January 19, 2009
90% of dadblogging is just what shows up. Just a few hours after I stumbled across Multiplications, I stumbled across the Yoshitomo Cube. Here's the deal: In 1969, The Museum of Modern Art commissioned artists and designers to create some...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:40 PM
|
Comments (0)
January 14, 2009
If you thought the recent eBay appearance of some unusual--and unusually well-preserved--Creative Playthings toys being sold from Hamilton Square, New Jersey--a town within easy commuting distance of CP's vintage headquarters in Princeton--was a fluke, think again. The same eBay seller...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:50 AM
|
Comments (0)
January 13, 2009
I'm a sucker for a good photographic picture book. And Three Potato Four has one. It's A Book of Snails, by Sally Moffet Kellin, with photographs by Martin Iger, published in 1968. Following the not-slimy trail backward, I see...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:16 AM
|
Comments (1)
January 12, 2009
Just when you think you've seen all the awesome, old school nurseries the LIFE Magazine photo archive has to offer, Andy finds another one. How did he do it? I have no idea. There's no caption, no date, no...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:51 AM
|
Comments (2)
January 9, 2009
The Central Utah Relocation Center near Delta was later renamed Topaz Camp, after Topaz Mountain, which loomed over it to the west. When it opened on Sept. 11, 1942, several rows of tarpaper barracks had been finished and outfitted...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:53 PM
|
Comments (2)
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Rokuro Taniuchi 11, originally uploaded by A Journey Round My Skull. For nearly 26 years...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:41 AM
|
Comments (0)
January 8, 2009
The CPSC says the "clarification" issued today about the new CPSIA lead-testing regulations which go into effect Feb. 10. is "Intended for Resellers of Children's Products, Thrift and Consignment Stores." But it's also great news for thrifters, eBay sellers, craigslisters,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
6:25 PM
|
Comments (2)
January 2, 2009
I suppose I could write about how, now that K2 realizes we pick the food up from the floor and put it back on her tray, she's started refusing to eat in her chair, and would rather get down and...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:20 AM
|
Comments (2)
January 1, 2009
For all the enlightening fun the archive is providing, I haven't found many images from LIFE Magazine I'd actually want to buy. But Margaret Bourke-White's incredible 1931 photograph of the nursery [sic] in a Moscow auto plant makes the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:49 AM
|
Comments (0)
So far, I haven't been able to get the LIFE Magazine photo archive on Google to return more than 200 images at a time. So who knows how many photos Ralph Morse actually took of the awesome nursery Juliet...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:36 AM
|
Comments (3)
December 31, 2008
Uhh, wow. Just, wow. With only a few hours before the deadline, I have found The. Craziest. LIFE Magazine Archive Photo of 2008. It's by Ralph Morse, and it was a, uh, well, it's about the introduction of Troll...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
6:54 PM
|
Comments (0)
Hmm, look what else is in that New Jersey basement. An unopened Creative Playthings Playsack, which, as you could probably guess, is a giant paper bag that a kid is supposed to play in. The eBay description is intriguingly...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
2:57 PM
|
Comments (0)
Look what turned up in a basement in Hamilton Square, New Jersey. It's a sweet kid's chair from just up the road apiece in Princeton, the old stomping grounds of Creative Playthings. Though the design is from CP's Golden...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
2:19 PM
|
Comments (0)
December 20, 2008
Don't not buy this incredible hand-carved wooden donkey pull toy from Antonio Vitali's early, Swiss National Crafts Store days before he started working with Creative Playthings, because the opening bid is a whopping $399. Don't buy it because the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:06 AM
|
Comments (4)
December 19, 2008
The rest of the economy may be tanking, but people who have their money tied up in original EH Shepard artwork for Winnie-the-Pooh books can take comfort from the results of the big sale at Sotheby's Wednesday. The results...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:29 PM
|
Comments (2)
December 17, 2008
Hans Wegner made Peter's Chair and Table as a present for Borge Mogenson's new kid in 1944. Mogenson loved it, and he helped put it into production at FDB, the furnituremaker where he was lead designer. . This example...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:06 AM
|
Comments (0)
December 15, 2008
They sure don't make'em like they used to. And even as the safety-loving half of me is relieved, the awesome, molded plywood simplicity-loving half of me is in mourning. Just take a gander at this vintage portable slide from...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:39 PM
|
Comments (0)
December 11, 2008
As you may know, Google has begun scanning magazine archives, something which was apparently completely impossible until this year. Among the first batch are the venerable DIY bibles, Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. If it doesn't give you an...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:16 PM
|
Comments (1)
December 9, 2008
The kid loves her Miroslav Sasek book, This Is Paris, even if she'll be disappointed when she gets there to find the Metro has no first class car, and all the cape-wearing policemen on bicycles have retired. Grain Edit...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:11 AM
|
Comments (1)
December 8, 2008
Back up a minute, comrade. Can somebody explain how it is that we--the Americans--supposedly won the Cold War, and yet I'm the one who has to wrestl with a pile of catalogs as big as a bear cub and...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:20 PM
|
Comments (0)
December 5, 2008
I think you have to add Rouen to your French vintage children's furniture pilgrimage next summer. The kid's design store l'Atelier Charivari has a seemingly endless supply of awesome, 50's-era school chairs, desks, and tables, but so far, I've...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:40 PM
|
Comments (0)
Or is it the new lime green? Either way, the French and/or Euros are loving the grey baby furniture. First [on my radar, anyway] was Oeuf's lower-priced Sparrow collection, which came in other colors, but which debuted in Spring 2007...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:58 PM
|
Comments (4)
December 4, 2008
Via the European chair blogger at chairblog.eu comes this, the latest development in Daddy Types' all-consuming mission to know the whereabouts of all of Gerrit Rietveld's many, many high chairs. It's a press release published at design.nl: The Centraal...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:21 PM
|
Comments (3)
December 3, 2008
Are you on a sacred quest to find a Kay Bojesen pull toy dog woodworking project that's larger than a tuna can? Because it appears that an outfit called Find The Grail Auctions has posted one on eBay. But...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:24 PM
|
Comments (0)
November 30, 2008
Stanley Seeger and Christopher Cone have amassed and divested themselves of several major collections over the years: Picassos, early and mid-20th century art, and now Ernest Howard Shepard. In London December 17th, Sotheby's will auction off the couple's incredible...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:43 PM
|
Comments (2)
I picked up a copy at the library sale of one of the stranger Babar titles I've ever seen: the 1965 Babar Comes To Amerca. Any history of the decline of children's culture into the pit of commercialism will...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:25 PM
|
Comments (1)
November 28, 2008
If you shop at only one blogger-curated pop-up store this holiday season, make it Andy Beach's Reference Library Mini-Exhibition at Kiosk in SoHo. Despite his fame as a retail artist/design guru/dad/ex-DT guest blogger is probably best known for his...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:09 PM
|
Comments (0)
November 24, 2008
The search results for "playground" at Life magazine's photo archive are dominated by one series of images: nearly 200 photos of surrealist bent steel playground equipment from 1951-2 created by an unidentified female sculptor. The stuff is awesome: creatures...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:57 AM
|
Comments (1)
November 21, 2008
Here's a short thematic post from the archives of Life featuring some of the cribs of our parents' generation which serves as a roundabout tribute to the CPSC: I'm guessing that after Leonard Mccombe's 1957 photo of "Babysitter Judy...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:36 AM
|
Comments (4)
November 20, 2008
Wait, he's only two and he's reading Mickey Mouse comic books? And wearing French cuffs? That's so advanced for his age! A 2-year-old smoking, 1959 for Life magazine by Michael Rougier [images.google.com via daringfireball]...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:59 PM
|
Comments (0)
November 19, 2008
Another awesome find from the freshly digitized photo archives of Life magazine. This is a closeup from a 1943 portrait by Frank Scherschel of the crew of "Pappy's Pram," a B-26 Marauder bomber from the 322nd BG, which flew...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:00 AM
|
Comments (0)
FWIW, I toggle back and forth between the just-the-facts headlines and the annoying, jokey ones. Guess which one this is? A couple of very interesting looking ADO toys designed by Ko Verzuu just popped up on eBay Austria: a...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:03 AM
|
Comments (1)
November 18, 2008
Another sweet find from the archives of Life magazine: John Phillips' 1949 picture from Israel of a hip-looking Orthodox Jewish dad out for a walk with his kid: Full size image: Orthodox jewish man pushing a pram with his child...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:17 PM
|
Comments (2)
Google just opened a high-res archive of all the photos from Life magazine, and it's pure surfing gold. But the first awesome thing I found was silver. Harolds Club in Reno was the first themed casino in the world,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:19 PM
|
Comments (2)
November 17, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Spotted at Target, originally uploaded by daddytypes.Alright, suburbs, you win this round. This pristine Buick...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:42 PM
|
Comments (2)
November 14, 2008
Between the advent of the car and the formal legislation of the car seat, thousands of inventors spent decades laying the innovative groundwork for the modern products we depend on to protect our children. And though patents expire, these...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:01 PM
|
Comments (5)
If it becomes as useless as "Eames Era," I'm sure I'll come to hate it, but for now, I count it as progress that an eBay seller tries to rope in business by calling something "Creative Playthings Era." It...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:57 PM
|
Comments (1)
November 12, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } 1700 JAPANESE BABIES -- Back in the Days When the Japanese Were Actually Having SEX,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
2:09 PM
|
Comments (0)
November 11, 2008
Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, A tale of a shopping trip Involving Euro Modernists and architects--so hip. The greatest: Charlotte Perriand, Designed Corb's furniture. Bruno Taut also sailed that way For an East Asian tour,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:28 PM
|
Comments (2)
November 6, 2008
Jenn from Minor Details spotted this sweet 1960's Creative Playthings plywood wagon/carriage on Craigslist. It's being sold out of Huntington, Long Island by the original owner, who is a big girl now, and can do things like research the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:43 PM
|
Comments (1)
November 3, 2008
Uh, Campana Brothers, can I see you outside for a minute? When Ian Schrager reopened the dumpy Paramount Hotel in Times Square in 1990, it had been redesigned by Philippe Starck. The rooms were still tiny, but the lobby...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:50 PM
|
Comments (0)
November 2, 2008
There's milk crates, and then there's Milk Crates. The brands branded [is that where that term comes from?] on the sides of some of the crates used to make this old potty chair date to the turn of the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:11 PM
|
Comments (0)
October 30, 2008
Where's Brooke Shields when German engineering and design need her? First, we were forced to contemplate the reality that the "German engineered" VW Routan minivan is, in fact, a reskinned Chrysler Town & Country. And now, it turns out...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:24 PM
|
Comments (0)
Remember last month how I mocked the Venice Biennale-winning installation, Recycled Toy Furniture by blob-loving architect Greg Lynn for being neither recycled, nor toy, nor furniture? I mean, seriously, you expect me to believe there are giant, plastic ride-on eggplants??...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:14 PM
|
Comments (0)
This awesome vintage toy zoo from Germany fits into eight beautifully designed matchboxes. The pieces are so small, you have to wonder if they might actually not even be a choke hazard; just wash'em down with an extra bottle....
