toy companies are churning out Gremlins collectibles in large quantities, and they’re all quite popular. In many cases, items that were released as collectibles in the last 15 years (as opposed to items contemporary to when the movies were released in 1984 and 1990) are quite a bit more valuable and desirable than their vintage counterparts.

However, my eyes have been focused on finding vintage Gremlins toys in the last couple of years, and there is some truly amazing merchandise that was made for the two movies. I would say a good 90-95% of the merchandise is based around Gizmo, and that makes a lot of sense, since he’s literally the cutest fictional character in a horror movie ever and easily marketable to children.

Vintage Plush Mohawk

Vintage Plush Daffy

Today, I’m spotlighting a pair of plush toys that, as far as I can tell, were only available in the United Kingdom. It’s a set of plush dolls of Mohawk and Daffy, two of the evil Mogwai that were spawned when Gizmo gets wet in Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990) and the first Gremlins movie (1984), respectively. Like I said, the vast majority of Gremlins merchandise was based around Gizmo with a couple of items based on Stripe from the first film, so it’s nice to see Gremlins toys based on other Mogwai. There are an awful lot of plush Gremlins out there, so it’s not as though these are standouts, right?

Wait. Bear with me. It gets a whole lot better.

See, according to the rules established in the movies, if you feed a Mogwai after midnight, that’s when they transform into the titular Gremlins. Even though these are plush toys, you can pretend that these little guys got out of hand by literally pulling them inside out and exposing their true, horrific nature.

Yes, these plush toys are reversible, which allows you to transform Mohawk and Daffy back and forth between Mogwai and Gremlins. These. Are. INCREDIBLE. I was simply doing a search for vintage Gremlins toys on eBay and these popped up. I had no idea they existed. The auctions for the two plush dolls were both were in the United Kingdom, and as far as I can tell, every other example of these that I’ve been able to find has only been for sale over there, leading me to believe they’re an overseas exclusive. Much like the Japanese JUN Planning toys from the late 1990s, it seems like the best merchandise is never available in the market where it makes the most sense.

Plush toys are a tough call in the collecting world, since they’re not something that can easily be displayed on a shelf. However, once I knew these existed, I knew I had to own them, proper display space be damned. To my knowledge, they are the only transforming Gremlins toys ever made, and in this case, it makes perfect sense. The “action feature” of these toys is built around what happens to Mogwai in the films.

To my UK readers, be thankful that you have a pretty easy shot of getting these. For everyone else, time to add a saved search to eBay!

Posted in 1980's, 1990's, Ben, Monsters, Movies, Toys, Weird | 5 Comments

Happy Fourth of July from Collectorgene! A Black Humor Postcard With a Timely Message

Posted on July 3, 2013 by

Warnings about the dangers of fireworks – especially when children are involved – abound today. Apparently, things were no different in 1908, which is when this particular card was mailed.

Have a safe and happy Fourth of July!

Posted in 1900's, Americana, Carol, Ephemera, Holiday, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Find of the Week: Arsenic and Old Clapperboards

Posted on June 26, 2013 by

We all know what it is; we just don’t know what it’s called.

I’m referring to a clapperboard or clapboard. If you’ve ever seen a movie in which they’re making a movie, you’ve seen a crewman go something like, “Scene twelve, take three,” and then he holds up the clapperboard and the director yells, “Action!” That’s a clapperboard, as iconic a piece of movie making as you can ever hope to find.

The reason for the clapperboard was two-fold. First, it recorded all the necessary information such as the director, date, and scene being shot and, second, the “clap” was used to help synchronize the sound.

Reproduction clapperboards can be found just about anywhere, especially at souvenir shops in Hollywood or at Universal Studios theme parks. They’re not very expensive or you also can buy one of the many fakes on the internet.

Finding a real one is a little more difficult.

On my most recent flea market adventure to Pennsylvania, however, that’s just what happened, and for thirty bucks I am now the proud owner of my own authentic movie clapperboard – something I didn’t even know I wanted to own!

Just looking at this object I could tell it had been well used. You could see wear to the black paint especially where the “scene” and “take” would have been changed many times during filming. A chunk of the corner had also broken off and been re-glued. Had this been damaged on the set and thrown away only to be taken home as a souvenir? That’s an intriguing possibility.

Even more intriguing were the letters written on the back. Obviously written long ago and now faded, the letters A R S E N appear.

When I got home, I quickly went to my computer to check the “Internet Movie Database” website (www.imdb.com). I typed ARSEN in search and very little popped up. I quickly ruled out Arsenio Hall as he probably wasn’t even born when this thing was made. The only other possibility seemed to be the title of the movie “Arsenic and Old Lace”.

