The Paul Pert Screen Collection

This is an amazing personal collection featured on Wikipeadia and appears to be famous. Is it one you know readers?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paul_Pert_Screen_Collection 

BRIAN'S KAIJU CAVE

Hi Woodsy.

Here is my Kaiju Room!

 In its current state not too messy, but getting tricky to navigate in. Other Monster Base denizens are stored in totes, residing in the attic or spare bedroom closets. I rather enjoy my house and don't want to move, but I'd love to have these obscured toys on display also. My future plan is an out-building on my property, possible a pole barn, to keep my overspill.

-BrianF 

Monster Base 

NJ USA

MY MESSY CAVE 2019

Five years ago my cave looked like this, a mess!

Toys, books, games, even a pair of crutches!

Some of the SpaceX scratch builds I made are visible in the cabinet, all stored away in the attic now.

I'd also brought board games down from the attic because a collector was visiting to see if there any he wanted to buy.

I regret selling the rare Dekker Horror Make-Up, but it was a cheap car boot find and you can't hold onto everything can you!

Sadly, my new smaller cave is just as untidy! Its seems impossible for it to be any other way!

Are you an untidy collector readers are a neat one?

BOOTIFUL!

 

4everRetro, The vintage toy shop I visited last Saturday had just taken in a new collection.

This was the first load they filled the boot with!

What do you think?

DVD Boxed Sets - Does Anyone Still Collect Them?

Here is a gentleman with an extensive collection of DVD boxed sets. 

The Dark Shadows set comes in a large, coffin-shaped box, with the contents making up a large picture of Barnabas Collins. Even better is a plastic model of the Mystery Machine van, with Shaggy and Scooby Doo in the cab. The back opens up, revealing the discs.

MY BOX SET DVD COLLECTION - YouTube

Here are his TV show sets and part-sets.

TV SHOW SERIES COLLECTION | HUGE COLLECTION - YouTube

A very impressive collection.

Do you still have any?

Paul Adams from New Zealand

A BUSTLE IN MY HEDGEROW

It's funny. I'm currently selling off old toy stall stock; vintage toys, games, puzzles, books, LP's, videos and comics. The attic is full to bursting. A long spring-clean seemed to fit Lockdown and now School's out for the summer I can't stop!

The house is choc-full as well as after 41 years together me and the Missus have assembled a whole pile of life in general.

Sometimes I wonder how we ended up with so much stuff and I'm sure this is a common experience for people like us well over 50. Working life is drawing slowly to a close and we've surrounded ourselves with a life's-worth of ornaments, books, mementos, collections, furniture, pictures, pots and pans. Its how we filled our days.

But there was a time when I had very little at all. Almost a blank page in comparison to today and I can now see that period as a base-level for the start of our current heap of things piling up!

It was when I left my home town in 1980. For a couple of years I'd had a day job to pay for amps and guitars for a local teen rock band I was in, but in the September of 1980 all the other three group members left for Uni. They were 18. I was a year older, renting a flat and with a hippy's head full of Gaia I had no thirst for more formal education. I needed 'to find myself' as we would have said back then.

So in the late winter of 1980 I quit my insurance job and with no fanfare left my home town of Preston for good. My destination, the Ouse Washes RSPB Bird Reserve in the Cambridgeshire fens, where I'd signed up as a volunteer warden for a year, something which fitted well with the 'long hair' I was as I turned 20 that December.

I took very very little to the fens. I couldn't carry much anyway on the train. A hold-all, the guitar and the clothes on my back and that was it. What  I did have left-over from my former life, my childhood, I'd left in a cupboard - electric guitar, amp, LP's, magazines, books and a a built-up Aurora Witch and a Dracula candle -  in my old flat, which my older brother now rented. I'd chucked some other stuff, some clothes and hippy posters like Jesus is Coming and Bombs for Breakfast?, which my brother wouldn't want.

Besides, the accommodation I was in on 'the Washes' was tiny, basically a large hut called Cygnus. There was a combined living space and kitchenette and two bedrooms containing two bunk-beds for four people.  There wasn't room to swing a wren round!

Probably the biggest single item in the hut was my 12-string EKO acoustic guitar, which took up far too much space in the cramped living area. I kept in on my bunk-bed when not in use. My stablemate, Dave, also there for a year on something called YTS, took up some more of the hut and I think his biggest possession was his telescope and tripod. He was a much keener 'birder' than me and very knowledgeable about wildlife. I got to know Dave really well.

The other two lower bunk-beds were for weekend volunteers, which the RSPB was well used to, unlike us year-longers, who were quite new. The weekenders - bankers, teenagers, birders and office workers all wanting to graft in a beautiful place for a while and do some birdwatching - didn't bother me. I got used to their comings and goings and enjoyed the fresh blood they injected every week. I was a vegetarian at the time and a terrible, almost useless cook, so if any of them made me a plate of grilled courgettes and cheese they'd be my friend for life!