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:57 PM
|
Comments (3)
October 21, 2008
Old School Sesame Street fans--and readers of DT and The Onion AV Club--will recall that of the three classic songs he recorded in 1970, composer/performer Steve Zuckerman liked "Imagination Rain," the ode to mind expansion, even more than his...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:28 AM
|
Comments (0)
October 20, 2008
As everyone hopefully knows now, the iconic Creative Playthings design, the red ball-equipped Hobby Horse, was not designed by Philip Johnson, and the Philip Johnson who didn't design it was the creative director of Creative Playthings, not the feisty,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:47 PM
|
Comments (2)
October 19, 2008
So swoopy furniture designer Vladimir Kagan and pre-eminent needlework artist Erica Wilson are married? Who knew? Besides, that is, the folks who bought this Kagan Contour Rocking Chair covered in Wilson's crewel forest scene back in the day? Rago,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:26 PM
|
Comments (3)
October 13, 2008
I like context, backstory, credits, and yes, the occasional "put in shopping basket" link, so I don't like random web collections of sheer eye candy. But for this 500 image-and-counting flickr pool, I'll make an exception: This artist, Ric Hugo,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:30 PM
|
Comments (1)
October 11, 2008
It kills me to think of the vast trove of historical information that's been dumped by eBay over the last decade. If nothing else, I'd think it'd be valuable to have the price history of certain types and categories...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:18 PM
|
Comments (1)
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } A Peaceable Kingdom, The Shaker Abecedarius, originally uploaded by Hillary Lang. I backed into this...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:00 AM
|
Comments (0)
October 8, 2008
The one in Paris, whose mom is an antique dealer? And he had that dog lamp on the pull-out night table attachment? Yeah, well, there may be another one. One of those 1953 Antony daybeds by Jean Prouvé &...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:31 PM
|
Comments (0)
If you have an extra one of those Zenith Radio Nurse and Guardian Ear sets designed by Isamu Noguchi in 1937 lying around, you might want to dust it off. A very fine-looking example just blew through the pre-sale...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:13 PM
|
Comments (0)
October 4, 2008
PBS has been advertising on Daddy Types lately, for which I am grateful. But Sesame Workshop's media office has not responded to several requests for production information about the classic "How Crayons Are Made" movie. The Muppet Wiki information is...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:45 PM
|
Comments (4)
That is because you are crazy. The new one is much better. [1] And if you really want one like this, you can get a Kolcraft for $12 at the drugstore. O.F. Maclaren, Baby Stroller, 1966 [moma.org] 1966 and...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
2:29 PM
|
Comments (3)
October 2, 2008
A couple more interesting-looking vintage children's books from The Memory of The Netherlands: Hi Ha Canada is a sweet, modernist celebration by graphic artist Mart Kempers of the liberation of Holland by Canadian and Scottish troops in World War II....
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:27 PM
|
Comments (0)
Oh my. A classic Mercedes aficionado blogging at Tamerlane posted this sighting of a 450SEL 6.9 wagon, supposedly the "only one commissioned by Mercedes" itself for "the head of MBUSA." That raised roofline was causing me much pain, until...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:42 AM
|
Comments (3)
October 1, 2008
Make no small web plans. The ambitiously titled site, "The Memory of the Netherlands" combines nearly 400,000 objects from 67 different collections, including selected scans of nearly 700 illustrated books from 1810 to 1950. The 1925 Nieuw Indisch ABC...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:50 PM
|
Comments (1)
These molded plastic Cosco chairs from the early 1970's are kid design classics, [don't they look nice in Swiss-Miss's living room?] though I always look at them funny when I remember they were originally intended to be used as...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:33 PM
|
Comments (1)
Looks like it's one-off, mushroom-shaped stool day around here this morning. DT readers from a few months back might remember Childsply, the 1999 children's design challenge sponsored by the London design/vintage dealer twentytwentyone. The concept was to see what children's...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:30 AM
|
Comments (0)
September 30, 2008
The company that made the original Big Wheel, Louis Marx, sold out to his competitor in the early 1970's. That company, Empire Plastics, went bankrupt in 2001. Some other company reconstituted Empire and now makes the Original Big Wheel...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:34 PM
|
Comments (2)
Sure enough, there it is, staring right up at me from the front page of Modern Child [a shop which has advertised on Daddy Types before, btw]. Kristian Vedel's 1952 plywood chair/table/desk/stool has always been a tough buy; the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:49 AM
|
Comments (2)
September 29, 2008
I just stumbled onto Nancy Willard's interesting-sounding book of poems for children by a kind of circuitous route, while researching the illustrators, Alice and Martin Provensen. See, they'd done a sweet and simple version of Robert Louis Stevenson's A...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:10 PM
|
Comments (4)
Wow. Just, wow. Look what was caught in the glare of the spotlight on this Metafilter thread about the 1980's Christian ska band Sonseed and their jawdropping music video, "Jesus is a friend of mine." Besides the John & Yoko...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:39 PM
|
Comments (2)
September 27, 2008
Just got my copy of the 2001 edition of Peter Drijver and Johannes Niemeijer's How to construct Rietveld Furniture; it's pretty sweet. There are designs and plans for 38 pieces, including four kid-specific designs: two high chairs and two toys,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:04 PM
|
Comments (0)
September 23, 2008
In 1967 Danese debuted Enzo Mari's Il Posto dei Giochi, The Place of Games, otherwise known as "Wall." Kids could use the ten-panel corrugated cardboard play structure printed and perforated with Mari's designs to create various kid-sized spaces. The...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:29 PM
|
Comments (0)
Abbatt Toys were sort of the Creative Playthings of England. Paul & Marjorie Abbatt founded their toy company in the 1930's with a focus on education and design. Their friend, the British modernist architect Erno Goldfinger, designed their innovative...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:57 AM
|
Comments (0)
September 17, 2008
Kinderstoele this, Kinderspiele that. A few days of poking around the kinderweb has turned more stuff I thought I would've known by now, but there you go. For example, I totally missed "Zappel, Philipp! - Die Welt der Kindermöbel," an...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:31 PM
|
Comments (0)
In fair Utrecht where we lay our scene... I'm trying to clear the deck of reproductions of painful-looking De Stijl high chairs here. In 2005, Treadway-Toomey sold this high chair for $1,200. It's by Piet Klaarhamer, a "later production of...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:00 PM
|
Comments (2)
The world--if I may speak for the world for a moment--may have Gerrit Rietveld all backwards. The world sees Rietveld as a leading furniture designer and architect of the geometric purity-obsessed De Stijl movement who just happened to make...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:58 AM
|
Comments (5)
September 15, 2008
In 1934, the Dutch architect and furniture designer Gerrit Rietveld sought to combine the utopian geometric elementalism of de Stijl with an economics and authenticity of material by--look, everyone was broke, so he made furniture out of wood from...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:47 PM
|
Comments (2)
Made in 1941 as part of Knoll's introductory collection, with Risom's trademark woven web seat? And it sold yesterday for just $275?? My only consolation is that it caught Andy off guard, too. Seriously, people, there oughta be a...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:30 PM
|
Comments (1)
September 14, 2008
Fascinating. Arthur Espenet Carpenter was like the fifth Beatle of American woodworking. In 1972, he was in "Woodenworks," the genre-defining show at the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery, along with George Nakashima, Sam Maloof, Wharton Esherick, and Wendell Castle. By that...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:01 PM
|
Comments (1)
September 13, 2008
It turns out not to be so easy to identify the maker of a random piece of play equipment using just a captionless photo from a 1968 craft magazine, and not just because I didn't know how to say...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:47 PM
|
Comments (4)
September 12, 2008
After seeing Monte Design's new Tavo, I thought I'd research the vast, untold history of leather high chairs, and here it is: one chair. One, Masterpiece Theatre-ready, wingback leather high chair/low chair/potty chair submitted to some author's website by...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:02 PM
|
Comments (1)
September 10, 2008
Ho-ly Smokes. The cover of "I am a Sunflower - Children's Songs" is like Mao's Little Red Book of Verses illustrated by Comrade Mary Blair. Even if it didn't have the most incredible track list of any communist propaganda...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:32 PM
|
Comments (3)
August 28, 2008
OK, so there's De Parma, a slightly cheeky antiques dealer in London, who's selling this vintage Ferrari Tipo 500 F2 racer pedal car--dated to the 50's and sourced to Italy, but otherwise no manufacturer is mentioned--in very nice original-looking...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:31 PM
|
Comments (4)
Welcome to slightly lazy children's antique blogging week here at Daddy Types. But no sooner do I think that all this time, I'd had the wrong impression of all these antique dealers, than I come across a description like...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:27 AM
|
Comments (1)
After her bush baby characters appeared on the cover of another author's book, and in a series of popular booklets, Australian illustrator May Gibbs published The Tales of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie in 1918, during the country's Armistice celebrations. For...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:58 AM
|
Comments (4)
August 27, 2008
Instructions: Take one set of roller skate wheels, an old handlebar, a 2x4, some boards. Add a bent sheet of tin to give it that proper Ralph Kramden Drives This Bus snout, then paint it with whatever's left over...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:08 PM
|
Comments (0)
I remember when 1st Dibs was just an email blast back to the States of one designer's weekly finds at the Paris flea market. But after signing up hundreds of shops around the world, it has long since turned into...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:48 AM
|
Comments (3)
So we're driving along one day and out of the blue, the kid goes, "Did you know dogs are hunters by nature?" It took us a while to figure out where she picked it up: Zoboomafoo, the animal TV...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:52 AM
|
Comments (0)
August 24, 2008
You know how The Economist publishes the Big Mac Index, to show how over- or underpriced certain currencies are for the exact same thing? Well, the price estimates the Munich-based auction house Quittenbaum has placed on US vintage auction staples...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
2:20 PM
|
Comments (0)
August 22, 2008
Hemmings Motor News, the bible of the classic car world, just launched a new title: Hemmings Fifties-Era Midget Race Car Into 21st Century Hot Rod Stroller News. There's only one issue so far, but I'm hereby signing up for...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:32 AM
|
Comments (0)
August 21, 2008
Dammit, I wish I would've found this before I got caught up in my Evel Knievel nostalgic posting spree. Because really, nothing takes the gleam off a childhood hero like hearing him make casual homophobic rape jokes about his own...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:57 PM
|
Comments (1)
Holy smokes, I just checked, and the kid has eight toothbrushes, nine if you count the ToothTunes Junior musical toothbrush a publicist recently sent. [1] It turns the kid's skull into a soundbox; she hears "Hakuna Matata" inside her head...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:12 PM
|
Comments (1)
I'll take a flying leap--hehe, yes, pun totally intended--and say, uh, not that many. Maybe a hundred? A dozen? Only two mentions of a 1975 AMF Evel Knievel tricycle seem to have gotten themselves embedded in the auto-compiled text...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:13 PM
|
Comments (1)
August 17, 2008
I guess it is a small island, so how far could they go? DT's family car man in London Wesley first crossed paths with this 1976 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow wagon on the street, in front of the V&A....
