I used to sell old toys from my cellar in the Nineties.
Sounds a bit weird but it was like a toy shop really.
Our old cellar opened out onto the garden at the back and was underground at the front on account of the house being built on the edge of a quarry. In fact it was one of a row of quarryworkers houses.
The garden door made the cellar and it was the 'shop entrance' really.
Hard to believe now but I did have some regular customers and they came from far and wide.
Once inside they were greeted by two aisles of old toys stacked on shelves. Some were in labelled plastic bins like loose action figures and die-cast cars. There were bins for other loose stuff from specific lines like Battlestar Galactica, James Bond Junior and Bucky O'Hare I seem to recall.
The best shelves had the boxed items and since it was the Nineties this meant lots of items from films from the past ten years, which often turned up at boot sales complete and still boxed for some reason.
There were the Ghostbusters firehouse, Ecto 1, Backpack, VW beetle, dragster and an electronic board game. These were joined by boxed Action Man telephones, Alien Hovertread, Captain America Coupe and tons more.
I particularly liked having duplicate boxed items on the shelves. It somehow made it even toy shoppier! I think the number one for this had to be a stack of Batman Animated Series batmobiles. They looked great in their boxes on top of each other.
These were joined by my favourite stock - any collactables from the 1989 Michael Keaton Batman movie, which in many ways kicked off my own collecting bug. For sale were loose figures, loose vehicles, McDonald's premiums, posters, jigsaws and cards, together with boxed items like a really cool batman desk tidy I found in a discount beauty store in Dewsbury!
Despite having a few regular shoppers my main outlet for the cellar inventory was mail order, which I adored having had so much fun as a kid getting stuff through the post myself.
Mail order in the nineties was all pre-internet and as such pre-eBay. It was done via snail mail, magazine ads and newspaper classifieds. My first lists were hand written and copied either using carbon paper or a photocopier. Those first lists had line drawings on them for extragarnish! I then advanced to typing lists of items and eventually printed folded booklets I could send out.
I sent all this lot to a growing group of mail customers and folks who responded to ads with their wants lists. It was all done using envelopes and second class stamps.
In 2003 we moved house to a place without a cellar. The cellar toy shop was no more and with the advent of EBay in 2000in the UK so were my mail order lists.
Still I'm glad I got chance to do all that and it was a huge amount of fun.
Did you send out mail order lists, wants lists or maybe even have a 'toy' shop at home readers?
I wish I would have had a chance to visit your toy shop Woodsy. Sounds like a little bit of toy dream come true. Do you by any chance have any photos of the shop, or some of your mail order catalogs stored away. Would be fun to see!
ReplyDeleteDon't think I have any photos Arto but I may have some old lists. I shall have a look. I remember that I called my 'shop' and 'mail order' Moonzero Toys! I remember going to a toy fair to buy something which a dealer was bringing for me and he said 'Ah, so your're Moonzero!'. ha ha. In fact the pre-ordered item was my first Imai die-cast Scramble Bug.
DeleteYour Cellar Toy Shop sounds amazing, Woodsy! I can certainly understand why people would travel far to visit it... especially in those adventurous pre-eBay/internet days of the Nineties. What a 'must-see' place to have had the good fortune to have visited and hunted for toy treasures. Underground toy selling at its best. I never had a shop like this wonderful place, but I certainly remember looking forward to the postie bringing hand typed mail order lists just like the ones you've described. Yes, days when the dependable old postal order was king of currency for collectors. Really enjoyed reading this... it conjures memories and images of exciting times :)
ReplyDeleteThanks Tone, yes, they were fun times. They reckon there's a shopkepper is ebvery one of us! ha ha. I still have some of the old cellar stock now in the loft, which is much harder to get into. My loft became my Ebay office in 2006 when I Ebayed full-time but it wasn't as much fun as having folk visit the cellar and purchase direct. In those days my main connection with the wider collecting community was the great and awesome Model and Collectprs Mart magazine. It was the mothershipin those pre-Ebay/ Internet days. Did you read it too?
DeleteI certainly did read it, Woodsy, ha ha. I couldn't wait for it to hit the shelves of our local WH Smith'. I'd regularly send in ads to the classifieds, seeking an original Action Man cricket ball to finish off that particular set. It was a bloomin' tricky piece to find. I only managed to get one further down the line with the advent of the internet though. You're absolutely right, Model and Collector's was the jungle telegraph of the toy collecting world back then... and a great publication in its day. As well as the adverts, I also remember reading some lovely features by Hammer Horror legend, Ingrid Pitt. Sounds like you were a man on a toy selling mission and had a brilliant time in the bargain. What great adventures you had in the world of vintage toys :)
DeleteYes, Model Mart was just ace wasn't it. I remember getng really excited when it arrived on the door mat. I'd take it with me on the bus to work and read it cover to cover, the stories, the ads and the classifieds. I bet I read your classifieds! Indrid's column was called the Pitt of Horror I think, a superb read. I managed to see her in the flesh ( oo er!) at Memorabilia one year where she was signing.
DeleteBTW I sold quite a lot of old Accy Man boxed vehicles like the awesome Fire Tender and loose sets including the Footballer back then - but never the Cricketer. Not sure I had it as a kid either. I had the Go Kart though I think! Well done on getting the loose cricket ball!