BOAC CREW Luggage label

Nice vintage BOAC Crew Luggage label. We've shown the front and back.

1950s Woven badges

Once upon a time holiday makers would collect woven badges and sew them onto their rucksacks, in much the same way decals were collected and stuck into the back of car windscreens in America. Posted today are three delightful woven badges that remind us of that era. Enjoy!

1950s I-SPY books

Very excited to see I-spy People, over at between channels, last week. Its a real treat. It reminded me of my own collection of 1950s I spy books. Im sure there were more, but for the moment this will have to do.

In case of complaint please return and join a sample.

Top marks to our son, who was helping out at the School fair, and found this box of Caran D'ache pencils, from the 1950s. What care has been taken with the packaging, from the paper label to the string that binds them together.

Included in the box (below) was the original customer complaint slip. The translation into english is rather quaint 

In case of complaint please return this slip and join a sample.

Royal footman

It seems somewhat appropriate to post this super little lead figure, what with all the fervour over the Royal wedding, today. Created by John Hill & co. in 1953 as a commemorative for the current Queens coronation. Its a bit classier than some of the tat thats being marketed for todays royal occasion. However I did see this, which I quite liked!

Häschenschule wooden Rabbits from East Germany

These rather fetching, wooden rabbits turned up at the car boot, a while back, but despite having their bases stamped, I knew nothing about them except they were East German.

However after stumbling across Spielzeugladen, a toy shop in Freiburg, South West Germany, I'm a little bit wiser. It appears the characters, Hans & Gretchen, come from the classic German tale, Die Häschenschule. The Rabbit School was written by Albert Sixtus, and first published in 1924.

Ferelith Eccles Williams Marmaduke books

A while back I posted several dolls from the one two three away series, illustrated by Ferelith Eccles Williams. Born in 1920, Ferelith was a pretty prolific illustrator, but I didnt know she taught Ian Beck!

Back in the Fifties, before The Village with Three Corners, Ferelith produced a lot of splendid work for Elizabeth Chapman's Marmaduke, a series of tales about a red car. Shown above are two copies, that turned up locally. While the covers are pretty sumptuous, what really grabbed me, were the interior spots, a few of which are shown below.

Two Striking Matchboxes

Two lovely matchboxes from Spain featuring two Spanish football teams. Made by Fosforera Espanola, they look to date from the Fifties.

If you like theses, you may be interested to know that the collecting of Matchbox labels, Phillumeny is big business. Theres even a Matchbox society!

Its been a while since Ive been to a Matchbox Society fair, but there was always lots to see, and the prices were pretty reasonable too. Ill add some more soon.

Promotional Dough scraper tools

Four stunning dough scraper tools, from the massive, Flea market at The Malvern Three Counties Ground, last week. I had to have them! Apparently companies would send these plastic tools direct to the bakers along with their various products. Theyre almost too nice to use!

R Dakins' Dream Pets

Weve picked up a few of these recently at different car boots, although it took a while to realise they were from the same series. Apparently Dream Pets were first released in 1957. They were originally made in Japan, and the story goes the stuffed toys had been used to protect toy trains imported by R Dakin & Co. They caused quite a stir and by the late seventies there were over 2000 characters to collect.

Reissued in 2004, The characters stand about 5" high and are made from a mixture of felt, and a suede like product. The three above, are #19. Roquefort #18. Pancho & Demo Donkey. Below is a label detailing the range. You can see a few more over at Pidgeonblog, and a few more here.

1950s Cup Final Blow Football

Its that time of year again! Tomorrow sees Portsmouth take on Chelsea in the 2010 FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium. I always think of it as a special day and remember fondly as a child going up the high street with my father and buying the Official programme from WH Smith.

Back then, the Cup Final was the only live televised game, and the pre match build up was legendary. Now every game is on the internet, or live on Sky. Somehow, some of the romance has gone. But here from those halcyon days are two fantastic Cup Final commemoratives; Blow Football. It really doesnt get much more glamorous than this!

The top box is from 1958, while the bottom one is from 1960. Neither has a makers mark, but the contents are identical. Round the side of the box, the winners from from that decade are listed. The goalkeepers are beautifully printed on tin, and are threaded along the crossbar, to allow them to move.

Should you want to fill in a 1975 Tiger FA Cup wallchart you can download it from last years Cup Final Post.

Miss Twist. C'est Peynet

My parents went to Paris for their honeymoon in 1953, and I was always lead to believe that one of the things they came back with was the Peynet wedding dolls.