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:49 PM
|
Comments (3)
August 12, 2008
Besides the remarkable, unrestored condition and the sheer awesomeness of growing up with sirens and flashing lights on top of your family ride--you'd be the star of every school dropoff line and carpool, and the kid'd totally be a...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:37 PM
|
Comments (2)
So great. Favell Lee Mortimer was one of the best-selling children's book authors in 19th century England. Her first book, a sadistic-sounding Bible primer for toddlers titled, The Peep of Day; or, a Series of the Earliest Religious Instruction the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:14 PM
|
Comments (0)
August 11, 2008
More finds from the history of children's books that used photography instead of illustrations or paintings: I discovered Let's Go Outdoors in a used bookstore in St. George, Utah a couple of weeks ago. It was Harriet Huntington's first...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:52 AM
|
Comments (0)
August 9, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Safeway Valiant, originally uploaded by Telstar Logistics. Todd spotted this clean 1964 Plymouth Valiant wagon...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:11 AM
|
Comments (1)
August 8, 2008
Last winter, I had sort of a designcrush on the wacky futurist Luigi Colani. So when Andy posted about this awesome piece of lots-in-one kids furniture, the Rappelkistein, in January, I just assumed I'd linked to it. So since...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
2:39 PM
|
Comments (0)
August 1, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } IMG_3481, originally uploaded by Pulp-Secret.com. I had to look it up. Captain Action was the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:58 PM
|
Comments (1)
In the 1960's, at the height of the Cold War, and just as their country needed them to fight the Communists in Southeast Asia, America's Youth were abandoning the ideals their parents had fought so hard for, turning into...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:50 AM
|
Comments (1)
July 31, 2008
St George, Utah, a sleepy Mormon pioneer town in the desert my in-laws just retired to, has all grown up. It even has a great used bookstore run by friendly, rainbow stickered Subaru-driving Obama supporters, which is where I...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:03 AM
|
Comments (0)
July 27, 2008
Just checking in on the vintage goods at the awesome Landscape Products in Tokyo, and what do I find? A little kit for a Herman Miller kite. It seems to date from around 1980. The triangular pieces covered with...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:53 PM
|
Comments (0)
July 26, 2008
Who knew, Francesco Messeri is the Florentine master of stop-action animation, and he has been for at least a generation. Messeri's Mio Mao is a series of short adventures of a pair of claymation kittens. Quaq Quao is a...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:02 PM
|
Comments (1)
July 25, 2008
Turns out vulcanized rubber cats have less than nine lives. In 1949 Bruno Munari made some special promotional black cats called Gatto Meo for Pirelli using the company's flagship product. It's not known how many survive [the image below...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:50 PM
|
Comments (2)
July 20, 2008
The girls and I went to the Jim Henson Legacy exhibition that just opened in some basement gallery at the Smithsonian, so you don't have to. Seriously, just put it in a book. Or a file folder, what a...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:04 AM
|
Comments (7)
July 16, 2008
According to the dutiful Times article, the new & improved Sesame Street website will be previewed at BlogHer this weekend. Seeing as how I'm not going, I will just wait patiently to hear the reviews. But judging from the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:46 AM
|
Comments (1)
July 15, 2008
Was just scrolling through the YouTube with the kid for a minute and found this. It looks like the work of Fred Calvert's studio, which also did the animation for Steve Zuckerman's "I in the Sky." Did I mention...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:29 AM
|
Comments (1)
The nursery in a fastidiously restored, mid-century modernist California tract home. It's the space that launched a thousand trips to Ikea. CA Modern magazine has a story about how kids are not actually incompatible with your Eichler house's modernist lifestyle....
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:44 AM
|
Comments (3)
July 10, 2008
[via] [other nice pics here] The love of post-war design in Japan isn't only for Eames chairs and the homegrown 60's Danish knockoffs. There's also the simple, rustic, functional furniture that had to be made locally from whatever wood...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:06 AM
|
Comments (1)
July 9, 2008
Dear Buyer Of It Now for this rare, unmarked copy of Timothy Leary's 1967 History of the Psychedelic Movement Cartoon and Coloring Book: If you're not planning on publishing a facsimile version, please at least post a set of print-quality...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:47 PM
|
Comments (1)
July 4, 2008
Well, we're off to Grandma's house for a patriotic dip in the pool and some patriotic meat. I'll wish you all the same. Meanwhile, if you're looking for a Friday Freakout, try this on for size: evil communists touting...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:05 PM
|
Comments (0)
June 27, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Olde Country Store, Goldsboro, NC, originally uploaded by daddytypes. Full of Wilber's barbecue and looking...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:33 AM
|
Comments (4)
June 26, 2008
Dayton, Ohio bidders will have the advantage on this awesome, old Community Playthings ride-on tractor. Though it's just under 11 inches high, all that maple lumber and those chunky Firestone tires will cost a bundle to ship. Maybe when...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:10 AM
|
Comments (3)
June 25, 2008
I just got my copy of Ogden Nash's The Bad Parent's Garden of Verse; it's pretty wordy. But here's one short, sweet, cautionary poem for dadbloggers:My Daddy I have a funny daddy Who goes in and out with me And...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:57 PM
|
Comments (1)
June 23, 2008
Didn't see that one coming. While getting in touch with my North Carolina roots by poking around the special collections at UNC-Asheville, I stumbled across the archives of the Tryon Toy Makers, a company founded in Tryon, NC during...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:11 PM
|
Comments (1)
June 21, 2008
Last weekend we took K2 for her first visit to Florent. Also her last, because Florent's closing in less than two weeks. I'd planned on many years of boring brunches where I'd explain to the kids how daddy and...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:20 AM
|
Comments (5)
June 20, 2008
In order to bring a more people-y focus to what is by definition more of an "inside people" publication, the editors of the American College of Physicians' Annals of Internal Medicine invite readers to submit photographs. Of people. I'm...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:16 AM
|
Comments (1)
And I'm proud to be an American Where at least I know I'm free To mail children via parcel post by sewing stamps to their clothing. But then the Postmaster General did stand up! And changed the regulations about...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:06 AM
|
Comments (3)
June 19, 2008
Seriously, is it me, or are there just next to no good places to get vintage kids clothing? There was one rack of kids stuff at a vintage store in Huntington, mostly old t-shirts and Tufskins. [here it is on...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:22 AM
|
Comments (5)
June 17, 2008
Demand for this awesome, folding Community Playthings climbing gym must have dropped off some time after the Planet of the Apes trend faded away, because it's no longer in production. Fortunately, this one is available for pickup in Rochester,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:14 PM
|
Comments (2)
June 16, 2008
When he persuaded D. J. de Pree on the moral imperative of his streamlined designs, Gilbert Rohde brought modernism to the Herman Miller Furniture Company. Though he apparently didn't bring an urgency to produce modern children's furniture. Because even...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:22 PM
|
Comments (3)
June 13, 2008
I guess I haven't followed the development of the Jean Prouvé market as closely as I'd thought; otherwise I might have known that TECTA, the German manufacturer of some early Prouvé furniture--and the contemporary re-issuer of others--also produced a...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:45 PM
|
Comments (3)
June 12, 2008
So there was a big licensing expo in New York this week, which apparently resulted in a phony trend story in the NY Times about companies redesigning their old licensed character properties to milk a new generation of nostalgic parents:...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:52 PM
|
Comments (8)
June 11, 2008
Though the picture's from Elle Decor, not Interior Design, I think this is Florence Lopez's son's "lacquered Jean Prouvé bed" with "a cork bulletin board that Le Corbusier and Charlotte Perriand designed for two French universities" over it. I...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:46 PM
|
Comments (3)
If the Theresa in this photo is the Theresa I think it is, let the record show she did not, in fact, grow up to be a lounge singer like her parents wished; she's a writer who works for a...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:05 PM
|
Comments (1)
Mathier Mategot was the other mid-century designer, the one who wasn't Corbusier, Perriand, or Prouve. Left Bank interior designer Florence Lopez put these sweet 1950's painted iron kids chairs ["inspired by Mathieu Mategot"] in the window of Luco, her...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:50 AM
|
Comments (0)
Here's where I'd normally suggest that buying this sweet, vintage table and stool set for just $80, and installing it in your kid's room. But they're only 1 1/2 inches high, so you'd probably store them in your kid's...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:39 AM
|
Comments (3)
June 7, 2008
I didn't think much of it at the time, but once the kid came along, I always wondered where that 1960's Jean Prouvé swing set Patrick Seguin showed at Sonnabend in 2003 ended up. The answer is on art...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:16 AM
|
Comments (0)
June 3, 2008
I like this cool set of wooden bottles, tinted in the colors of six common wine cooler flavors. They're made by Holgate, one of the earliest US companies to develop educational toys. Unfortunately, one of the bottle stoppers is...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:36 AM
|
Comments (6)
June 2, 2008
Montgomery Whohouse? I've been following the items eBay seller Creative Magpie has been putting up for sale from the inventory of her mother's 1970's toy store. In the last couple of days, several very fine-looking wooden toys have turned...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:21 PM
|
Comments (0)
May 30, 2008
Wright20 dates this shaggy centaur stuffed toy to 1961, but for some reason, they don't mention Marilyn Neuhart at all, just Herman Miller, thanks to a label on the back that reads, "Licenciatarios de Herman Miller Industria Argentina Coleccio'n...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:44 AM
|
Comments (3)
May 29, 2008
I start wondering what's the point of pointing this stuff out. But then I think, if I can touch just one heart, change just one life, by helping someone find the $3,000 stool shaped like an Andy Warhol soup can,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:21 AM
|
Comments (0)
May 28, 2008
There's been a whole slew of vintage Creative Playthings toys turning up on eBay the last few days, all in beautiful, unused, condition. For collectors or just folks who like their vintage wooden toys unbeat and unchewed-on, it's like...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:15 AM
|
Comments (1)
May 27, 2008
Mario Bellini created the Kar-a-Sutra as a collaboration for Citroen and Pirelli in 1972. It was first exhibited at a groundbreaking show at MoMA that introduced Italian modern design to the US, Italy. The New Domestic Landscape. Not just...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:02 AM
|
Comments (2)
May 23, 2008
I know some Dodge Caravan's got a hemi, but I had NO idea Ford ever contemplated an SHO version of the dreariest minivan they ever produced. Oh wait, that was the Aerostar. The Windstar was what it was. But...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:29 AM
|
Comments (2)
May 20, 2008
Not sure if this is a sign that the doll real estate market is softening, but two fully furnished classic modernist dollhouses just went up on eBay. The big Creative Playthings house above is like an analog version of...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:38 AM
|
Comments (1)
May 16, 2008
Sheesh, the last thing in the world I need right now is another 1980's project car. So why do I have a saved eBay search for the weirdo-classic Toyota Tercel 4WD wagon? It looks so tame now, but I...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:26 PM
