I'VE OPENED UP HARRY!*

 Way back in the Autumn of 2005, after 20 years, I gladly ended my first office 'career' and took the plunge into selling old toys full time on Ebay.

I traded as Mad About Monsters. It was great fun and my office was in the attic, repleat with old dial telephone, colour TV and laptop. 

After 3 years of solid Ebaying on top of a part-time school job [ and clocking up thousands of sales, I finally closed the books and the attic door in the autumn of 2008. Mad About Monsters was sadly over.

Well, today, as part of my retirement from School, I once again opened up Harry*

I have been in the attic many times since 2008 but not with Ebay on my mind.

I have kept a gangway clear throughout though!

and tried to keep some sort of order.

Boxes are decently stacked ...

Part of my own collection has shelving up there too.

But there's too much other gear generally! leftovers from Ebaying and clutter from our house.

With a corner for our daughter's old stuff too!

And so, with a smile on my older face and sweeping aside a few dead wasps from my old Ebaying desk, I set up the 'office' once more!

The Velux view over the fields hasn't changed, which is really great.

.... but my old analogue miniature TV, as always, was just snow.

It was really exciting to get back up there and list on Ebay again, albeit no longer as Mad About Monsters and being far less serious about it than I was back then.

I'm really looking forward to listing all the old toys and games that are surplus to requirements in the attic and maybe even make room for more of my own collections stored in my bedroom!

Retirement has well and truly begun!

I'll keep you posted.

*

* I call the attic Harry after the tunnels in the movie The Great Escape: Tom, Dick and Harry. Tom was discovered and Harry was then opened up. Dick was never used.

LOFT PROPERTY

One of my new year resolutions is to tackle our attic, which has sadly fallen into disrepair and is now ruled by spiders and wasps!

I have to admit my resolution was given a kick up the behind by my daughter, who, now approaching 40 herself, wants to sell her childhood toys, which we have kept in storage for her, boxes and all!

There's Cabbage Patch dolls, Cherry Merry Muffin, Barbies, Sindy and tons more awaiting her down memory lane up there.

But first I need to make my way into the attic and find it all!

Whats your attic like readers?

The End of the Line

Preparing for painters coming to Moonbase I've stripped out some old cables.

I did it with a slight tear in my eye as these were telephone cables to the loft.

Back in 2004 when the attic was made into an Ebay office I installed a landline up there. Rather than get a twin phone set I decided to have as old a phone as I could have from my collection of old telephones.

I opted for a green GPO dial phone on my desk. It was fun seeing it alongside old toys for sale like Masters of the Universe or whatever I had in that day.

To do it I needed cables from the BT point two floors down! So up they went, those cables got tucked under skirting, hidden under carpets, tacked to stairs and walls and eventually ending up in the loft. 

I think I got the phone cables from Wilkos. Great fun installing them.

So it was with sadness that I ripped them all out. I no longer need a landline phone in the loft because I no longer Ebay full time. That ended in 2007. My Power Seller days were over.

Since then the attic has become the traditional family dump for everything needed but unimportant, the exceptions being the Christmas decs and my old toys!

It's always a moment when one technology boots out another. Now it's just a landline downstairs and the ubiquitous all-knowing mobile. Hardly any cables.

I do miss those days in the attic answering toy queries on my dial phone.

Did you have landline phone cables everywhere readers? Did you have an extension phone?

LOOEY'S MYFALL

Hi Woodsie, your recent misadventure with the attic ladder struck a chord with me as I'm always messing around up ladders...We think we're still bullet-proof teenagers, ..... 

but we are one and all mature gentlemen (the last of the ones who can remember before Thunderbirds actually screened!).

I've had enough ladder misadventures to draw comic strips about them. All very funny after the fact, but painful during the event!

Have you fallen off anything readers?

Lewis

OZ

LOFT IN SPACE

The Moonbase loft ladder collapsed today with me on it! I didn't half land with a bang and I spilled across the landing flat on my back into the bathroom!

I'm OK but my foot's dead sore. No slam dancin' in the mosh pit for me for a bit!

Have you ever fallen off a ladder or out of the loft or even through the loft ceiling readers?

LOFT PROPERTY: COLLECTABLE TOYS AND VALUES MAGAZINES

Do you have problems finding stuff at home?

I do. I've been in the attic twice this week to look for two things, a box of vintage toy magazines and a spare C21 Tank turret. Can I find them? Can I chuff!

The magazines are a large set of the old fab American magazine Collectable Toys and Values, some of which I've never even read.

However there's one I remember reading all the time. It was one of the first vintage toy magazines I ever bought, the brilliant Batman issue.

I'll let you know when I find it but in the meantime here's the cover. Is this a magazine you've read?

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?

L A S T L I G H T

 After sleeping for 15 years in the roof Pino awoke for one final day.

He stared at lights

He read his book

He bathed in neon

But Pino yearned for freedom, for endless days walking the globe

Sadly he turned and walked downstairs to see his friend Blue one last time .....

*

To be continued

moonbase attic mess up

The Moonbase attic used to be the nerve centre of an international vintage toy mail order operation.

Look at it now!

A vintage mess of classic proportions!

Have you got a toy mess?