Ed's Lionel Butterfinger Boxcar

Woodsy,

Here's a 'sweet' car from Lionel made during their MPC era - an era known for its wide variety of colorful, licensed rolling stock. It's one of many candy-related pieces of rolling stock out in The Cave.

From Candy Land Vegas

Ed

Butterfinger!

My journey into the American confections at our local Spar continues.

The latest find is a long yellow wrapped chocolate bar called Butterfinger.

I loved it!

Crispy cracknel covered in chocolate. It was really delicious! 

Is it a bar you know?

My next American morsel from the Petrol Station Spar will be Milk Duds. Now what are they?

Kali Lives!

 

It's years since I've seen actual Kali. But here it is! Standing tall next to it's pal American Cream Soda in a Hornsea sweet shop.

I adored a small bag of Kali as a kid, a more subtle taste than tarter Sherbet. 

For some reason I didn't get any, perhaps fearful of ruining my sweet memories.

Did you liked Kali readers?

Baby Ruth

I've always been a fan of chocolate and sweets ever since I was a kid. It's a habit I haven't lost and now in my Sixties I still get excited by anything new.

Having tried most of the discounter me-too chocolate bars like Titan, which I love, I went in search of something more exotic.

I found it at the Spar garage shop.

Baby Ruth.

At first I thought I'd read it wrong. I expected Babe Ruth, as in the famous baseball player, but no, it was Baby Ruth. I assume they're related.

The chocolate bar itself was utterly delicious. A sandwich of nougat, caramel and nuts if I remember rightly. It was two weeks ago.

I shall be returning to the Spar's US shelf for another Baby Ruth and maybe a Butterfinger.

Anyone else like these bars?

Cosmic Candy: Arto's Space Sweets Tube

Here's a brand new addition to Helsinki Base collection, a candy container tube from the 1950's adorned with space graphics. 

By rotating the tube, statistics of different planets in our solar system will appear in the line of slots.

Who said that Pluto is not a planet! (for me it will always be)

The tube measures 28 cm.

Have you anything like it?

Arto

Helsinki Base

Rooting for Cheroots

When I worked in Morley back in the 90's I'd scour the market and charity shops at lunchtime. On one rummage trip I was given an old sweet box for special agent chocolate cigars.

It was a great box with a picture of an agent or some spy kit I think. Like most things back then it went on my old toy stall I had at fairs or my mail order sales list.

Trying to find a piccy online I first came across this, Detective Cheroots.

It wasn't this I had so I kept digging. And I found it. In the Bristol Museums. Bingo!

Lears Secret Agent Cheroots!

Recent Spots

I saw this neat hard rubber cowboy today in a Saltaire charity shop. A lovely figure and at just £1.99 I wuz sorely tempted. It's modern but has a vintage look to it.

Near the cowboy was this jigsaw of 1960's confections. Very topical I thought. So many Id forgotten. Treets! Mousse! Galaxy counters!

And here's a couple of eBay spots and all new to me.

I thought this was a big Hot Wheels Zowie but it's a Topper camping wagon! I love it!

And amongst this medley of miniatures, just what is that white helmet with red eyes top row centre?

I have got some new stuff. In a fabulous vintage toy shop in Otley. More on that later! 

Sweet Sensations: Texan, Tiffin and Aztec

 More chocolate gnashing down memory lane!

I can almost taste them again!

A couple I enjoyed in New York 2001:

 the delicious Butterfinger!

And the equally scrummy Oh Henry!

Do you like these American readers? Sadly only available in specialist sweet shops in the UK.

Back in the days of Blightyful yore there was Tiffin. This is the early Fry's version. I ate the later orange wrapper bar. Not sure who it was by. But, what a treat! fruit and biscuit and chocolate. Yum! Only Kendal Mint Cake equals it's adventuring spirit and ability to kick start quests.

Texan was a Seventies favourite. A proper filling puller if I recall. Delicious nougat smothered in choc. The big chew with a great wild west TV ad.

A personal favourite, Ruffle, a bar so delightful I would get one wherever I saw them. I still do. They're still around! Essential Raspberry goodness!

And maybe the best I've saved for last, Aztec! Now lost in the fickle skip of whims, Aztec was simply and utterly fabulous. A fluffy superised Mars Bar infused with instant bliss. If only they would bring those Aztecs back!

Which chocs or sweets would you resurrect readers? 

PASS ME MY SKIPPERS!

I recently saw this box of Skippers liquorice pipes in a Barnsley sweet shop and the memories came flooding back!