|
Comments (6)
May 15, 2008
In case you haven't guessed, all these years of station wagon smacktalk are really just about me trying to alternately psych myself into or talk myself out of getting an actual family car. Or maybe it's a friend car?...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
2:29 PM
|
Comments (13)
May 13, 2008
Wow. After Enzo did that chin flicking thing when he asked for a 4x4 Ferrari, casino pioneer and car junkie Bill Harrah made one his own damn self. Or rather, he had his people do it. "It" being the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:56 PM
|
Comments (2)
May 12, 2008
Let's be realistic; with it's third-generation Laugh-In format, cheesy acting, and random-at-best pedagogy, the original Electric Company was not great television to begin with, and it definitely has not aged well. So any OG purist objections to the recent...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:19 PM
|
Comments (0)
May 10, 2008
After debuting as an organic modernist sculptor in the 1950's, Philippe Hiquily became the Surrealist Metal Furnituremaker To The Stars [of the French aristo jet set] in the 1960's and 1970's. For example, the limited edition coffee table, "Poupouce,"...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:07 AM
|
Comments (1)
May 9, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } IMG_6581.JPG, originally uploaded by crabstick. E. Christopher Klumb & Associates designed a symbol and signage...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:52 AM
|
Comments (0)
May 8, 2008
Sure, there's a fine-looking Creative Playthings dollhouse on eBay at the moment, complete with a family of squatter dolls, who at least haven't tossed out the matchy [if not all matching] furniture. But who cares when there's a freakin'...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:45 PM
|
Comments (2)
May 6, 2008
Wow, just wow. From the era of $0.55/gal. gas, by way of Burlington, VT's craigslist:1973 Pontiac Catalina Safari station wagon with 47k original miles. Rare 455 cu. in. engine with 4bbl carb. Great for towing that vintage trailer. Very...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:39 PM
|
Comments (0)
April 30, 2008
I noticed that a neighbor in DC recently bought a VW Phaeton, and since every other house in our DC neighborhood has either a Volvo wagon, a Mercedes wagon, or a Passat wagon in front of it, the walks...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:04 AM
|
Comments (3)
April 28, 2008
Hi-larious. From the hippies to the CPSC to women's lib, the times in 1974, they were definitely a-changin'. Here are some items from the 1974-5 Childcraft catalog that I can't imagine seeing at a Toys R Us near you...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:36 AM
|
Comments (6)
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Childcraft Nesting Chair Blocks, circa 1974, originally uploaded by daddytypes. I just got a fat...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:02 AM
|
Comments (0)
April 25, 2008
Pixi Books, or Pixi Bücher, are the German equivalent of Golden Books. Since 1953, the Vaterland's Kindershelves have been filled with over 1,500 identically sized titles, [10x10cm], and all grouped and numbered in little series with German precision. I'm sure...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:15 AM
|
Comments (3)
April 19, 2008
Just in case you didn't learn how to say "rocking horse" in French--because frankly, you were only learning French to pick up chicks, not shop for playground implements--now you know: un cheval à bascule. Thus, this jouet à bascule,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:11 AM
|
Comments (3)
April 18, 2008
Last we heard of Walter Papst, the German pioneer in the design of fiberglass furniture, his Rocking Sculpture was being reissued in a limited edition by Wilkhahn. [Also, he was hunting aliens.] After the Rocking Sculpture won an award...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:27 PM
|
Comments (2)
The seller has titled this 1960's Creative Playthings boat Noah's Ark, even though there are no animals. Obviously, though, it's from the very rare Creative Playthings Lake Havasu Spring Break Playset. If only Antonio Vitali's hand-carved, bikini-wearing co-eds and...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:18 AM
|
Comments (0)
April 15, 2008
At EUR650, this very changing table-esque, modular shelving unit, made in Holland in the 1950's by Pilastro, is approximately 25 times the cost of the modern, lawn chair-like Ikea alternatives. Then again, Ikea has 25 million Google results; Pilastro...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:02 PM
|
Comments (0)
April 14, 2008
It's not perfect, but it's a perfect artifact of the era: The 1973 collection of poems by Swedish poet/writer/school teacher Siv Widerberg was published by The Feminist Press under the title, "I'm Like Me: Poems for people who want to...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:56 AM
|
Comments (0)
While the wife and K2 were in NYC, the kid and I went to the book sale at the library over the weekend. It was in unusually good form: seven books for an embarrassing $1.40, including Bruno Munari's Zoo;...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:01 AM
|
Comments (6)
April 11, 2008
Dr. Robbins Barstow began his amateur filmmaking career directing himself and his brothers in a Tarzan movie in the 1930's. By 1956, little Robbins was all grown up and living in Connecticut, where he pursued more stable work in...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:56 AM
|
Comments (0)
April 9, 2008
I'm re-reading Calvin Trillin's 1998 book, Family Man, and it's rather more interesting now that I'm a dad. Jim's right, he's the godfather of all typing daddies, not just those who make a big deal about changing tables in the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:49 PM
|
Comments (3)
April 8, 2008
If there's wear on this vintage Finnish tug boat & barge set from Creative Playthings, I can't really see it in the photo. And before I start a bidding war at $22 shipped for a used wooden toy, I'd...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:18 AM
|
Comments (2)
April 3, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Mr. Jalopy's Vintage Kid Chairs of Wonder, originally uploaded by daddytypes. I made a pilgrimage...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:45 PM
|
Comments (0)
Though he lies in Germany now, when he was living in the Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Terry Fox "was a central participant in the West Coast performance art, video and Conceptual Art movements." In...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:17 AM
|
Comments (1)
April 2, 2008
We're just at the stage where we wish/hope the new kid will learn how to suck her thumb and self-soothe, but instead of giving her the chance, we usually seem to take the instant pacification route by plugging the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:41 PM
|
Comments (3)
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Chromjuwelen Kettler Dreirad, originally uploaded by chromjuwelen. With their Happy AIr, Happy Plus, Happy Plus...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:53 AM
|
Comments (5)
April 1, 2008
So we went poking around Silverlake today, the girls and I. Yolk is nice. But hey-o, Monkeyhouse Toys?? Awesome. The hyper-indie toy store has more than a few kidult-oriented toys, but first and foremost, it's a toy store for...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:07 PM
|
Comments (0)
I've been slowly hearing back from various designers in the Childsply Project that UK design gallery/store twentytwentyone organized in 1999. [13 designers and firms created twelve pieces of kid furniture out of a single sheet of plywood. The originals...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:50 AM
|
Comments (0)
March 29, 2008
Clear out a few more curio cabinetsful of these new-old-stock Antonio Vitali animals, and I think a certain retired, Connecticut toy store owner will be able to get that condo in Boca. Of course, with the way the Florida...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:26 AM
|
Comments (0)
March 27, 2008
Robin Day's Rocking Bird Childpsly Chair, 1999, for twentytwentyone, via For an extremely awesome-sounding collection of affordable, sustainable, kid-related design that's not even ten years old, Childsply is pretty-near invisible on the web. Childsply was the name of a...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:55 PM
|
Comments (5)
Hot Dog was a children's television series that ran for one season (1970) on NBC's Saturday morning. Called "The Show About Stuff," it was basically the network version of the "How do they make _____?" segments from Mister Rogers...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:58 AM
|
Comments (3)
March 19, 2008
These things are like Pringles; once you open the can and have one, you just can't stop. The kid was really withdrawn and bummin' when she came home from pre-school this afternoon, so we sat down to an episode...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:34 PM
|
Comments (0)
Back in 2003, British blogger Matthew Jones pieced together an early unofficial, but informative history of "Pinball Number Count." While the details of it have mostly been incorporated into the Wikipedia entries for the song; the animators at Jeff Hale's...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:28 PM
|
Comments (0)
Seriously, that DJ Food remix and The Family Guy are just the tip of the iceberg. At his music blog Fong Song, blogger Fongolia has tallied up at least 17 cover versions of "Pinball Number Count," the classic Sesame...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:46 PM
|
Comments (1)
I'd flagged this eBay listing for posting, and then I totally missed it in the whirlwind of family that descended on us over the weekend: five rolls of Thunderball wallpaper, circa 1965, were sold on Saturday as part of...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:05 PM
|
Comments (1)
March 18, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } halloweenesque octopus, originally uploaded by peacay. FYI, "sugoi" means "great!" and is used sort of...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:54 AM
|
Comments (0)
March 17, 2008
This morning I wrote a bit about the origins of the phrase, "the rabbit died," which was a common, if inaccurate, euphemism for a positive result on a pregnancy test, which in post-WWII America was called the rabbit test....
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:27 PM
|
Comments (3)
Haven't seen one of these turn up on eBay before. It's a Creative Playthings Mail Scooter called the Little Zipper, presumably a reference to the 5-digit Zip Code, which was being promoted for general use in the late 1960's...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:06 PM
|
Comments (1)
March 14, 2008
Uh-oh, it's put up or shut up time. That 1979 Cadillac station wagon Jalopnik spotted back in December is now online. On sale. on eBay. Back then, I said I'd suddenly felt desperate to buy one, and now one--the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
6:22 PM
|
Comments (1)
Of the over 14,000 vintage color slides donated by Charles W. Cushman to the Indiana University library, this 1960 photo of a cradle at Fontainebleau is the only one with a "children's furniture" tag. I did some searching, and...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:50 AM
|
Comments (3)
March 13, 2008
If you'd given up on your groovy Halston-themed nursery and were about to return that silver metallic op art wallpaper, STOP. Your rocker just turned up on eBay. MODERN LUCITE ROCKING CHAIR 1970'S, $475 bid or $500 Buy It...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:25 PM
|
Comments (2)
March 10, 2008
"On the hood, you will see the brown extends down the front. It follows the outline of the 'CROSLEY' badge that goes there. I'm as happy as a new daddy!!!!" That's Barry "Bearman" Dennis talking about the new paint job...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:47 PM
|
Comments (0)
Haven't had a lot of the random eBay finds on here lately, probably because I haven't had as much time for the random eBay surfing as I used to. But I always like to see these giant maple jets...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:45 AM
|
Comments (3)
It's like Winnie the Pooh, without the rampant capitalism. Literally. In 1969-1972, Fyodor Khitruk, who is considered the pioneering figure of post-Stalinist Soviet animation, made three short films about Vinni Puh, based on the Russian translation of A.A. Milne's...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:09 AM
|
Comments (1)
March 8, 2008
When Google Video first launched, it seemed like no matter what you searched for, the results were always 9-part interviews with public television pioneers by the Archive of American Television. Joan Ganz Cooney can keep waiting, but I picked and...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:01 PM
|
Comments (6)
March 3, 2008
vs. I have to agree with the design gurus at Tokyo's Graphio/Buro-stil on this one: sometimes a copy rises above the level of mere knockoff to attain a remarkable beauty of its own. Like a cover version or a...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:09 AM
|
Comments (0)
February 29, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } DSC08026.JPG, originally uploaded by eamesd. Andy just posted this photo from Eames Demetrios' flickr stream....