Based on the very popular Broadway play of the same name, the movie “Arsenic and Old Lace” was made by Warner Brothers Studios in 1941. It wasn’t released, however, until January 1, 1944 due to the fact that the studio had to wait until the Broadway production had ended. It was directed by Frank Capra, who is probably best known today for making “It’s a Wonderful Life,” the Christmas classic. It starred Cary Grant as the nephew of the two old maid aunts who kept bumping off elderly bachelors by poisoning them.

Can I prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that my clapperboard may have once found itself between Frank Capra and Cary Grant, two giants of the golden age of Hollywood? Well….no, but the circumstantial evidence is strong enough to make a case for it. Plus, I can’t think of any other logical reason to write “ARSEN” on it. Do I believe it was used in the production of “Arsenic and Old Lace”? Yes, I do.

Even if it wasn’t, it is still an authentic piece of Hollywood history that was used in movie production.
Not a bad day at a Pennsylvania flea market.

Posted in 1940's, Americana, Jim, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Silverhawks Copper Kidd Animation Cel

Posted on June 20, 2013 by

Over the years, I’ve been able to add a few animation cels to my collection. I find them fascinating just because, to me, they are far more than just artwork. These cels are literally what brought a cartoon to life. There were no sets, no props. Actors provided voices, but it’s not as though they were in costume while in the recording studio, and in many cases, their voices are recorded separately from other actors who might be featured in the same cartoon. So each cel was responsible for bringing all of those elements together in one piece of art. Without them, we wouldn’t have the cartoons of our youth and all the cherished memories we have with them. Plus, everything seems to be done with computers now, so traditional animation also speaks to a bygone era.

Animation cels are some of the best bargains on eBay. Back in the 1980s and 1990s, if you wanted to collect animation cels, chances are you’d have to go to an art gallery. I remember most cels, even for television series no one cared about, would routinely cost hundreds of dollars. However, for every cartoon ever produced, thousands of cels were created, so it stands to reason that there are an awful lot of them out there. I’ve seen sellers list hundreds of cels from different cartoons, with auctions starting at $9.99 each. The best cels with key characters in dynamic poses with their original painted backgrounds always bring more, but you can get your fair share of bargains online.

However, not all shows have cels that are easy to find. While cels from certain 1980s cartoons produced by Filmation are quite easy to find, cels produced by other production companies like Sunbow and Rankin-Bass are not nearly as plentiful, at least not on the secondary market.

That’s why, back when I was actively collecting Silverhawks toys back in the early 2000s, I was surprised to see a batch of them show up. More importantly, though, they had exactly the cel I wanted.

This is Copper Kidd, an alien from the planet of mimes, and he’s easily one of the stranger protagonists to appear on an action-packed cartoon from the 1980s. Since he didn’t talk, he communicated through a series of whistles. I don’t want to bash my favorite character from this ridiculous show, but the whole thing about mimes is that they communicate through body movement, not through any kind of speech. I know the creators of Silverhawks probably didn’t have the Internet for research in the mid-1980s, but I’m pretty sure there was a proper description of a mime in Encyclopedia Britannica.

Anyway, Silverhawks was on at a time when every cartoon had to have some sort of educational message at the end of it. The most well-known examples are most likely the public service announcements that were shown at the end of G.I.Joe: A Real American Hero, where your favorite cartoon characters advised children to stay away from strangers, put out fires, call 9-1-1, and all that fun stuff. Silverhawks was different in that the show tried to be educational by including a brief astronomy lesson. The cowboy Silverhawk Bluegrass would teach Copper Kidd about space so that he could be trained as a backup pilot for the Silverhawks’ ship the Maraj, which did happen on occasion.

This cel is one of the cels used specifically in that context. Since they often used the same animation for Copper Kidd from lesson to lesson, it’s very possible this cel was seen during the majority of these lessons, which, to me, makes it a lot cooler than an episode-specific cel. Anyone whose seen even one episode of Silverhawks has probably seen this cel.

I think I paid around $50-ish dollars for it on eBay back in the day. The framing, of course, cost a little bit extra, but I certainly love having it on display.

Posted in 1980's, Animation, Art, Ben, Toys | Leave a comment

FIND OF THE WEEK: Naughty Bisque Turtle Girl With Her Bear Bottom Showing

Posted on June 10, 2013 by

One lesson Jim and I have learned over the years is that “finds” pop up all the time, so you have to be constantly vigilant. Obviously, the closer you are to the original source, the more likely you are to score a find. That’s why yard sales are so addictive. You can travel around all over the place wasting precious time and gas and come up dry…

…or you can travel about a mile or so from home and find something fantastic for about a dollar.

