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old toys

Be it a pile of old diecast toy cars or a baseball card collection, even an old train set, it’s easy to see them as childish things and dismiss them. But, thanks to show such as American Pickers and the such like, people are starting to realize the value in things that they used to play with as a child that now can sell for thousands to collectors.If you are expecting to find a “diamond” in your attic or believe that old barbie is worth it’s weight i gold, in most cases you would be wrong, however it can be surprising the return value that you can find in toys and nostalgic keepsakes. This is why I have chosen to make this fairly wide open category the topic of my next hidden value article. This time, I am doing something a little different. In many cases I could, and may well do, a separate article just on one of these sub-categories. However, Here are 5 types of toys and collectibles that can be missed and some examples of what to watch out for in each.

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Vintage toy cars These old Matchbox cars survive to this day, tucked away in my parents’ loft awaiting the next generation to take them for a spin.

However, this year there is another reason to blow the dust from them, for it marks the 60th anniversary of Matchbox.

The concept of these tiny diecast models was the response of a father, Jack Odell, to a rule at his daughter’s school stating that pupils were only allowed to bring in toys that would fit inside a matchbox. Odell, a school dropout who later joined the Royal Army Service Corps, was by this time working for a diecasting company, Lesney Products (itself set up by two British exservicemen, Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith in 1947). Working out of a bombed-out Tottenham pub called The Rifleman, Lesneyspent the early Fifties moving away from producing small products for industrial use towards making diecast toys. Believing this direction

to be a lost cause, Rodney Smith quit the company in 1951, leaving it in the hands of Leslie Smith and Odell, who was by then a partner.A year later Odell had his brainwave, creating a scaled-down version of an existing Lesney toy, the model road roller, packaging it in a matchbox and sending it with his daughter to school. It was an instant hit: with his little toys, Odell was on to something big.

Matchbox launched in 1953 with three models: the Aveling Barford road roller, a Muir Hill dump truck and a cement mixer. Sales rolled along nicely, and over time detail improved, with things such as plastic windows and interiors featuring on cars from the late Sixties, as well as innovations such as the pressure-initiated “Autosteer” and, in the early Seventies, “Rola-matics”, whereby a pin in one of the wheels caused something within the vehicle, such as the driver, to bob up and down.

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In the mid-‘90s, Bandai pioneered the handheld digital pet. Tamagotchi, tiny keychain toys, started as virtual eggs that players hatched and nurtured into adulthood by offering food and care. The toy spawned its share of competitor knockoffs, like the Gigapet, before fading into the memories of those who grew up with them. They’ve resurfaced throughout the years as fashion accessories and even an app, but never quite like the widespread phenomenon they once were. Now, Bandai America is bringing the Tamagotchi back, sort of. A miniature version was released in Japan as a limited run, with its North American release incoming. The company is banking on millennials to revive the toy back here in the States. “We’re going after that nostalgia,” says director of brand management Tara Badie. In other words: no iPhone app or digital connectivity. The toy exists only as a tiny keychain equipped with three buttons that will help you care for and clean up after your pixelated pet.

Bandai America provided The Verge with a Tamagotchi ahead of its release on November 5th a tiny, pink and blue egg that we spent almost a week with.

The first thing I noticed about the Tamagotchi is how small it is. The screen is roughly half the size of the original, which as someone who spends a great deal of my life staring at handheld screens is immediately jarring. In bright lights, it can be hard to tell what my Tamagotchi is doing. Because the options for play are so limited, however, I hardly ever have to guess. A Tamagotchi will eat, sleep, and poop, with some growth in between if you’re able to keep it alive long enough. The device doesn’t have a main menu to control things like, say, the sound. Instead, you flip it on or off through a combination of holding and pressing buttons.

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I’ve mentioned that writing is a hobby of mine. And you may have seen the link to writing.com over on the right.Well, I was reminded of one of the stories I wrote a while back, and I thought it would bear a republish.

