Film Review – Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen![]() With the summer blockbuster motion picture season in full swing, it’s once again time for the shape-shifting Autobots to team up with humans in an Earth-spanning battle with the evil ... READMORE |
Hess trucks – 18-wheelers fueled by nostalgia![]() For toy collectors, it's an event as anticipated as the arrival of Santa Claus. Every November, gas stations across the country sell limited-edition toy trucks for the holiday season, miniature ... READMORE |
Tackle the diode: 1970s handheld electronic games![]() Forget the digital brilliance and complexity of a PlayStation Portable or a Nintendo DS. Think back to a time where portable handheld electronic games, packed with some AA batteries and ... READMORE |
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Skittles![]() It doesn’t pay to knock these pricey ninepins Give a boy a ball; he’ll throw it. Set up a frame of skittles; he’ll delight in rolling a flopper, which is the ... READMORE |
Reading Retention![]() Childhood favorites find their way back to collectors’ bookshelves Remember back in grade school when the teacher handed out a recommended book list for summer reading? The length of the list ... READMORE |
Straight Up![]() Early toy helicopters had a sluggish take off The helicopter is an amazing machine. Pilots who fly them describe it as trying to control 20,000 spare parts flying in loose formation ... READMORE |
Look! Up in the Sky!![]() Neither bird nor plane, Superman was created 70 years ago by two talented students In the spring of 1938, things were about the change. The flames of World War II were ... READMORE |
Fantastic Plastic: Designer Toys![]() Soft toys have become the new blank canvases for cutting-edge artists, and savvy collectors are quietly buying them up It’s 6:20 p.m. on a Tuesday, and a line of mostly Asian-American ... READMORE |
The High-Flying Life![]() Cast-iron toys based on early aviation lore The American toy industry in the late 1920s and early 1930s was dominated by cast-iron toys. Trains, horse-drawn carriages and other vehicles, soldiers, animals, ... READMORE |
Steiff: Knopf im ohr![]() Steiff bears are climbing in the secondary market A big, new Steiff teddy bear sits on a loveseat in my child’s playroom, a gift from her godmother. This is a replica ... READMORE |
Made in Japan: Celluloid Toys![]() Celluloid toys are fragile works, often exhibiting a fantasy theme Weeks after Bill Silverman died, dozens of packages of antique toys continued to arrive at his New Haven, Conn., home from ... READMORE |
Saturday with the Kroffts![]() Revisiting H.R. Pufnstuf and other Saturday morning adventures of Sid and Marty Krofft It’s Saturday morning in the mid-1970s, and you’re already in front of the TV set, gobbling down your ... READMORE |
Zig-Zag Trains![]() They swirl, whirl, twirl and curl Electric trains were the most coveted toys among boys before the turn of the 20th century, but they tended to be expensive for families of ... READMORE |
Laugh, Clown, Laugh!![]() Collecting clowns is a funny business There is one type of toy that, if given to two different people, may invoke distinctly opposite reactions: joy for one and fear for the ... READMORE |
Game Not Over!![]() A quarter keeps the fun going at Peter Hirschberg’s Luna City Arcade Once again, you are the pilot of a starship, trapped in the cold black world of deep space. Gigantic ... READMORE |
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