Case in point: This turn-of-the-century naughty bisque turtle shell girl

Very early in our collecting career, nearly forty years ago, we went to a local auction and paid four dollars for a lot of four bisque bathing beauties that were made in Germany. They were delicate and well-detailed – and three of the four were naked! Even at that time, four dollars was a steal. This purchase made us notice other bisque bathing beauties and naughty bisque figurines when we went to shows and antique shops, and over the years we saw prices steadily rise from about $25 to $100 and more. Some larger figurines were often priced at over $200. In fact, several years ago when “The Antiques Roadshow” was in Atlantic City, they did a special segment on bisque bathing beauties, so they are quite desirable and collectible.

We have always thought the turtle shell naughty figurines are especially intriguing. How bizarre they are! There’s the pretty Victorian girl’s head sticking out of the rather large tortoise shell. You lift off the back of the shell and – voila! – there’s the rest of the girl. Oftentimes the girl’s undies are showing. Sometimes even her bare bottom is showing! Or, as in the case of this figurine, her “bear” bottom is showing. We are pretty sure that this is the rarest version of this figurine.

I’m sure a figurine like this was purchased in a novelty store, most likely in the big city or at a summer amusement area such as Atlantic City or Coney Island back around 1905 or 1910. It probably cost a dime or maybe a whole quarter. Can’t you just picture a dirty old man or a randy young man calling over a friend, showing him the suggestive young lady with the shell on her back, and then offering to show him her “bare” behind? Imagine the laughs – and the disappointment – when he saw a teddy bear tucked between her legs. (Keep in mind that the teddy bear craze was in full swing during the first decade of the 20th century thanks to President Teddy Roosevelt.)

This very desirable bisque naughty turned up in a miscellaneous box of figurines at a yard sale about a week ago. I would have gladly paid more, but I was quite happy to part with a dollar for her.

Finds like this are what make yard sales so much fun.

Posted in 1900's, Americana, Carol, Humor, Weird | 10 Comments

One of the Worst Toys I Have Ever Seen: Toe-kins

Posted on June 1, 2013 by

Every now and again you find a toy that is so stupid that you wonder why any toy company would think it would ever have selling potential to children. This is especially true when the toy has little or no play value, and is clearly constructed from left over doll parts that the toy company had laying around in a warehouse. I would like to present one of the finest examples of one of these terrible toys that I have found so far. Ladies and gentlemen, I now present to you Toe-kins.

Yes, that toy is constructed of a tiny baby doll shoved inside a larger doll leg. This little beauty was made by legitimate toy company Uneeda toys. Uneeda made dolls from 1917- 1991. They also made Wishniks, which were knock off Troll dolls, but were still very popular and are sought after today.

I wish I could have been a fly on the wall in the pitch meeting where someone pitched the idea for the Toe-Kin, which sounds like a clever name until you think about the fact that this doll is in a foot, or even more a lower leg, not a toe. Uneeda toys tried to disguise the fact that this toy is clearly made out of a left over baby doll leg by putting a pretty yellow ribbon around the mushroom plug at the top of it, but they aren’t fooling anyone. For those of you who might not be as familiar with toy construction techniques, mushroom plugs are often placed where two movable joints connect on a toy. If you have ever pulled the head off of one of your Barbie dolls or action figures, you will most likely find a mushroom plug where the neck connects to the body. It looks kind of like a mushroom most of the time, hence the name. In the case of this doll leg, it probably would have been sewn onto a soft doll torso and the indentation from the mushroom plug would be where they stitched it into place. Now, if you thought that the cute little doll sitting inside of the foot, which is about the size of a Kiddle doll, was removable you would be WRONG. That little lady is permanently fixed to that doll foot for better or worse.

There are so many questions I have about this ridiculous toy. Is the concept of this thing supposed to represent a little girl with a hideous deformity where instead of having a normal lower torso she just has one giant leg? Is she piloting a giant leg as her own mode of completely awesome transportation? Is she just chillin’ inside a giant leg just because she can? The poor execution and lack of a back story make it impossible for us to truly know. Do Toe-kins come in both right and left feet? Are there more Toe-kins in the series? Probably, but I haven’t found any more to prove whether or not that is true yet.

I know it might seem like I am hating on Toe-kins, but I can honestly tell you that I was truly excited when my brother found this for me at a toy show. Yes, Uneeda toys deserves to be scolded for trying to market such a lame concept to children. And I pity the poor kid whose grandma or weird aunt gave them one of these things for their birthday. At the same time, this toy is hilariously bad, and any object that can make me laugh or put a smile on my face is worth owning in my book. That is why I am sharing the Toe-kin with you, internet community. I hope it makes you laugh and puts a smile on your face, too. If so, the Toe-kin is doing its job.

Posted in 1960's, 1970's, Amy, Dolls, Humor, Miniatures, Monsters, Toys, Weird | 4 Comments