Why I Oughta...

A couple of days ago, I posted a photo of #188 Walt Disney Comics and Stories book featuring Donald Duck and his nephews .  Inside the book were stories about Donald Duck, The li'l Bad Wolf, " and of course Mickey the Mouse in "The Case of the Hungry Ghost".  I haven't read any of them yet, but will get to them soon (I hope!).  In the meantime, I flipped through the book and came across the advertisement you see above at the top of this post for Disneyland "View-Master". The photo at the top of this post is via Google's Photoscan app .  The one at the bottom of the post is just directly from my phone.  There's pros/cons with each one.  Here's a link to the photoscan version on Google Photos that is full-size that you can zoom in/around on if you want the details. There are a few other ads worth sharing, but for now, let's focus on this Disneyland one.  This is from May of 1956 - just ten months after the July 1955 grand opening o...

All of the childhood feels with this one.  I've posted other LJN World Wrestling Federation Wrestling Superstars here on the blog.  Here's a Brutus "the Barber" Beefcake one that is mint-on-card, too.  And another of Nikolai Volkoff that my kids now play with as part of their toys. This one is of Jake "The Snake" Roberts and isn't one that I played with as a kid, but do have as an adult.  Weird, right?  This one has French (I think?) on it, so it was sold in Canada, maybe? Off you go to a good home.  While collectors like me have disposable income.  Don't want to become the Model-T of action figures, right?

After having posted a bunch of items that I passed on (or 'got away') at a recent Estate Sale, I figured I'd post some of the items that we *actually* bought - starting with this cast iron toy.  The King of the Ball Tossers tagged along with me to the sale and he asked if he could have a little bit of 'pocket money'.  Sure, I said.  He naturally gravitated towards the toys and found this vintage cast iron horse and buggy "fresh milk" delivery wagon.  It is three-piece with the horse/harness, the delivery wagon and the driver being independent pieces that each latch to each other.  We picked it up and they were asking three dollars.  I coached The KotBT to go up to the Estate Sale host and say:  "What's the best you can do on this toy?"  Of course, the guys were warm-hearted and smiled when he opened the negotiations.  He quickly waved his one dollar bill and the guy said:  'for you....I'll take it'.  And that's how we we...

Last Christmas, my parents moved out of their home down in Frankfort that I grew up in and lived all the way through my post-college years.   As part of that move, a bunch of items that my Mom had been 'keeping' for me came out of their attic and closets and ended up at our current place (and some in our storage unit).  Mixed in amongst the youth soccer trophies, press clippings and other artifacts of my childhood were a bunch of my 'wrasslers'.  That guy above - Nikolai Volkoff - is one of them. These were my most favored toys in my entire childhood.  Like....nothing came close to them.  Until the Sega Genesis.  But before that, these things captivated me like nothing else.  More than Legos, more than even GI Joes.   It was these bendable wrestlers from the WWF.  I had so many of them and loved them. And now, they're in the mix there amongst my kids toys.  I stick them in with their toys in their rooms.  The King of the Ball...

On the same trip to the Kane County Flea market where we picked up that rad Chipettes glass from Natalie's childhood , we also gave each of the girls ten bucks to buy whatever they want.  The Babe bought some dollie cloths that fit her American Girl doll, but the Bird?  She went all-in on toys.  And specifically, she dug though a few different zip lock bags of vintage fast food toys to find these three Fraggle Rock toys from McDonald's.  Turns out, after looking on the web just now, this isn't a complete set.  There was a fourth . But we do have Gobo Fraggle in the carrot car, Red Fraggle in the radish car and Wembly Fraggle along with Boober Fraggle in the cucumber car.  We're missing Mokey Fraggle who was, apparently, in an eggplant car.   Full details of the set and even more about some special Doozer cars can be found at the Muppet Wiki site . But, I have to tell you, that seeing her select these guys - amongst other things like My Little Po...

I ran into this set of vintage wooden toy train cars on an antique trip that are in the same style as todays "Thomas the Train" ones that run on that simple wood rail system and are connected with magnets.  If you have kids under seven, you know the stuff . This old set didn't use magnets, but rather hooks/loops but was seemingly the same size and would run on today's wood track.  Based on the price....this isn't meant for play as a toy.  But...for some toy collector who remembers these from his childhood. The reason why they jumped out to me is the C&NW mark on the car.  My oldest sister worked for them before the line got gobbled up by the Union Pacific and was the final train line that carried the Chicago name to be in existence.  If you look closely around Chicago and the suburbs, you'll see "Chicago and North Western" marks/symbols at train stations, on bridges and elsewhere. Oh...and based on the price (I think they wanted like $35 f...