The weekenders, on the other hand, drove Dave wild and to be fair he worked much harder than me on the reserve - I did a lot of writing in the bustling reeds when I should have been grafting! - and needed his own space. We coped though and got through the winter nights all together listening to the radio - the BBC aired Lord of the Rings - and I played songs on the 12-string. I remember a young punk rocker birder listening to me play and sing Space Oddity by Bowie. At the end he said 'not bad Hippy!'. It was like the peace-making of rival tribes in the shifting sands of rock!

Even though I owned hardly anything that year and lived on the dole [volunteering was aloud back then] it was without doubt one of the happiest years of my life. A stand-out year unlike any other before or after and marked a clear watershed between my former self and what was to come. I'm glad I had nothing except my guitar. I have to admit I miss those days a lot. 

I left the fens in the Autumn of 1981 on the back of a friend's motorbike. All I had was my old hold-all. My guitar was left behind as I plumb forgot to take it. I hope someone somewhere is strumming Space Oddity to the applause of punks!

Did you have very little when you left home readers?

BRINGING SOME TOYS DOWN FROM THE ATTIC

We had a bit of an old toy sort-out this weekend. A few trips into the dusty attic and down came a big bundle from my old toy fair days.

We had a local toy enthusiast coming round to see what they might want so it was a good excuse to pull down a large pile and set them out in the kitchen for his inspection.

It was like the old days!

Checking completeness, stacking them up, chatting about toys and 'sadly' seeing some go. Yay!

The piles included 4 complete Mouse Traps, a Carlton SPV and Cap Scarlet figure, the classic Buckaroo, Go for Broke [which always makes me think of Sixties Christmasses when we got that game], hats Off, Kimbo, the Vampire Game and the ubiquitous Spy Ring [later edition box].

There was a busted Matchbox Tracy Island, a Matchbox Mobile Action Command MAC Rescue Centre set and two Manta Force boxed vehicles.

From the back there's an Argos military mountain, the name of which eludes me. Its like Zero Hour in style.

The MAC box also included this rather nice Hestair Toys moon buggy and astronauts inside. I blogged about these for our Ninth Birthday [see label below]. Have you anything like this?

There's two Hong Kong rack toy Secretary Sets, things a beauty which simply wouldn't exist nowadays. I love the line 'Private Secretary' on the briefcase! The card art is quite funny too, the boss with his feet up! Again, of its time! The brand sticker on the card is Rojo Toys, which I imagine were the distributor and not the maker.

Further piles including a space sparking gun bought on holiday in Crete, when I used to raid toy shops in Rethymnon. They always had old toys mixed in with new ones! It was fabulous and I brought loads back during the 90's!

Another lovely rack toy baggy of plastic baby bricks, bought in an old fancy goods shop in Borth, Mid Wales, about five years ago. I just can't resist old rack toys. Can you?

Further piles at a distance including Tic Tac Toad and a plastic Tardis.

It was fun getting this lot out again after 10 years plus gathering dust in the attic. Reminded me of when I used to load up the estate car and tootle off to Doncaster toy fair on a Sunday early doors and fill my stall. That's twenty years ago. I was in my thirties! Where has the time gone!

Have you stood at toy or comic or sci-fi fairs at all readers?

THE MAGPIE IN US ALL

There was always someone in my family collecting something when I was a kid. 

My brother collected beer bottle tops. Mackeson, Guinness, Pale Ale, Watneys, Newcastle Brown, I can still see them all now in his box of tops. they were great to put your hands in and swish about. I wonder if anyone still collects bottle tops?

My other brother collected beer mats [there's a theme developing here!] but I remember less well as I do the tops. I do recall beer mat games though when I was old enough to visit pubs as a teenager!

Probably the collection I recall the most fondly of my two brothers were matchboxes. There were so many classics like Vesta and Bryant May but also loads of others too. I used to adore looking at those little boxes and books of matches as the designs were so appealing.

My late Mother in Law collected sugar cubes from cafes. She had hundreds from allover Europe. They were usually two cubes wrapped in a small paper packet. Very quaint and evocative of the times. She kept them in a big glass jar.

My own collection as a kid were key rings. These were everywhere in the Sixties and early Seventies and I can still see some of them quite vividly on my mind: the articulated metal fish, the tyre with a compass inside, the small toilet, the skull, the skeleton, the globe, the Esso Blue man, the clasped metal book and the small roulette bowl. I always look out for old key rings in Charity shops to see if they jog my memory.

I also had a go at stamp collecting but wasn't very good at it. I loved the stamps if the late Sixties and early Seventies though and had a couple of albums on the go. I can see many of them still in my mind and they always give me a buzz when I think of names like Magyar Polska [is that right?], Helvetica and CCCP that were written on foreign stamps. I remember getting the Stanley Gibbons guide to stamp collecting one Christmas and probably remember every page, especially the dinosaurs.