I adored these as a kid, the soft chewy liquorice and that zap of sweetness at the end from the sprinkles.

Which liquorice sweets do you recall readers?

Christmas Sweets: An Early Nibble

Back in the Sixties and early Seventies, Christmas meant sweets in the UK.

Lots and lots of sweets.

Some of my favourites, mostly chocolate, were often clubbed together in that most fabulous of all human inventions, the Selection Box.

As much a part of the festive season as  dodgy socks and dried stuffing, the Selection box was good to go at any time, whether it be part of the general manoeuvres through the whole of December or as a treat on the Big Day.

The best medleys included a Crunchie, a Curly Whirly, a bag of Fruit pastels, a Fudge and a Ripple. To be honest , it didn't matter what was in them. Even Caramac!

Far more important than any titchy chocs to be had in those flimsy Advent Calendars, Selection Boxes were essential gritty supplies to power you through the more boring rituals of the season.

Other sweets of note were sugared jellies or jellied fruits. Not my favourite at the time, a more sedate tid-bit to be found hiding on small coffee tables, the staple of visiting Aunties and my Mum's big-hatted friends.

Much more to my taste were Chocolate Brazils.

 Always the same make, I forget the name, these rock-hard delights came in a flat box, with each nut nestled in a pleated paper cup. The chocolate around them was so thick you just had to eat it off like a fevered beaver.

A far more adult confection were chocolate liqueurs. I'm not sure I liked them that much back then, the injection of cognac or Tia Maria into my mouth a completely alien experience as a kid. I would eat them now though, no worries!

My final guilty pleasure has to coffee creams. Or is it cremes? 

You know the ones, whether left behind in the chocolate box because nobody liked them or found in an entire box of cremes, this strange treat had a bad rep.

 Less popular than the more suave peppermint variety or those pompous After Eights, the lowly coffee creme was an outcast in it's own munchbox. 

I on the other hand adored them as a kid and to my good fortune, often found stragglers languishing in shame round the house at Christmas. Like a festive magpie I'd gobble them up before downing half a bottle of Tizer, that russet fuel of champions. 

Ah yes, sweets at Christmas. Which were and are your faves readers? 

LOOEY'S HOME-MADE THUNDERBIRDS AND STAR TREK GUM WRAPPERS .... and MORE!

Hi Woodsy! I was VERY impressed with Norman's ephemera collection. My Captain Scarlet choccy wrappers must be lurking around there too!

I was amused at the scrap booking with Sellotape holding the cherished items on place.

I have just finished my first ever Portrait of my friend Nick Stathopoulos, for the Blue Mountains Portrait Prize this year.

Nick is a Fine Artist, but I've known him since he was just a drooling fanboy and this work celebrates that history.

Here, he is surrounded by his closest friends and all the influences of his childhood ( mostly disaster movies!).

The display box is a mash-up of 1950's Bolland style amusement machines and 1970s style Greek action movie posters!

Of particular interest (maybe to Norman), are some decorations on the sides of the display box. Greek style Thunderbirds and Star Trek gum wrappers, glued down with yellowed Sellotape as if from 50 years ago!

Too bad none of them are real!

Keep on Bloggin' 

 Looey

Oz Base

A Friday Treat! Norman's Thunderbirds Chocolate Bar Wrappers and More!

Hi Woodsy

You asked if I should dig out the chocolate bar wrappers, could I send you scans? Well the answer is YES!

I remember having lost one collection of TV21 to a Thrift Shop in Valletta, Malta (thanks Mum!), the next set came from a friend at school who didn't want them any more. 

So here I had the opportunity to assemble all my ephemera that no-one would ever care about (!) and create a good old-fashioned scrapbook - lots of cutting out shapes and images and texts from TV21, the TV21 Diary, colouring books, party cracker boxes, nougat bar wrappers, the toy boxes and of course ... those foil chocolate bar wrappers!

I was going to crop the images to just the wrappers but thought you might get a kick from seeing what I did and you might even spot some more rarities.

I have collected 12 of them, but who knows how many more there were. There are as follows:

Thunderbird 1

Thunderbird 2

Thunderbird 3

Thunderbird 4

Thunderbird 5

FAB1

Jeff

Lady P

Parker

Scott

Tin-Tin

Hood

So if I were to guess what others might have been:

Virgil, Alan, Gordon, John, Kyrano

But maybe that's just in a sweet shop in my dreams!

Captain Scarlet and Stingray are tucked away somewhere too!