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:51 AM
|
Comments (0)
February 27, 2008
Ho-ly smokes. Take hidden footage from The Electric Company's off-the-hook Christmas parties, where Rita Moreno turns her skirt-shaking Anita from West Side Story into a streetwalker. Combine it with bits from Laugh-in, and intersperse animation copied straight off the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:32 AM
|
Comments (4)
February 25, 2008
I imagine collectors of Enzo Mari's rather awesome puzzle, "16 Animali," already know this, but it seems like the kind of reference data that's worth filing away. Now when you find an old 16 Animali in a thrift shop,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:25 PM
|
Comments (3)
I don't care if they're New In Box. If you buy these two Bozart Kaleidoscope dollhouses for $3200 or more, we need to talk. Well, let me qualify that: we need to talk if you have some unique and...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:40 AM
|
Comments (0)
February 24, 2008
Alright, for some inexplicable reason, it's Rolls Royce Station Wagon season around here. No sooner do I post a random photo from the streets of London, than DT reader JJ Daddy-o turns up a 1986 Silver Spirit, custom converted...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:20 PM
|
Comments (2)
February 23, 2008
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } I was slow to pick up on its minimalistic charms, but I miss the Bugaboo...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:42 PM
|
Comments (3)
February 16, 2008
While poking around the Jim Flora Store on eBay, I found another interesting, new release that's worth a mention in these here nursery-friendly parts: modern silkscreen editions of a rare promotional booklet that Flora did in 1954 for CBS...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
6:41 PM
|
Comments (0)
February 13, 2008
Lifelong New Yorker Helen Levitt is one of the masters of street photography, the kind of candid, revelatory imagemaking that, as a NYT reviewer once wrote, "combine[s] intuition and intellect to forge sophisticated, lyrical compositions from commonplace events." If...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:54 AM
|
Comments (0)
February 9, 2008
Wow. The Mercedes 300 SEL 6.3 was the stealth supercar predecessor to the better known muscle car from the late seventies, the 450SE 6.9. From a single prototype in 1967, about 6,500 cars were sold over the four year...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:25 PM
|
Comments (3)
February 7, 2008
It's my kid in a box, baby! From the 1946 advice book, Mother and Baby Care In Pictures, comes this cardboard box done up as a crib:An improvised bed made from a corrugated carton by an ingenious father. Not...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:06 AM
|
Comments (3)
February 6, 2008
Yeah, so I bought the book the Buckminster Fuller Master Index credits Bucky's crib design to: the all-new 1946 edition of Louise Zabriskie's parenting handbook, Mother & Baby Care in Pictures. Sure enough, there's the Kiddie Koop in all...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:26 PM
|
Comments (2)
Around 1969 and into the 70's Renata Mueller [that Müller, with an umlaut, btw] designed a collection of therapeutic toys with a former instructor, Helene Haeusler, for the venerable German teddy bear manufacturer, H. Josef Leven. Based in the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:14 AM
|
Comments (1)
January 24, 2008
The casters are a different color, there doesn't appear to be a box, and it's apparently called 'The Comet,' but otherwise, this 23" long biomorphic spaceship scooterboard looks an awful lot like Creative Playthings' Crawligator. Either it's the same...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:44 PM
|
Comments (2)
January 22, 2008
Real estate crisis? What real estate crisis? The market for seven-year-old plastic doll houses has NEVER BEEN HOTTER! If you don't buy today, prices will absolutely be higher tomorrow! And the next day! 100% financing available! Foreign investors are...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:42 AM
|
Comments (3)
January 21, 2008
Watching the live auctions today has wrought havoc on the ol' browser. In the time since I started trying to post about it, this sweet, vintage Creative Playthings fire station jumped from 99 cents to $21.50, which is more...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:49 PM
|
Comments (0)
Unless, of course, Boston folk art dealer Stephen Score had planned on bidding more. The 40-in. crib quilt is from around 1875, and was apparently never used; it was found in the bottom of a dower chest. It was...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:18 AM
|
Comments (0)
January 19, 2008
There were some exceptions, but in the photos in Edward Steichen's massive 1955 exhibition, The Family of Man, they liked their women nursing or pregnant, and they liked their black people naked, maybe holding a spear. As Louis Kaplan...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:32 PM
|
Comments (7)
January 16, 2008
Seriously, do you need any starker proof that you can't let your eyes off the eBay even for one second? Even if it's Christmas?? Even if your wife just gave birth??? Check this out: eBay seller id.london had a truly...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:28 PM
|
Comments (2)
January 15, 2008
Yeah, no one's paying too close attention, right? So if I've been posting about vintage Sesame Street for years without actually sitting down to watch the Old School episodes on DVD, no one'd notice, right? BECAUSE HOLY CRAP, WHAT...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:46 PM
|
Comments (14)
January 9, 2008
It needs a plexiglass baby bucket and maybe a bit of scrubbing, but there's one of those awesome hospital bassinet's on eBay right now. With an opening bid of $125 and to-the-Greyhound-station shipping of $50, that's definitely retail price,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:28 PM
|
Comments (0)
January 8, 2008
Something's been bugging me since visiting the otherwise over-the-top awesome baby department at Takashimaya [remember the $50,000 white lacquer Richard Meier-ian playhouse?] In a corner, there was a little stack of framed "vintage Babar lithographs, c. 1930's, by Jean...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:46 AM
|
Comments (1)
January 7, 2008
I made a mental note a couple of months ago to look up Toni Frissell's photos in The Family Of Man, the landmark photography exhibition Edward Steichen curated at the Museum of Modern Art in 1955. The show featured...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:26 PM
|
Comments (5)
January 2, 2008
Alright lactivists, you may now drop your placards along with your tops. The vintage Sesame Street breastfeeding clips that disappeared for a while are back on YouTube. The one above was from the mid-1970's and featured American Indian folk...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:00 PM
|
Comments (1)
December 31, 2007
During a regular check of the website for Danish auction house Bruun-Rasmussen, I came across this old hyper-convertible bed called the Juno Bed [ends 8 Jan., est EUR405]. Ever heard of it? I hadn't, though the creators of Denmark's...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:20 PM
|
Comments (3)
Hmm, the subtly carved chair legs in beautiful mahogany; the matching mahogany connector system on the stool corners; the seemingly interchangeable chair seat and stool top; the four bolt holes on the side that could be for attaching another...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:16 AM
|
Comments (3)
December 28, 2007
After discovering these cool-shaped Stump Books series published by Anthony Treherne two turns of the century ago, I thought, wouldn't it be awesome to buy one? If only it didn't cost $750 and/or wasn't full of wildly offensive racist stereotypes......
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:59 PM
|
Comments (5)
December 21, 2007
Last week, while following some links from Things Magazine ["the spectre of roaming, near-feral children" ring a bell?], I came across a 2005 Japanese university library exhibition of the Opie Collection of Children's Literature, over 20,000 titles, works of art,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:17 PM
|
Comments (4)
December 17, 2007
Note to self: add "hochstuhl" to my list of saved eBay searches. Andy sent along this rather awesome-looking vintage high chair from Germany. It's made of painted bent wood and some kind of thigh boots-and-riding crop-friendly pleather. Sehr Gut....
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:50 PM
|
Comments (0)
December 14, 2007
I bought that 1944 Toni Frissell edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1885 classic, A Child's Garden of Verses I wrote about recently. It's pretty good, but not headsmackingly great; Frissell's photos are a nice change from cutesy pastel drawings, but...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:29 PM
|
Comments (5)
December 12, 2007
Wow. Ted Sears was an animator and the first head of the story department at Walt Disney Studios. According to his IMDb bio, he was very influential in the adoption by the film industry of storyboards. He wrote the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:00 PM
|
Comments (1)
December 10, 2007
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Saul Bass - Henri's walk to paris c1962, originally uploaded by Grain Edit. Nice. Word...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:43 AM
|
Comments (1)
December 9, 2007
In 1963, Isaacs was contacted by a University of Chicago child psychiatrist, who wanted to provide individual work/play/living/storage spaces for handicapped and disabled children in state institutions. The resulting design was two 35 5/8" plywood cubes with storage spaces...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:34 PM
|
Comments (0)
December 6, 2007
Except for the theatrical release of The Last Emperor and the Iran-Contra hearings, I didn't think I missed anything culture-wise while I was a missionary in Japan in 1988. I didn't realize how wrong I was. The intro to Pee...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:30 PM
|
Comments (1)
Seriously, Philip Glass? And all this time I thought his first project for children's television was the South Park Christmas Special. Now it turns out he did at a trippy composition for a set of animated color wheels. Did anyone...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:04 AM
|
Comments (7)
December 5, 2007
Apparently the pinnacle of mod Olympic graphic design was reached in 1972 for the Munich summer games. The logos, signs, marketing, and mascots--everything down to and including the souvenirs--represented a triumph of the will, so to speak, of Otl...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:16 PM
|
Comments (2)
December 3, 2007
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Where are all the hippie visionaries when you need'em? In the 50's and 60's, designer...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:27 PM
|
Comments (0)
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Vintage Eskimo Playset from the 70's, originally uploaded by daddytypes. In the off chance that...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:04 PM
|
Comments (3)
December 2, 2007
I've had this 1969 Form Magazine photo of cardboard kid's furniture on my desktop all week, but I just noticed the dollhouse to the right. Ilse-Werke KG, the German company behind the furniture, leaves no trace that I can...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:31 PM
|
Comments (0)
November 30, 2007
One of my ongoing complaints with the Children's Book Industrial Complex is how few titles are illustrated with photographs instead of painting or drawing. Though there are some sweet exceptions, it feels like the whole modern photography world just...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:02 PM
|
Comments (3)
Alright, now that DT reader Rebekah has revealed the secret handshake for accessing the Beinecke Library's children's book collection online [search for "Shirley"], I may have to clear the calendar of any actually useful tasks and posts. Check out the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:28 AM
|
Comments (2)
Some of the analysis bugs, but Emily Bazelon and Erica Perl ultimately get high fives from me for their Slate slide show on the history of children's books. The reason: they introduced me to Caroline Ketcham Eaton's incomparable 1890...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:38 AM
|
Comments (2)
November 29, 2007
Ouch. You've gotta feel for the budding children's book artist who introduces her meticulously translated, true-to-Grimm, three-color labor of love retelling of Snow White & The Seven Dwarfs in 1937, the year Walt Disney revolutionized cinema with his own...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:57 PM
|
Comments (2)
November 28, 2007
I am familiar with the work of Pablo Neruda. The work of Luigi Colani, not so much. I did think I'd ferreted out most all of the kid-related design from the online archives of the incomparable German design magazine,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:53 PM
|
Comments (4)
November 27, 2007
"Maybe you work it so you could walk to the back to change a diaper, or squash a rebellion." Yeah, maybe. Previous DT coverage of great VW ideas squashed flat like a shoebox...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
2:48 PM
|
Comments (2)
In the 1970's, Luigi Colani took a break from designing the future to create a little elephant-shaped bank for Dresdner Bank to give out to the kids. One has found its way to Lancaster, PA, and from thence to...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:40 AM
|
Comments (3)
November 25, 2007
Just in time for the holidays, eBay seller twobluepups posted a great-looking trio of vintage Creative Playthings wooden toy lots. All the auctions end Dec. 3rd. The two Playtown sets are in good condition and complete with the box,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:29 PM
|
Comments (0)
November 23, 2007
Last month I bought an old wooden Creative Playthings kaleidoscope on eBay. The transaction went fine, but the toy itself is not that great. Now don't get me wrong: I'm with it enough to dig the potential beauty of...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:23 PM
|
Comments (3)
I got all excited last night when I saw a big jigsaw puzzle from the Expo 67 in Montreal, which was the overall raddest Expo ever. [Even if there were no Buckminster Fuller sphere, Habitat, or Dutch pavilion made...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:30 AM
|
Comments (0)
My elementary school had swoopy graphics like this once, I think. And according to the box, Canadian designer Ted Butler's complete Supergraphic set makes it super easy to create your very own Electric Company-ish graphics, "even if you've never...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
6:36 AM
|
Comments (0)
November 21, 2007
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } The little polar bear - rudolf lukes c1964, originally uploaded by Grain Edit. When the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:54 AM
|
Comments (0)
November 19, 2007
To the eye-rolling amusement of the parents who grew up on the stuff, NY Times TV critic Virginia Heffernan writes about the ironic warning label on the just-released Volume 2 of Sesame Street: Old School:These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:40 AM
|
Comments (3)
They urn it. [Sorry, long weekend.] Tech exec Bill Bliss snapped this at the Agora museum in Athens. My question: is that image of mom & kid for real? Because it looks made up. Boingboing has a larger version. Of...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:10 AM
|
Comments (3)
November 13, 2007
I'll probably add a couple of items to this retail scoutabout, since two of them aren't really retail: Befuddled Citydweller Baby Gift Alert Marilyn Singer and Carll Cneut's countdown to naptime book, City Lullaby, got a pretty glowing writeup in...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
2:50 PM
|
Comments (1)
November 8, 2007
Now that's nice, a Giant Magnifier from Creative Playthings, new in the box. I got one of these for the kid before she was really able to play with it; after about 2.5-3yo, she fell in love with sticking...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:14 AM
|
Comments (3)
November 7, 2007
Q: Is the obsession with mini-sized modernism that leads someone to pay $790 for a sweet-yet-anonymous, architect-made, Plexi-on-a-lazy-susan, modernist dollhouse on eBay the same kind that leads someone to create a blog devoted exclusively to modernist dollhouses? A: Yep....
