Seasons Greetings from The Cellar

Seasons' Greetings to all readers and followers of Down to The Cellar. Thanks to everyone who contributed this year, either with comments, or help and even those who just stopped by. Hope you have a Happy Holiday, eat well and stay warm over the festive period!

Kohner Pop-O-Matic Bingo 1973

Two lovely plastic, push up Bingo cards from the Kohner Bros. Marked 1973. Apparently the dice for the game was enclosed in a sprung plastic dome, (just like the game Frustration) You popped the dome down, and the dice spun. Hence pop-o-matic!

The Kohner Bros Toy company started life in 1874 making wooden toys.They hit the big time when they obtained the rights from a Swiss inventor, Marty Meinard to the line of toys known as Push Button Toys.

Mark Boutavant’s Mouk

Mark Boutavant’s book Around the World with Mouk (pictured above) was a real high point of last year. Boutavant's brilliantly coloured pictures seem to have captured the spirit of Richard Scarry & Otto Seibold, and in doing so created his own beautiful world. How wonderful to see all the new exciting merchandise released by Djeco.

There are some brilliant wooden pull along toys for toddlers that we saw up in town yesterday, that are featured below. Thankfully the toys are available in the UK , but Roulapic the rabbit seems to have sold out everywhere already!










If the toys arent exciting enough, it appears Mouk is set to have his own TV show. You can view the pilot, here!

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.