I'd love to see that book again!

Were you a collector as a kid readers or someone in your family?

THE FADING OF THE BUG

Domestic matters gave ascended in my personal firmament of late so I've been absent from commenting on MB.

Bill B has kindly taken up the commenting reins and I'm very grateful.

This maybe the case for some while yet.

In the meantime I find I have a spare ten minutes to ruminate on less mundane things than our dodgy oven.

I recently took out some junk to the bin. One item made me think twice. It was an old kid's Spider-Man T-shirt. Being a super-hero related item I had real difficulty releasing it from my hands to fall into that dark maw of oblivion. 

Ever since I began collecting, buying and selling toys and collectables, I have been consistently fixated with super-heroes. This manifested itself most often in buying action figures and vehicles at car boot sales, but my addiction stretched much further into anything related to the super ones.

So chucking this T-shirt I realised that something had happened. About 10 to 15 years ago I would had trashed it. It would have been washed, ironed and put in the packing case ready for my next toy fair stand. I always had a few items of second-hand Marvel or DC clothing like this.

Letting it go confirmed that my obsession had waned dramatically and that the 'bug' had faded. Is fading. This is a salutary moment for a one-time zealous collector, the revelation that the spark that once drove me to spend hundreds of hours buying, selling, identifying, cataloguing, ebaying and toy fairing anything and everything super-hero/ sci-fi/ monster/ fantasy/ TV/ pop culture and space related was growing weaker.

Even worse, after the initial tang of nostalgia for my younger self, I am in some ways comfortable with this new less-manic frame of mind. No more rooting on the edges of old rubbish tips for Seventies crisps packets [ and yes, I found some!], no more getting up at the crack on a Sunday to spend all day in a cold sports centre behind my 'Madaboutmonsters' stand [it was great fun though] and no more squirrelling away anything remotely pop cultural. Smaug has well and truly left the Mountain.

Another good example is this Star Wars shaving foam can. I bought it ten years ago specifically for the can. 

Yes, I used the foam on various cakes but really it was the act of putting t away that I was interested in. It came out of hibernation last week as part of our de-clutter programme and like the T-shirt found itself teetering on the brink of the wheelie-bin.

It fell in and no ...... I didn't rake it out!

Is your collecting bug fading readers? Have you cut back or modified your squirreling?

MORE STRANGE WORDS AND ABBREVIATIONS ON EBAY

Here are some more strange words and acronyms garnered from just 30 minutes of searching Ebay. I've no idea what some of them mean and a only vague idea of the rest! Do you know readers?

1. NOS
2. OVP [German listings]
3. Realty
4. Escrow
5. Gate Release Fee
6. Smog fee
7. Trending
8. Lay Away
9. Patina
10. Concession
11. Recast
12. Consignment
13. Inventory
14. Stock
15. Junkyard Lot
16. Cardback
17. VG+
18. Estate find
19. Tote
20. Toter
21. NIP
22. N.I.B
23. LIS
24. MOSC
25. HTF VTG
26. Minty
27. Creamsicle
28. IOP
29. SP VG

MORE VAGUE COLLECTING TERMS

Currently out and about a lot this week as its the half term break - car boot sales and the like - so I'm not able to respond to comments yet but here's a baker's dozen more vague words I'm emailing to the blog via a friends phone:

1. Playworn - is the same as paint loss when describing a die-cast car?

2. Kitbash - is it the same as mash-up?

3. Crossover [comics] - is it the same as mash-up?

4. Mottled - is the same as foxed?

5. Jeweled headlights - does this mean glass headlights?

6. Plastic fatigue - does this mean cracked?

7. Code 3 [Die cast] - does this mean third generation  or custom?

8. Vintage - does it mean pre-1970 or later?

9. Kitsch - is this the same as retro?

10. Shabby chic - is this the same as Kitsch?

11. Junk - simply rubbish?

12. Like new - does this mean nearly new? Old but new? What?

13. Scratchbiult - is it the same as custom?

THE VAGUE WORDS THAT TOY COLLECTORS USE

As a collector over the years I've come across some odd English terms, which can vary in meaning from place to place. Here are ten for starters:

1. Mystery Action: is this the same as Bump N Go?

2. Foxing: is this the same as Browning?

3. Perished: is this the same as decayed?

4. Deadstock: is this ex-shop stock?

5. Warehouse find: is this deadstock?

6. Spectraflame: is this the same as metallic?

7. Bubble Pack: is this the same as blister card?

8. Retro: is this the same as vintage?

9. Antique: does this mean over a hundred years old?

10. Loose: is this always unboxed?

What do you think readers? Can you think of any more grey terms?