Best wishes

Norman

Frank Bellamy Checklist and Blog

Frank Bellamy Facebook page

and my other interest

Raymond Sheppard

SPANISH GOLD WRAPPER

 I remembered recently how much I liked sweet packaging back in the day. One of my favourite designs was Spanish Gold, the red waxy paper wrap for sweet tobacco. Made by Barratts it was a classic and simple design with a Spanish Galleon with the Crusader cross. I really liked it and still do. 

Here's one I saw on Pinterest.

Have you a favourite sweet wrapper readers?

Will's Mystery Gerry Anderson Wrapper

Hi Woodsy, I found this mystery Chock a Block wrapper.

 Anyone know what it is? 

Will O.

WHAT A DRAG! SWEET CIGARETTES AND MORE

With debates about smoking bans and stopping the sale of disposable vapes in the air my mind wandered back to my own smokes.

Both my parents smoked. After fighting in WWII they did everything. Smoked, drank, worked hard and had lots of babies, two of whom still smoke in the 70's.

For some odd reason it never appealed to me growing up in smoke-filled Preston. I can sum up my own smoking 'career' as 1 Gitane [French?], 1 black Sobrane [Russian?] and 1 herbal cigarette [Boots?], all puffed as a teenager in the 1970's and not an experience I enjoyed at all, although I always liked the packaging and artwork.

Much more to my taste were the chocolate cigarettes of my earlier youth, which I bought for pence in the local penny shop near Sacred Heart school. I don't think you ate the paper and I'm pretty sure they were always in packets like these I found on the net.

The chocolate was quite delicious, sort of powdery, about halfway between Cadburys and cooking chocolate. Its unlikely you can get them anymore given the current climate but I was wrong about Old Jamaica so who knows.

What's for certain,is that on the Continent you can get chewing gum cigarettes for kids still. When we were in Germany I saw stacks of them in sweet aisles. I suppose I was a bit shocked really but then again I ate tons of chocolate cigarettes and didn't make the leap to childhood smoking. Anyhow here's a large assortment currently on Amazon de. I assume the 'tricks' mentioned is a blowable cloud of icing sugar or something like that, certainly a step too far. What do you think?

As a kid there were smoking gags around back then. I got mine from Ellisdons in Liverpool but I reckon jokes and tricks were available on racks most everywhere, especially at the seaside.

The two I recall the most were a smoking monkey [not a pleasant thought now], which puffed special roll-ups, which gave off intermittent smoke and also a more robust card cigarette which sort of glowed at the end when you took a drag. That's how I remember it anyway!

Here's a the smoking monkey just as I remember it, this one seen on sale online.

Do any of these light any fires for you readers?

Primrose Space Race Sweet Cigarettes Found!

Just wanted to share this totally unexpected find.

This packet of Primrose Space Race Sweet Cigarettes was placed between decks of playing cards at a local antiques shop. The empty packet with great graphics would have been the find of the day in itself, but with contents still there it is a little miracle!

As we did not have sweet cigarettes (but liquorice pipes instead) when kids, this was my first sighting of those cigs reminding me of little blackboard chalks with one end tipped in red. Also the collectable card, in this case no. 18 of 50, was present in the packet.

There seems to be a lot of these 1969 Space Race cards around, but not so many empty packets and even fewer full ones.

Arto

Helsinki Base

A Different Kind Of UFO: Menards M&M's Party Bus

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Menard's, they are the country's third largest Big Box store next to The Home Depot and Lowe's. 

The owner is a big train fan and for years now has offered a line of 3-rail O-gauge trains (and some HO scale as well) and accessories through his brick-&-mortar stores and website. Since 2020 Menard's has been offering railroad cars, trucks, vans, buildings, and accessories in licensed M&M's graphics and livery.

Since September, I've been featuring M&M's trains and accessories on my train layout out in my Room of Requirements. It's been a heckuva lot of fun and I thought I'd share this one particular accessory with you all. 

 This Party Bus is a re-make of an earlier UFO that was done in all silver and lettered for "The Greater East Martian Cow Abduction Co." and featured the saucer next to a barn with a cow being pulled up into the craft while a couple of aliens look on. 

My M&M's version is yellow, features a lit cockpit, blinking lights on the exterior, and 'Yellow' being pulled up into the craft while the others look on.

 You'll notice a German Shephard growling at the intruders. That's Jack The German Shephard - Menard's owner's personal dog and a feature found on nearly every structure they make. The photos show the craft while the YouTube video shows it in action.

https://youtu.be/REtjLw7jdoI

From M&M's Central Las Vegas

Ed

USA