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:03 PM
|
Comments (6)
November 5, 2007
One day you've never heard of Frank Reenskaug; the next, his teak rocking chairs from 1958 are everywhere. But even then, you can't find out much more than that a handful of chairs are for sale [or sold.] Good...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:48 AM
|
Comments (1)
November 4, 2007
From Design*Sponge we learn that Jennifer Delonge, the paragon of Westside infant chic, is now offering a carefully edited selection of "fresh" vintage furniture, or as we say in the biz, "a few great pieces." Among them: a very...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:19 PM
|
Comments (1)
October 30, 2007
taiguruma by Futabashi Hariko, Shizuoka pref. image via That's 郷土玩具, kyoudo gangu if you're surfing at home. [that Google link will survive the posting process, even if the characters get mangled.] After seeing that beautiful suite of woodblock prints...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:32 AM
|
Comments (1)
October 28, 2007
Not since last Spring, when Colin Powell tinkered amiably under the hood of his 122S for the New York Times, has Volvo challenged the world to ask, "Uh, and you don't make cars this awesome anymore because...why, exactly?" Jalopnik...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:56 PM
|
Comments (1)
There's a reason this eBay auction of a single-room Creative Playthings dollhouse stuffed with original matching Antonio Vitali furniture is already $75: because it's freakin' awesome. Most of it looks to be in excellent condition, even the more played-with...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:54 PM
|
Comments (1)
October 27, 2007
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; } Japanese toy designs k, originally uploaded by peacay. From the always spectacular BibliOdyssey comes Unaru...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:37 AM
|
Comments (4)
October 26, 2007
From the same eBay seller--who's donating the proceeds back to the church where these old toys came from--comes this sweet, giant Community Playthings car. You could fit the whole Rat Pack in that thing, and still have room in...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:27 AM
|
Comments (0)
My first thought when I saw this vintage Community Playthings maple phone appear on eBay was, "Yow, better watch that phone cord doesn't wrap around the youngster's little neck." But then I realized, it'll take so much to explain...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:21 AM
|
Comments (1)
October 24, 2007
Yeah, like 30 years ago. That's when Big Bird gets a lesson in breastfeeding from the folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie and her infant son Cody. Of course, Big Bird also has a personality, and Buffy carefully anunciates, "ve-ge-tuh-bles," so...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:35 PM
|
Comments (5)
Who is running the tour schedule Vitra's exhibition, "Kid-Size: The Material World of Childhood"? That is seriously the hardest-working, slightly self-promotingest exhibition in the museum business. As with so many other things in the baby world, it feels momentous...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:52 AM
|
Comments (4)
October 23, 2007
An ad from Canadian Club's Office of TMI [adrants via coudal]...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:20 PM
|
Comments (0)
We're looking for a new sofa for DC, so I've been surfing the antique and midcentury store sites in DC. One store, Modernicus, has this kind of cool kids table and chair set from the 1970's. Of course, they...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:25 AM
|
Comments (3)
October 22, 2007
My Modern Life is an eBay seller in Lincoln Nebraska who first crossed my radar when she posted some vintage toys in insanely great condition by Creative Playthings and Kay Bojesen. As if that wasn't awesome enough, My Modern...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:02 PM
|
Comments (0)
October 18, 2007
OK, so my flamethrowing blurb about vaccination didn't exactly have us all singing Kumbaya today. But I think we can all agree with the thoroughly unbiased research organization, Sugar Information, Inc., when they point out that Suzy here "needs...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:51 PM
|
Comments (2)
October 17, 2007
Put that in your Dwell prefab and compost it. As early as the 1930's, Milton-Bradley was producing sweet, slot-together wooden doll houses and other play buildings as part of Bumpalow Town. There was also a store, a church, a...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:26 AM
|
Comments (0)
October 14, 2007
DT reader Scott and family were just in Vienna, where he saw this poster for what will be--let's face it--THE MOST IMPORTANT STROLLER EXHIBITION IN AUSTRIAN HISTORY. The Vienna Museum opens "Baby On Board" next week, which gives a...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:43 PM
|
Comments (4)
October 13, 2007
image: wolfsoniana.it Antonio Rubino was a leading comic artist and illustrator in Italy from between the wars until his death in the 1960's. He drew and edited some early Disney magazines [Topolino ring any bells?] and founded the kid's...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:39 PM
|
Comments (0)
October 8, 2007
These vintage Creative Playthings skis are perfect--if you're one of those East Coast ski weirdos who thinks 12 inches of manmade ice and gravel counts as a ski surface. Killington? Sugar Mountain?? Gimme a break Buy the skis because...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:11 PM
|
Comments (1)
October 7, 2007
Alright, finally. The 1972 Samsonite Toys catalogue is up and running on flickr, though a couple of pages are out of order. Check out all the plasticky goodness. With The Machine here, Samsonite ends its toy section with a...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:18 PM
|
Comments (2)
I love these kinds of discoveries. While poking around Dreams of Space, a compendium website of the history of space-related artwork in children's books, Ward Jenkins found this incredible, obscure 1964 children's book, Space Alphabet is by Irene Zacks,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:29 PM
|
Comments (1)
October 6, 2007
Some things that caught my eBay eye. For some reason, they all involve $25, which variously does and does not seem right: Creative Playthings Wooden FireChief Toy Car Red Wood, opening bid $10+14 s/h? Good luck, Goodwill! Auction ends Oct...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:07 PM
|
Comments (1)
October 5, 2007
Still working to get the scans of this 1972 Samsonite Toys catalogue finished. There were sure a lot of roller skate-type products in that first, expanded collection. There was also the People Places series, their entry into the preschool...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:10 PM
|
Comments (2)
George Nakashima made this free-edge arm walnut rocking chair for his niece, Alene. Obviously, it rocks. I wonder if you could rout out a little hole in the arm to hold the bottle... KIDDING! KIDDING! I KID BECAUSE I...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:34 AM
|
Comments (4)
October 3, 2007
How awesome is this? A ride-on bike for a one-year-old, with superfat tires so it doesn't tip over? Also, it has a badass set of ape hanger chrome handlebars? Naturally, it's from Samsonite. That's right, they were doing more...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:04 PM
|
Comments (2)
October 1, 2007
Let's face it: 35-year-old play kitchens are going to be played with. It's usually enough to find one at all, much less one in pristine shape. A three-piece Creative Playthings kitchen--sink, oven, and fridge--just hit the eBay. The stove...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:44 AM
|
Comments (3)
September 27, 2007
A few things I'm seeing on eBay--and not bidding on, so I don't mind telling you about them. This is how [some of] your eBay news is made, people! CREATIVE PLAYTHINGS 60'S WOOD LEARNING TOYS FARM An early set of...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:21 PM
|
Comments (3)
September 21, 2007
This summer, the Eames Office and Vitra issued a limited-edition, molded plywood elephant based on an early, experimental design that Ray and Charles Eames made for their own kids, but never put into production. [Two were made; the Eames...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:58 PM
|
Comments (1)
September 18, 2007
British toy designer Patrick Rylands created the Slow Truck in 1972. It was made for Creative Playthings by the German company Schuco. There was also a Slow Bus, which looks more like a bright red Slow Winnebago. Both toys...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:17 PM
|
Comments (0)
Richard Pryor improv'ing the ABC's on Sesame Street is brought to you by the letter P and the number 1, P as in prudes, and 1 as in the number of PBS Sprout hosts they've booted so far for...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:06 PM
|
Comments (1)
September 10, 2007
Abandon rational concerns of outrageous, potentially dangerous protruding objects all ye who enter your kid here. This wrought iron [is there such a thing as overwrought iron?] and carved wood cradle by Sacca di Messina was included in the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:15 AM
|
Comments (0)
In the late 1960's, the Italian manufacturer Artemide, best known for their groovy light fixtures, produced this stackable kid's stool by Stacy Dukes. It's called the Efebino, though there was also a slightly wider, 2x taller version called the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:46 AM
|
Comments (0)
September 9, 2007
Master cabinetmaker Peter Moos was known to Swedish historians of Danish 20th century furniture techniques [pdf] for his use of exceedingly fine, even decorative, joinery. But that's about as much as I can turn up on the guy. That,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:56 PM
|
Comments (1)
September 8, 2007
Kay Bojesen is probably best known in the kid design world for his teak monkeys and other toy animals for Rosendahl, designed in the early 1950's, when Danish modernism was really kicking in worldwide. But way back in the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:27 AM
|
Comments (0)
September 3, 2007
William Hunter became one of the most famous anatomists and obstetricians in 18th century Europe. Over the courser of 30-odd years, he worked with the artist Jan van Rymsdyk to produce what's considered one of the greatest achievements in...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:51 PM
|
Comments (0)
August 28, 2007
I still can't forget how nice these blocks felt, and how beautiful they are. On a visit to my grandmother's this summer, the kid got to play in the same basement toy closet I did [it used to be...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:18 PM
|
Comments (8)
flickr user illtakeyourphoto! scanned in this sweet ad from a 1970 issue of Ford Times. And now that Andy's gone freelance, he's got all day to surf stuff up and pass it around! Stay at home, dads! The Wagonmaster...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:28 PM
|
Comments (0)
August 25, 2007
Hilariously inevitable. A toy TV news van with a detachable microphone and camera on top, that flips over into a giant toy studio camera, complete with a lens. From Creative Playthings, during the late A Division of CBS years,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:59 AM
|
Comments (2)
August 19, 2007
Isis, Omne, Magus, Electra, Orbit, Electricity, Djin, Sunflower, Damian, Lotus, Goddess, Octavius, Pythias, Rhythm, Sol Amon, Aquariana, Zoraster, Ahom, Omega, "cannot remember his name." Those are some of the first names I rounded up of members of The Source Family,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:26 PM
|
Comments (1)
August 16, 2007
During WWII, the Royal Air Force deployed thousands of barrage balloons over British cities and factories to run interference with low-flying, divebombing German fighter planes. In 1941, someone decided a bit of backstory might help English kids understand what...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:10 AM
|
Comments (0)
August 12, 2007
I've been to some remote places in Illinois in my day [Pontoosuc in the house!], but the closest I've got to Peru was that one crazy weekend I drove out from Chicago to the opening gala for the new...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:43 AM
|
Comments (2)
August 11, 2007
Ever the eBay shark, Andy found this sweet, modernist plywood-and-plexi dollhouse for sale on eBay and posted it to Stork Bites Man. The description says it was designed and built by an architect; the plexiglass walls can slide out...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:12 AM
|
Comments (5)
August 4, 2007
Wow. "A2" condition, no scratches, no dings and almost no wear on the original runners. "Strong and supple" shockmounts, paper label and beautiful manufactured-on datestamp. Being sold by "the original owner and 'child'"? The only way this vintage Eames...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:47 PM
|
Comments (0)
From the Prelinger Archive, we learn that parents gathering in parks to show off their kustom strollers didn't start with pinstriped Bugaboos or AT-AT Walkers. But since the only mentions of the Ladera Park Baby Show are to this...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:10 AM
|
Comments (0)
July 31, 2007
Jalopnik's already got the perfect headline for this sweet collection of vintage images of Soviet-era pedal cars, so I'll just add, "You had'em on the run, Comrades!" From this angle, the Moskovich looks a bit like The People's MB...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
2:53 PM
|
Comments (1)
July 30, 2007
There's a pile of sweet old gear on eBay at the moment, both of the Creative Playthings and Creative Way To Break Your Neck, Young Man! Playthings varieties: CREATIVE PLAYTHINGS ESKIMOS PLAYSET vintage FP little Looks complete, in nice...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:25 PM
|
Comments (2)
July 20, 2007
One for the old folks out there. Franklin Roosevelt was the jive-talking black Muppet on the early seasons of Sesame Street. Here he is doing a call-and-response alphabet with his mother to with a funk bassline and a voice...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
6:26 PM
|
Comments (1)
Wow, he's not just for marshmallow sofas and whimsical nursery clocks anymore. Because it's never too early to learn how to take a memo, Herman Miller produced a child-sized version of George Nelson's secretary desk. This example is in...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:12 AM
|
Comments (1)
July 18, 2007
After the war, the Germans discovered that all their leading two-wheeled stroller designers had fled the country. Rebuilding the two-wheeled stroller industry would be hard, but they were determined to make a go of it, even if it meant...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:29 PM
|
Comments (2)
July 17, 2007
So DT reader Tim writes about how their 1-yo son loves playing with their older friend's Tupperware Noah's Ark when they go to visit. And I'm like, "Tupperware Toys? Are you kidding me? I had no idea!" And sure...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:34 PM
|
Comments (7)
July 16, 2007
The description says this is a trolley/street car, but anyone this side of Fallujah knows better. It's a maquette from a top secret, Cold War-era envisioning project for the Rand Corporation, in which Creative Playthings, Disney and others were...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:10 AM
|
Comments (1)
July 15, 2007
I gave ModMom a lot of grief for choosing to make and sell knock-off versions of prominent indie design companies like Offi, NotNeutral, and Argington. But wait, explains one ModMom Furniture Posse Member, isn't that what those companies are...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
2:54 PM
|
Comments (10)
July 11, 2007
Not a lot of info on this pram, just that it says, "Presty, Made in France" on the label. Oh, and it's made of airy wicker and heavy chromed tubular steel, it's in mint condition, and it's FREAKIN' AWESOME....
