This is my Mother’s teddy bear. I’m not sure how old it really is. But, she wasn’t the first owner of this bear. My brother used to keep it in his bedroom when he was a boy. Currently, it’s in his house, in the spare bedroom. I saw the bear there when I visited over [...]

Speaking of model trains, here’s a lovely set of five vintage photographs which show off a vintage model railroad collection. Each photograph measures 3 by 4 inches; dated August 1967 on the back. Images from Lynnstudios.

Back in November, I heard WDAY making the promo for that night’s broadcast — an alarming headline about model trains. I don’t recall word for word, but it was so alarming that I indeed remained glued to the station and watched the news especially for that report. While the headline sounded far more drastic (implying [...]

“Life’s more fun if you tilt things now and then. ” - Elizabeth Spatz I had an online friend, Laura (which is also my own name), who loved floaty pens. Like so many people you meet online in chats, forums and various other virtual places, I lost track of her after the group fell apart/ faded [...]

Since I love all things pertaining to women’s history, from kitschy to suffragette, I’ve become smitten with these eight female figures in a suffragette band: I’d never seen anything like them before, so here’s what the seller, dahntahntoys, has to say about them: 54 mm solidcast women’s Suffragette Band by Charles Hall, bought in 1970s [...]

Until I spotted this vintage image of a girl doing the twist, I’d never really paid much attention to “Lenticulars” — partly because I didn’t know they even had a name. (We just called them “those plastic image things that wink or move when you tilt them.”) This particular Vari-Vue Lenticular was available for free [...]

The seller of this real photo photo postcard (RPPC) featuring two children with a rocking horse, says it’s from Central Pennsylvania, circa 1910s. You can’t help but wonder if the older sister is wishing she was still young enough to ride, rather than watch the younger child on the porch. *wink* Image via Lynnstudios.

Do you remember this doll? I spotted this poor girl in a GoodWill thrift store this week. She was not in great shape, some hair had caught on something and pulled loose from her updo. Her dress was torn and she was a little dirty. Not things I couldn’t fix but as nice as it [...]

I don’t only dig through stacks of old magazines and papers; I go through them, page by page. How else would I find this page listing Virginia Lakin publications? (More scans from that booklet here.) Found inside this 1977 Standard Doll Co. catalog, along with this page of Kate Greenaway postcards, miniature patterns, dollhouse items, [...]

Below is a scan from the December 1923 issue of The Mentor; the page is an article by Vincent Starrett entitled A Doll’s House Built For The Czar Of Russia: As usual, the discovery of this article about an exquisite eight-foot tall, six feet wide dollhouse leads to something even more fascinating than supposed! The [...]

This antique Milton Bradley ad was posted in the LiveJournal Vintage Ads Community with simply the date of December 1891; no publication was cited.  I’m fascinated by the concept of another cardboard dollhouse — this one to be played with pictures of furnishings and people cut from catalog pages, not with miniatures and dolls.

My parents will correct me if I’m wrong, but I didn’t have a doll house when I was little. At my grandma’s house, there was my aunt’s old metal dollhouse… And I had Barbie houses and the like. But I never had a real dollhouse, a real miniature world of my own… Until now. At [...]

It’s a fluffy cat that sits asleep in a basket and for some reason it freaks out my 14 year old nephew just as one like it used to freak me out at my Grandmother’s house. Why, I don’t know. It is not a real cat. It is even asleep, or seems to be. It [...]

This charming antique composition baby doll has a sawdust stuffed cloth body beneath the original stripped cloth outfit. This 12 inch tall antique doll is identified by the EIH © 1911 mark on the  back of the neck. One of the Horsman Can’t Break ‘Em character dolls, the head and face of this sweet antique [...]

The rocking horse I remember from when we were kids was not the typical vintage, wooden horse. Ours was plastic, set on a frame with four big springs holding it to the frame and giving it all the bounce it needed. I can remember the sound the springs made as it bounced and rocked back [...]

While trolling eBay, I found this vintage Barbie ensemble and let out a, “Hey! I had that!” Hubby probably would have ignored me (I exclaim a lot of things while sitting at the computer, and if he paid attention to every one, he’d never get to enjoy his parts of the interwebs), but then I [...]

The Russian dolls (also called Russian Nesting Dolls) are called Matroschka, Matryoshka and матрёшка. As a kid I would see these Russian dolls when we went to the Canadian National Exhibition in downtown Toronto at the end of each Summer. I always wanted one. They were exotic, something from a country I heard so many [...]

I suppose technically, this vintage sawdust stuffed dog belongs to my stuffed animal collection, but like Tigger, I resist calling him a collectible. In truth, I often resist calling things “collectibles,” because that tends to make people think of them as part of some set of things, as opposed to the more individual sentimental reasons [...]

Christmas time always brings up toys. Now that I’m a parent, I try to remind myself that finding the perfect toy ought not to be the pressure point I make it out to be… Some of my favorite and most memorable toys were not ones I asked for. Even if my grandma would sit us [...]

I don’t recall how old I was when I received this tiger, whose head at least is stuffed with sawdust. Tigger, as I named him, seems to simply just have always been… When not waiting for me in my bed, he often could be found riding on my shoulder, wrapped about my neck. We’ve had [...]