Grandmother Stover's Fantastic Miniature Toys

I've just got home and patted the dog, put on some coffee and checked out the toy company I posted this morning, Grandmother Stover's of Columbus, Ohio.

Its been a revelation!

Bat fink was just a taster of the genius of this company. They specialised in creating beautiful little sets of toy artefacts, packaging them on a lovely little bubble card and giving them a quirky, almost MAD comic-like name.

They are simply magnificent rack toys and exactly what I would have adored as a kid in the Sixties. Alas, I never saw anything like this in the UK. Despite not having any back then I know I made up similar bundles of plastic trinkets and cracker prizes, the sort of nik naks that went in a treasure box.

Grandmother Stover's appear to have began life as a dolls house miniatures specialist. below is an image from Ebay showing the companies basic rack toy house style of a group of cute miniatures inside a  squarish bubble set on a simple backing card with the firm's name on the bottom edge.

Even in the 1950's the company began to add humourous titles and package together funny sets of plastic toys like this 1957 For Those Who Had Everything But Lost Some. Inside were marbles, teeth and screws, everything you might lose! Very comical and really quite quaint. This set was issued as Goofy Gifts.

These little sets had colour added to the artwork and its eems to have taken off judging by the sheer volume of different sets I saw just from a quick browse just now. There are dozens and dozens of different ones! At some point the company line lost the year of manufacture but I assume these sets are from the Sixties.

This one is really up my street, For Those Who Hate Commercials! There's TV, a TV guide, an axe, a baseball bat and even a revolver! ha ha. Masterful!

Like any canny company old Grandmothers naturally cottoned onto the Sixties monster craze too and old Bat Boy posted this morning is one example.

There are loads of different monster and horror based sets and here's just another example I saw on an auction site, Fish Fink Monster of the Deep, in which you got worms, an anchor, a seahorse, a chest and what I assume is a red monster although I'm unsure. Pure brilliance and I can well imagine collectors being addicted to these toys. There are many examples online and a great website is Oldefrostfarm1780.

As a footnote to this giddy personal discovery Grandmother Stover's didn't stop there. At some point they also released party favours in little header-carded baggies. These could well have been marketed as cake toppers as well and some were branded as Trimmin Trinkets.

I find these baggies very reminiscent of the Blue Shield brand, which we know of because of their fabulous miniature Apollo Capsule bagged toy set.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if Grandmother Stover's issued some space related baggies as well. 

If you collect this company's marvellous range do let me know!