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:37 PM
|
Comments (2)
I don't know why I torment myself like this. I really want to live a life where a 45-year-old French station wagon with hydropneumatic suspension and no rear seat belts is the most natural car in the world to...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:08 AM
|
Comments (2)
Don't worry, the 500-pound bomb was lined with rubber as part of the conversion to a toddler plaything. If there's any sense in the world, this thing should be turning up at a Honolulu garage sale someday. Popular Mechanics,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:55 AM
|
Comments (0)
July 9, 2007
If you're on the fence about the name Oliver, maybe this will help settle things: there's a vintage Oliver Tractors sign for sale on eBay that's made of 3-D stainless steel letters, each 18" high. Un. Be. Lievable. As...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:10 PM
|
Comments (4)
July 6, 2007
A couple of otherwise promising toys on eBay seem to be missing a piece or two: 1975 Creative Playthings AMERICAN INDIAN Little People, ends July 10th, starting bid: $10+$7.55s/h result: sold for $11.50+s/h This is the coolest of the CP...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:20 AM
|
Comments (1)
July 2, 2007
And here I thought the Gucci baby carrier was the label's tackiest foray into the family market. No one told me about the AMC Gucci Sportabout, a souped up, "fashion-oriented Hornet" wagon featuring "boldly striped green, red, and buff...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:26 PM
|
Comments (3)
June 29, 2007
When GM announced that the mid-sized Cadillac BLS wagon and sedan will be unveiled at the Frankfurt Auto Show, they made the sweeping claim that the car "marks a new milestone for the brand" as "the first station wagon...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:38 PM
|
Comments (3)
train ends july 1, currently 120SEK [$US18], 4 bids Getting a little weary of posts about vintage Creative Playthings toys on eBay? How about something completely different: vintage Brio toys on Swedish eBay! You might think of Brio as...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:26 AM
|
Comments (0)
June 26, 2007
Though it appears to be missing a block, and the original box has some wear, the eBay seller says this set of Creative Playthings Small Hardwood Blocks is in "perfect condition." Like new, you might say, except for this:...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:28 PM
|
Comments (0)
June 24, 2007
Here are a few interesting-looking kid-related finds on eBay at the moment: Charles Eames Childs Arm Shell Herman Miller CHAIR, ends Jun 29, currently $10+18 s/h When we last saw our mysterious child-sized, Eames-looking fiberglass shell chairs, their mod-savvy eBay...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:14 PM
|
Comments (0)
June 20, 2007
By 1979, Star Wars was in its third theatrical release in LA, and theater owners were cooking up promotions for luring people in. Like offering free admission to anyone who showed up in costume, even if it was the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
6:10 PM
|
Comments (2)
June 17, 2007
Unbelievable. And an interesting discussion in the Threadbared comments, too. Maybe you could tweak them to be a Mr. T sweater instead, you know, to match the kid's doll. There are vintage patterns for Golly Jumpers coming up on...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:17 PM
|
Comments (1)
June 16, 2007
Turns out the inky black Rufty Tufty was just the tip of the golliwog iceberg [Oh wait.] Golliwoggs, as they were originally spelled, became a wildly popular staple of British kid life for most of the 20th century. In...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:46 AM
|
Comments (6)
June 15, 2007
Graham Greene was a prolific lover, primarily of prostitutes and other men's wives. In the 1940's, Graham had an affair with Dorothy Glover, a costume designer, who later began a career as a children's book illustrator under the name...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:09 PM
|
Comments (0)
In addition to his own titles, Edward Ardizzone illustrated children's books for other writers, folks like James Kenward; Ardizzone's cousin Christianna Brand, whose Nurse Mathilda series told the stories their grandfather had told them; and Graham Greene. Huh? If...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:52 PM
|
Comments (2)
So the Domestic Interiors Database is nearly impenetrable, with pull down menus offering searches by "Dwelling - Specified Social Level" and such. Randomly trying to recreate Andy's search, I stumble across this excerpt from James Kenward's 1955 autobiographical children's book,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:06 PM
|
Comments (0)
You just never know. You go along for a while, thinking you've got the hang of things, got it figured out. And then from one moment to the next, you slowly realize you are in wild, uncharted territory, and you...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:43 AM
|
Comments (0)
June 14, 2007
This Creative Playthings wooden Noah's Ark looks fantastic--unless you're a small, chewing-prone child or a rabbit. The pieces are all in great shape, but they're smaller than modern safety standards require [as the description says, "...WAY to many 'choking...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:26 PM
|
Comments (2)
Like everyone else, I wanted sea monkeys and x-ray goggles. Unlike one guy, though, I was never able to convince my parents to pony up for the crap advertised in comic books. Now it turns out, the $6.98 Polaris...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:29 PM
|
Comments (0)
The Chicago auction house Wright20 has been a major force in the modern design world since Frank Lloyd's market started picking up. When Andy sent a link to their upcoming modernism sale, I thought there are some interesting vintage pieces...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:02 AM
|
Comments (0)
June 12, 2007
D'oh I can't watch. Never mind that they've been in my browser window for three days. Someone is selling some incredible, scarce game/book things that Bruno Munari did for Danese back in the early 1970's, on eBay, and they're...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:53 PM
|
Comments (1)
June 11, 2007
And then let me live vicariously through you. And then when I can convince the wife of the wisdom of buying yet another Citroen, you should sell it to me. 1971 Citroen Safari wagon - $15000 [losangeles.craigslist.org via jalopnik,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:01 PM
|
Comments (1)
Yeah, the purist in me cries a little to see fragments from so many broken up Creative Playthings Playtown sets: there's the boat from a Marina; there's the helicopters from the Air Field. The luggage haulers, too [hey, weren't...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
6:08 PM
|
Comments (0)
June 10, 2007
image: philseed When I lived in Monaco [long story, remind me not to tell you], I would sometimes luck out, and the Hotel de Paris would park my 2CV with the bamboo sunroof right in front, next to the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:18 PM
|
Comments (0)
June 9, 2007
Not much to say about this sweet, simple, vintage Danish rocker that the folks at Surfing Cowboys upholstered in blue, cream, and green-flecked fabric. It looks comfortable, and the absence of a big designer name means it's not outrageously...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:09 PM
|
Comments (0)
June 8, 2007
And the answer is, "What The Bandit and Snowman would drive if they ever came out, settled down, and adopted an adorable, little Guatemalan baby." I'll take Alternate Endings To Burt Reynolds Movies for $600. Gromit was right, the ultimate...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:09 AM
|
Comments (2)
June 5, 2007
If you've been looking for just the right Flying Wasp for your kid to christen, hie thee ho, on down to this vintage Playtown Marina from Creative Playthings. Sure, it's a marina, not a yacht club, so there's not...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:31 PM
|
Comments (0)
June 1, 2007
Are people finally catching on/up? Jalopnik posts a link to VistaCruiser.com, and suddenly it's like the annual meeting of the North American Man-Station Wagon Love Association. There are so many wagonfans popping out of the faux woodwork, you wonder...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
2:24 PM
|
Comments (0)
But it was. Doesn't look a think like Mickey, though. World War II-era. Gas masks for kids during the Blitz. This one's in a war museum somewhere near flickr user psmithson: Swansea, maybe? I have no idea. According to...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:37 AM
|
Comments (1)
May 31, 2007
So I'm searching through the forums at Design Addict for something else, when I come across a discussion about collectors' greatest finds. Way down the page, below the heated discussion about the ethics of stealing a Ronald-colored Saarinen chair from...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:43 PM
|
Comments (0)
May 30, 2007
Hey-o, a fantastically mod doll house--with a floating fireplace, no less--that you make yourself with tinted and transparent acrylic, balsa wood, an ice cream carton lid, and some blocks? Damn right it's better. You know what'd be even better,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:37 PM
|
Comments (1)
If your summer travel plans take you to Amsterdam, you may want to schedule a trip to WonderWood, a veritable temple to plywood and wooden modernist design. The incredible, little, 1950's children's bucket chair made of molded ply with...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:42 AM
|
Comments (1)
May 28, 2007
Gerald Summers was one of my first great modern design epiphanies, and my first big disappointment. When the groundbreaking exhibition, "Design 1935-1965: What Modern Was" came out in 1991, I discovered Summers' stunning armchair in the catalogue [which got...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:51 PM
|
Comments (0)
May 24, 2007
Christmas: chief in a box Hanukkah: chief in a box Kwanzaa: a chief in a box Birthday party in the Fifties that someone ended up skipping, and so the present went undelivered and was stored in a cool, dry place...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:45 AM
|
Comments (1)
May 23, 2007
No word on whether he was vegan, but the evidence is incontrovertible: Jim Henson was crazy. A crazy genius. Who else would go on The Johnny Carson show with three rubber bands, a roll of Saranwrap, a slide projector, and...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:22 AM
|
Comments (1)
May 22, 2007
Unglaublicht. If you haven't clicked through to the pictures in that 1964 Form Magazine article about toy design yet, get going. We'll wait. ... ... OK, So now you've seen that there is no more over-the-top wooden toy in the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:49 PM
|
Comments (0)
In 1964, Lieselotte Pee, the noted play and pedagogy expert and member of the Arbeitsausschusses Gutes Spielzeug [Good Toys Working Commitee], wrote an extensive article for Form Magazine about the state of toys and design. I have no idea what...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:53 PM
|
Comments (1)
Anal retentive parents of 1975 who made your kids keep track of all their toys and store them in the original boxes, we salute you. Three Creative Playthings People 'N Places playsets hit the eBay the other day; in...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:16 AM
|
Comments (1)
May 18, 2007
Another one of them Crawligator baby skateboards from Creative Playthings just turned up on eBay, box and all. If it goes for as much as the last one did, I think we all need to get into the Crawligator racket....
