Playtime

I've been promising you a look at the handful of vintage toys I picked up a few weeks ago at a local estate sale. I love it when I stumble upon a real estate sale, one where the object is to sell as much stuff as possible as fast as possible. (That's my ideal, anyway!) I made a pretty good haul at that particular sale--purses, beautifully embroidered pillowcases, brightly colored terry dishtowels, and I don't remember what-all.

Contrast that sale with the one we whisked off to yesterday, and it was a world apart. This one was a sale in which nobody had bothered to figure out what should be kept and what was actually on offer, and nothing was priced. I'd pick something up, only to hear, "Oh, I'm keeping that!" or "Oh, I need to go through that first." Considering we were told by the sellers that the house had to be vacated by Saturday, I have to wonder what they were thinking. They'll never make it at that rate. I only picked up a couple of small items, nothing terribly exciting. One was this vintage puppy cream pitcher which I've already listed in Peppy's shop:

www.etsy.com/listing/181766803/ceramic-white-puppy-dog-creamer

 But, back to the good sale and my fun toy finds! Here they are, all posed and ready for your inspection.

These are classic 1960s era toys, and I'm happy I was able to rescue them from the probable oblivion of a landfill by digging them out of a box of truly useless junk. Here is Yogi Bear, of course, as a cloth-and-plastic hand puppet that was obviously well-loved as is evident from the wear; a nifty working "Blow Accordian" made in the USA; a fine old chalkboard/slate that was made in Portugal; and a surprisingly large plastic figure of a United States Marine preparing to hurl his hand grenade. Nothing here cost more than 50 cents.

The soldier I find particularly interesting. I don't remember seeing toy soldiers in this large size before (he's 5 1/2" tall) and it would be nice to find out more about it. There's a lot of detail in the figure--take a close look at his face.

This has got to come from the days when we kids were watching television programs like Hogan's Heroes and Combat! (I rather had a "thing" for actor Vic Morrow.)

http://www.poorwilliam.net/pix/morrow-vic-combat.jpg

But I digress.

There was another item at the estate sale that I grabbed as fast as I clapped eyes on it, and it's sort of a toy. I've been secretly yearning for one of these kitschy gems for a long time:

This is a gigantic plastic bottle of bubblebath, and it's still full, by the way. (I'll have to ask my chemist daughter whether the stuff has turned into some kind of dire toxic waste after all these years.)  But while I'm amazed the bubblebath is still inside, even more impressive is the fact that the poodle's adhesive paper eyes haven't been peeled off. This gal was grimy with the dust of decades when I bought her, but she cleaned up very nicely, don't you think? Like the toys, the poodle was a steal at 50 cents.