It turns out the dolls werent made till later. Born in 1908, Peynet is famed for his books "The Lovers". However in the early 50s Galeries Lafayettes commissioned Peynet to produce a window display for them, the display was so successful that Technigom, a french company had the idea of producing smaller versions in latex, that measured 21cm.

What then followed was over 250 different dolls, that sold over six million. The boxed doll above is Miss Twist, that my wife bought for my birthday. The images below come from a small catalogue that belonged to my father.

Mr Magoo 1001 Arabian Nights

A while back I was lucky enough to find these lobby cards for UPA's first animated feature from 1959, 1001 Arabian Nights starring Mr Magoo. Unfortunately Ive never had the chance to see the whole film but you can view the trailer below



Sadly, the film doesnt seem to have been very well received, which is a real shame because I love the background drawings, and the super technicolor (see John Hinde). The drawings are by Jules Engel, whos pictured below.










If you like the whole fifties cartoon scene, theres a fantastic book by Amid Amidi called Cartoon Modern, which really is superb. If you cant wait to see the book, you can hop along over to his very informative blog , where the picture above is taken from.

Cadburys chocolate box lid

Got really lucky at the car boot last weekend, when a couple were clearing out there loft.

There was a stack of stunning chocolate packaging from the sixties. This was the best of the lot! It seems odd today, that the actual chocolates dont feature on the pack, just a fantastic Wild West board game. And what about the colour palette?

Bertram Mills Circus programmes

A small collection of Circus programmes from 1949- 1963.

Miroslav Sasek

As I hinted in the Jill Mcdonald post,the other day. Miroslav Sasek was one of my favourite Illustrators as a child. I was delighted to see that the This is Miroslav Sasek site has been redesigned and looks better than ever! I was really excited to see the link to the film of This is Israel on You Tube. Many thanks to oldlibraryfilms for uploading it.

Ive long collected anything to do with Sasek, and in fact probably my first purchase on ebay was for a signed Sasek book. Since then a few strange things have turned up, there were postcards from France and a poster from Hong Kong. But most excitingly, a tea towel of This is London. The tea towel came from America where the sellers aunt had collected "dish cloths" on her travels around the world. Screen printed on Irish Linen, its a lovely thing, but its lost some of the warmth of the book.

This tea towel is different from the one on the Sasek site, so who knows perhaps there are more gems out there waiting to be found. In 1996 I did attempt to find Sasek only to learn he had died in 1980. Virgin owned the rights to the books back then, and in a brief telephone conversation , I suggested it would be great to reprint. At the time I was told the world had changed a lot since the original books release and there would be too many inaccuracies if they were reissued.

Funny How times change!

Luckily I did manage to track down some original art work, more of which another time. Till then just a little detail from the above tea towel.

nesting penguins

I do like the simplicity of these three penguins from the 1950s. The largest wooden penguin is 70mm high and splits along the middle like a russian doll. The two smaller ones sit inside.

Matchbox drums

I spent an age over at wackystuff the other day, and what a treat it was! With nearly 1000 images to peruse, it really is a delight!

Some of the highlights include some very idyllic 1950 family postcards as well as some superbly printed labels.

Prompted by some of the matchbox labels on wackystuff I have posted a couple of cylindrical matchbox drums, of my own. These lovely little drums hold 100 matches with brightly coloured heads, all visible through the tightly fitting lids.

Roll up! Roll Up!

Trawling through a box load of old photographs, I found this old picture. It feels a bit like catching up with an old friend!

On a trip to Southport in the late Eighties I came across this wonderful fairground stall. If my memory serves me correct you pulled the players foot back and he shot a two pence piece, over a void. The idea of the game was to land the penny onto a revolving island in the middle. If your coin landed on the designated target, you won a prize.

I love the players haircut and the simplicity of the kit. I could never work out if he was centre forward or centre half. Either way, I bet he could tell a story or two. The games has echoes of baby-foot, and should you like table football, you'll probably enjoy Nicola Shwartzs book table head over at pocko books.

It was sad to read that the fairground at Southport has since been demolished. I do hope this old fella' found a good home, somewhere!

A bird in the hand......

Found in the bottom of a box some time ago, are these two charming bird salt & pepper shakers. Both the salt cellar and the pepper pot are made from wood and stamped Foreign on the bottom, they measure 85mm. The simple decoration on this condiment set reminds me of bar tool sets from the 1950s.

If youre interested in Salt & Pepper shakers Abbeville books produced a marvelous book, Great Shakes in 1986 by Gideon Bosker. Although now out of print, its well worth hunting down.