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:22 AM
|
Comments (2)
May 17, 2007
One of DT's contributors, Andy Beach, has been going crazy with his own new blog the last few weeks, Reference Library; it's so sweet, I don't mind a bit that he's diverting most of his vintage toy and eBay...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:03 PM
|
Comments (1)
May 16, 2007
I guess if it was the dawning of the Age of Aquarius or whatever, then where else would you put your Parisian love child, but in an injection-molded plastic cradle shaped like a tulip? It's as if the subtitle...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:26 PM
|
Comments (1)
I had no idea Elmer even existed before the kid got a book and a stuffed animal as a newborn gift, so it's a little weird to grasp that the patchwork elephant actually came out, so to speak, in...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:10 AM
|
Comments (0)
In 1971, after he had finished founding New York magazine and before he created the "I [Heart] N Y" logo, Milton Glaser designed Puzzle Cube, a set of 64 op arty, acrylic blocks, as a "Museum of Modern Art...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:28 AM
|
Comments (0)
May 14, 2007
This is what I was planning to post about when I got sidetracked with the Grand Pronouncement. One other thing that's appealing about rooting around in the so-not-musty online archives of design magazines is the sense of control and...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:02 AM
|
Comments (2)
A couple of folks have emailed wondering about my "obsession" lately with posting random vintage stuff. I guess I'd be making more Amazon Nickels if I just posted about New! Exciting! Must-Have! baby gear all day. Obviously, we're living in...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:24 AM
|
Comments (2)
I've placed information vital to the survival of the memory of this RD2 unit into this blog so fathers will know how to retrieve it. You must see this stroller delivered and realize it's an older one. This was Raleigh's...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:06 AM
|
Comments (4)
May 13, 2007
When I first discovered Joker, the sweet, knock-together series of children's play furniture by the Swedish designers Borge Lindau and Bo Lindekrantz, in the exhibition catalogue for Vitra's kidgear show, Kid Size, I was intrigued. When I tried to...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:50 PM
|
Comments (1)
May 10, 2007
Yeah, I have a feeling there are going to be a lot of vintage Form Magazine posts the next little while. You have been warned. In 1967 at the Montreal World Expo, three students from the Folkwangschule für Gestaltung [Folkwang...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:47 PM
|
Comments (1)
Ausgezeichnet! Ten minutes surfing through the 50 year-archive that Form, the Swiss-German design magazine, just put online, and already I feel like Homer Simpson at the candy convention. My raincoat's stuffed full, and instead of one, there are like...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:49 PM
|
Comments (4)
May 2, 2007
Rediscovering the forgotten kid-related awesomeness of the past is a favorite pasttime here on Daddy Types. But waxing nostalgic about a long-lost toy collection from 1999 makes me uneasy, like we're veering too close to VH1 territory. And yet, there's...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:36 PM
|
Comments (0)
Very interesting. Gloria Caranica may beg to differ, but I'm not really minding the vintage mod on this Creative Playthings "Rocking Beauty" hobby horse. True, it doesn't have the elegance of the original natural wood and bright red ball...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:16 PM
|
Comments (1)
April 30, 2007
So you love everything about a cool, vintage Finnish-designed toy like the classic Creative Playthings Shape Sorting Box except the idea of your kid gnawing on something that's coated with 35 years of slobber and/or basement dust. Well you're...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:33 AM
|
Comments (0)
April 26, 2007
And get a case 'a them American Apparel bodysuits, because this summer, the kid's gonna be wearing nothing but Weird Wheels Wunzies, with pictures of vintage 80's grossout hot rods ironed onto them. Frankly, I'd like the source images...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
6:51 AM
|
Comments (0)
April 20, 2007
From now on, I pity the fool who tries to tell me pop craftiness is a 21st century trend. In 1984, "Miss Martha Originals, through a license with Big T Enterprises, (Mr. T’s licensing company) created a pattern book,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:39 AM
|
Comments (1)
April 15, 2007
So Rago auctions off a trio of vintage Russian modern kid furniture last October without telling me? What gives? The set, a table, rocking chair, and side char in birch plywood, had "Made in USSR" labels, and was estimated...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:55 PM
|
Comments (1)
April 13, 2007
After he founded and left Mad! magazine, Harvey Kurtzman edited Help!. Suck.com co-founder Joey Anuff posted a collection of Kurtzman art, including the layout notes for the Feb. 1964 cover above, which tell a bit about how they got...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:40 PM
|
Comments (3)
April 11, 2007
Does it explain a lot to know that Baby Boomers were apparently raised on a steady diet of lead paint, motor oil, and My Three Sons? According to Popular Mechanics [45 years, or in product safety testing and liability...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:06 PM
|
Comments (0)
...if I should die before I wake, it's cuz Dad hit the gas and not the brake. Frankly, it's a miracle any of us is alive to have kids at all. I just posted a scan of some plans...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:03 PM
|
Comments (3)
April 9, 2007
Nauvoo, Illinois was the Mormon Mecca before Salt Lake City. Now, it's the Mormon Colonial Williamsburg. [Does that make sense?] Anyway, during one visit a while back, my mom was antique shopping in the big city just across the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
12:53 PM
|
Comments (0)
April 8, 2007
Every time I go to Salt Lake, I come back thinking of carved wood handchairs. My stepfather collected a lot of art by Pedro Friedeberg, the guy who made those hand-shaped chairs, see, [Here's one in Mexican mahogany that's coming...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:18 PM
|
Comments (2)
So I'm surfing through eBay a bit and hey-o! here's a huge set of Palaset storage cubes for sale. This system was designed in the early 70's by Ristomatti Ratia, whose parents founded Marimekko. Victor Papanek and James Hennessey...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:57 PM
|
Comments (10)
March 30, 2007
Can America's best-known taxicab bring happiness to a suburban family while masquerading as a station wagon? The question is not nearly as facetious as it sounds. - Jim Whipple, Popular Mechanics, Sept. 1962Oh, I wouldn't be so sure, Jim. First...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
3:28 PM
|
Comments (1)
March 28, 2007
In their heyday, Creative Playthings had a lot of wonderful toys of their own design, but they also distributed products from around the world. Those classic wood trucks were from some dude in Finland, for example. And this awesome,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:49 AM
|
Comments (1)
March 16, 2007
You know how hilarious mid-century modern design aficionados get when they party. Lounging on the flokati rug, passing the hookah across that Eames surfboard table, getting silly with the puns... And then they wake up the next morning going,...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:18 AM
|
Comments (2)
March 15, 2007
It was great in the Sixties, man, all flowers and rainbows. Running naked in the grass, little babies cooing and playing with their feet. And then The Man came along in 1973 and started laying a lot of white...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
11:17 AM
|
Comments (1)
I love that the description of this pristine, vintage, molded ply chair starts out, "you are bidding on a child's chair designed by charles eames in 1946." Because with the bid currently at $1,525 and the reserve price still...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:22 AM
|
Comments (1)
March 10, 2007
You kind of forget the multitude of clips that have been retired from the 'Street for one reason or another. Kermit, for example, was set free from CTW's nominally non-profit pen as part The Muppet Show spinoff [Did you know...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
6:43 PM
|
Comments (3)
For a long time, the version of this classic clip floating around YouTube of the transmogrifying, four-armed, counting Swami from Sesame Street was missing the first part; it started counting at four. But thanks to the efforts of a...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
5:11 PM
|
Comments (0)
March 1, 2007
I just bought a couple of musty 1962 issues of Popular Mechanics from 1962. They have huge spreads of photos and plans for building nine great-looking pieces of play furniture by Swedish designers: toy bins and play tables, little...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
2:21 PM
|
Comments (2)
February 27, 2007
Before he started making organically shaped, abstract dolls for Creative Playthings in the late 50's, Antonio Vitali was making hardwood dollhouses for abstract dolls, which were sold in the Swiss National Crafts Store. Too bad the dolls and the...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
1:40 PM
|
Comments (0)
February 25, 2007
Great minds thought alike back then, I guess. Both Naef and Creative Playthings made square puzzles cut into strips. Turn them over, and there's a different animal on each of the four faces of--you know, why is it so...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:42 PM
|
Comments (2)
February 20, 2007
This is one well-packed sentence, from Steven Heller's obituary for Joseph Low, author of Mice Twice, which won the Caldecott Honor award in 1981, and who just passed away last week at 95:In the 1950s Mr. Low was known for...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
7:59 AM
|
Comments (0)
February 16, 2007
This sweet Creative Playthings doll house has a bit of play wear on the edges--and, uh, it's missing the bottom floor--but the only thing bad I can say about all the furniture is that the doll family appears to...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:35 AM
|
Comments (2)
February 13, 2007
This might just be cool enough to make up for the high chair. Swedish architect Stephan Gip is credited with the 1962 design for the all-wood, no-tray, trapezoidal stacking high chair that we wipe off a little every day...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:05 AM
|
Comments (0)
February 5, 2007
Add the awesomely named Ib Kofod-Larsen to my list of Danish Designers I Should Have But Never Have Heard Of. [I know who Ub Iwerks is, though; do I get half credit?] Alls I know is, design guru Grace...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:39 AM
|
Comments (0)
Jim Flora was a prolific artist and illustrator whose trippy post-war modernist album covers for RCA/Victor and Columbia jazz recordings have gained renewed appreciation in the eBay era. His style bridges early American modernists like Stuart Davis and Marie-Therese-era...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:10 AM
|
Comments (0)
January 30, 2007
The Philip Johnson Glass House mention reminded me of this August 2006 article from Metropolis about Eliot Noyes, who, in his work at MoMA and later at IBM, helped launch the careers of the Eameses and Eero Saarinen. [And...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
4:17 PM
|
Comments (3)
January 29, 2007
This Creative Playthings Peg Sandwich is about 3-in high, meaning those pegs would probably pass through a paper towel tube, no problem. [That's the rule of thumb that stuck with me about choking hazards during the child safety prenatal...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:15 AM
|
Comments (0)
Good morning, sweet, vintage, wooden, toy soldiers from Creative Playthings circa 1969. CREATIVE PLAYTHINGS THE KINGS GUARD WOOD SOLDIERS 1969, ends Feb. 4 [ebay]...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
8:06 AM
|
Comments (0)
January 25, 2007
An eBay seller named mix-mod has listed a collection of colorful, vintage modern toys—four lots of work vehicles, including a fuel tanker, dump truck, cement mixer and a matched pair of [oil-barrel hauling?] tractors. In the spirit of Ladislav...
[read the full post...]
Posted by dt-andy at
3:32 PM
|
Comments (1)
August 4, 2006
"Any photos of sweet Bauhaus children's furniture?" I ask with dopey innocence at the end of the previous post. To which modernist design shark Andy replies, "Crafts of the Weimar Bauhaus, 1919-1924. An Early Experiment in Industrial Design has...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
10:50 PM
|
Comments (2)
November 2, 2005
If you're reading this site at work, maybe you should save this link until you get home. Unless you work in a German pre-school, where this book seems to have originated. Where babies come from? In German. [planetdan via tmn]...
[read the full post...]
Posted by greg at
9:59 AM
|
Comments (3)