EURO RETRO: HOUSEHOLD OBJECTS FROM A CONTINENTAL FLAT IN THE SIXTIES

Just rummaging through some family heirlooms from the Sixties and the landscape of my Wife's continental youth is back in front of her on the kitchen table! When she was playing Post Office and Shopping as a kid, her Mum, Dad, Oma and Opa [Grandparents], like everyone's, were living in an adult world full of their own grown up 'toys'. Their European flats was full of it. Here's a taste of the Swinging Sixties from West Germany.

Ronson table lighter

Cigarette box holder

Plastic travel soap container

Enameled metal bowl

Braun shaver

and my favourite, a very cool 'Henry Morell' box of cuff links....

....shaped like black squares, jeweled steering wheels and amazing arty metal oblongs spattered with what appears to be molten metal! How did they do that!

Are any of these familiar readers?

IS YOUR COLLECTING SEASONAL?

Winter has got a real hold of me this year and near-hibernation has reduced my collecting to almost zilch! I am a lot more active looking for old toys in warmer weather. Are you the same readers? Is your collecting seasonal?

MOONBASE SWORDFEST

A smorgasbord of SWORD! The Woodsy Moonbase Collection:

Table 1

Notes by Woodsy:

Above: Woodsy Collection: Century 21 Project SWORD: complete fleet of 20 toys [ the mythical Moon Base Set would have made it 21 in 1967/68, a rather neat number for a C21 fleet! ]

NB. the orange Space Glider, top picture - centre - is a colour varitation of the grey Space Glider and not counted as part of the 20, as none of the other known C21 colour variants aren't either.

Table 2

Notes by Woodsy:

Above: Woodsy Collection: Project SWORD Copies and Knockoffs - incomplete collection: a mixture of T in a Circle [Tai Hing], Tarheel, Hover, Hoover, NASA, CHIBI/BICHI and De-Tarheeled Moon Ranger.

PROJECT SWORD TOYS CLOSE-UP

Moonbase Collection

Collectors' Block

Apart from the Century 21 Jiggy Kids jigsaw I won on Fleabay a few weeks back [which never arrived] I haven't got anything for my collection for ages.

To be honest, Project SWORD stuff is getting harder to find, especially as there's just a few elusive and unusual bits and bobs that I need now. I'm at a sort of impasse.

 

 

Ironically, the QUEST US TV show Toy Hunter has rekindled my passion for all types of vintage toys and I'm really enjoying re-reading all my old reference books on action figures and TV toys [anyone else seen the show?]

Have you got anything for your collection or display shelf of late readers or are you suffering from collectors' block too?

WHY IS ROBOT COLLECTING SO POPULAR?

Robot collecting is like the business end of space toy collecting. Or at least that's the impression I have. It's a serious business, very expensive and quite muscular. I maybe completely wrong though!

 

 

I've only ever owned a few robots, all plastic and all found at boot sales over the years. The best was a Godzilla headed robot. I think I had a few robots as a kid but they seem hard to recall for some reason. I had a Star Strider I think and certainly a tiny walking clockwork mini bot, which I loved.

 

 

Robots occupy an odd place amongst space toys. Are they actually space toys at all? They're not spaceships or vehicles and the classic boxy robot such as a Horikawa doesn't really have a presence in many films, unlike say, dome headed bots like Robby from Forbidden Planet.

 

 

Entire websites are dedicated to robots like the ubercool Alphadrome, which I love, and many many more. There are collectors all over the world.

 

 

So why are toy robots so popular with collectors?

MOONBASE 2009

I'm sure you all have a cabinet of some sort or other. This is part of mine in the loft showing a random assembly of SWORD, NOVAs and tin moon rocket in early 2009, a few months after I started the blog in Autumn 2008.

 

 

Back then I can see that I also had a lovely little boxed yellow Echo Car, one of the first space toys I ever bought at a toy fair, probably around 1990. I sold it on Ebay a while back but I remember it well as it represented a time in my life in the early 1990's when I knew hardly anything about SWORD beyond my memories of my childhood toys. a pre-internet era when visiting toy fairs and getting my copies of Model Mart and Toy Shop magazines were fantastically exciting for me.

 

 

Also in the frame is the die-cast Imai 'Good Model' Scramble Bug, which, thanks to Terry Harle,  Bill and I were able to offer to readers as our first blog exclusive. It was packaged as a miniature SWORD scramble bug and flew out of Moonbase like hot cakes! Anyone still got one?

Pictures of your collections/ shelves/ cabinets/ cupboards or single items always welcomed for posting here!

Glimpses Of Moonbase Central 2

New items in the Moonbase collection:

Top: far right - blue miniature Scout 1 from Japan [latest addition to a growing and hugely exciting fleet]

Second: far left - silver Mexican Saturn V and MLP R&L copy, middle - red and green Saturn V and MLP/LUT from Japan, top - Wotan!

Third and Last: box for Japanese Saturn V above.