What are your Favourite Collectables?
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While Steiff Teddy Bears can sell for several thousand pounds Steiff animals are a lot more affordable and it is quite possible to pick one up for around £20 – very affordable for the smaller purse and also a good start for a collection.
Dexterity games are characterized by the simple, but often very difficult aim of trying to get small moving parts into holes or go through hoops. They are often cased in circular or rectangular wood or metal glazed boxes and they often have lovely colour printed graphics. They first became popular during the late 19th century and were exported around the world.
While today’s youth gets its kicks from video games that get ever more sophisticated previous generations had the the View-Master. It was a primitive cross between a portable VCR and the virtual universe, which nowadays we take for granted.
The View-Master was very easy to use and brilliantly effective in its results. It worked via component parts and a 14-cell disc reel which comprised two still transparencies of each of seven individual images, all contained inside a goggle-eyed viewer made often from Bakelite. It had a spring-loaded lever mechanism for turning the reel and thus the View-Master worked its magic.
In 1952 a small company called ‘Minimodels’ produced small metal bodied racing cars with small clockwork motors under the name ‘Scalex’. Later, electric motors replaced the clockwork models, and their inventor, Mr Francis, devised a rubber-based track with two parallel metal grooves in the centre to carry an electric current and the means to keep the cars on the track.
The company changed their name to ‘Scalextric’. With this new name Minimodels introduced the range of what would become Slot Car Racing sets to the world at the annual Harrogate Trade Toy Fair in 1957. Overnight Scalextric became a success and in no time the name Scalextric became the generic name used for Slot Car Racing.
Toy theatres, made from paper and mounted on wood or board were a popular form of entertainment in Europe from about 1811. Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Charlie Chaplin and Winston Churchill all enjoyed staging a play in a miniature theatre.
The toy theatre has experienced a remarkable revival in recent years. Every year in Germany there is an International Paper Theatre Festival, which attracts participants from all over the world. There is also an annual festival in New York. The biggest museum of toy theatres is in Sweden and original toy theatre producers such as Pollocks are still trading in England.
Teddy bears have been with us for around 100 years and has been a popular toy with boys as well as girls. Although the Teddy Bear arrived in Germany and the USA almost simultaneously, it was named in America, after Teddy Roosevelt. As the American Ideal Toy Company began making their Teddy Bears, in Germany [...]
The TV Sci-Fi puppet series Thunderbirds was created in the mid 1960s by Gerry and Sylvia Anderson. It run for 32 episodes from 1964 to 1966 and over the years it has generated a vast number of collectables.
What was so special about Thunderbirds at the time was the new technology which enabled the puppets to [...]