It was one of the many entries I made in the “Stake and Garlic” contest - a monthly vampire-story-writing competition. The prompt for this particular month was “Write a nonfiction article, essay, or list that posits evidence suggesting a famous person or well known character from a movie or book is a vampire.”My nominated celebrity was Barney, the Purple Dinosaur.

I know, he seems an unlikely candidate. But that’s the very thing that makes it likely!

Vampires are hidden creatures, they don’t walk around in evening dress with their hair swept back in a widows peak; they don’t have a Transylvanian accent; they don’t write their name backwards and expect it to go un-noticed; and they don’t work for blood banks or hematology clinics. They do their utmost to be the last person you would ever suspect.

So the first rule is, don’t suspect anyone who is an obvious vampire. Barney seems totally non-Vampiric, and therefore is a prime suspect. However, there are still certain signs that point towards the fact. The thing you have to remember is, they’re non-obvious signs.

Vampires are clever creatures, they don’t broadcast what they are. But they make decisions a certain way, and that way of thinking can be spotted.

For instance, Barney the Blood-Red Dinosaur would be an obvious clue. Barney is not red, because a

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Vampire easily spots such an obvious clue. Barney is Purple. And purple is a very popular colour amongst the “creatures of the night”, whether they be Vampire or just Goth. Barney the Black Velvet Dinosaur would have been another giveaway, of course, so he settled on a gothic colour that isn’t quite so commonly associated with Vampires, and can be considered cheerful in the right shade.

So that’s the Purple - what about the “Dinosaur”?

The whole attraction of dinosaurs is that they were big, scary animals with spikes and fangs and so forth. The most popular dinosaur is the Tyrannosaurus Rex, whose distinguishing feature is an enormously large mouth with an impressive array of fangs. Why would anyone make a cute kids character from an animal kids like for being non-cute? Answer: They wouldn’t. Not if they were human. A vampire, on the other hand...You see, Barney is NOT a dinosaur. That’s just a cover. He’s actually a Dragon! There are enough superficial similarities between dinosaurs (which are large reptiles) and dragons (which are large reptiles) that Barney can get away with it, but “What’s in a name?”. He might CALL himself a dinosaur, but he is actually a dragon.Is this significant? Well, yes. It’s not known to the population at large, but Vampires and Dragons are connected at many levels. A quick search on Google for “vampire dragon” will show you that: “Dragon” was once a name given to demons in general, and the devil as well. Vampires, being by definition evil spirits, are firmly connected with the Draconic tradition.

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After falling from seven stories, the mass of bouncy balls would be moving at about 20 meters per second. 20 meters per second is about how fast an average person with a good arm could throw a bouncy ball. Therefore, to determine the result of an impact, we can make use of what Einstein called a gedankenexperiment, or “thought experiment”: The tricky thing about this scenario is that 3,000 one-inch bouncy balls is not as many as you probably think—it’d be enough to fill a large bucket. This bucket would weigh about as much as a small child, which leads us to another gedankenexperiment: Of course, in reality, the average person can’t throw a small child as fast as they can throw a bouncy ball. Furthermore, they won’t all fall in one clump. If you poured the balls from a container, they would bounce around and spread out as they fell, and most of them would probably miss the target. This effect was demonstrated in

an experiment by Utah State University students, who poured 20,000 bouncy balls from a helicopter as part of their Geek Week. The balls fell as a cloud, rather than a single mass.

If you wanted to be sure of killing someone, you’d need a lot more balls. 3,000,000 of them—enough to fill a large room—would be be enough to guarantee that the target would either be crushed to death by the impact or buried too deep to dig themselves out. To your last question, if someone just happened to walk underneath when you dropped the bouncy balls, and they were killed by the impact, you’d most likely be guilty of some form of manslaughter.

However, by asking this question, you’ve shown your intent to cause harm to the victim, demonstrating clear malice aforethought. By writing in to this blog, you’ve probably upgraded your charge to murder.All in all, you should probably stick to gedankenexperiments.

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Magic bubbles

Learning With Bubbles The most effective sources of early learning are immediate, meaningful, and involve children’s discovery and choice. Bubbles not only involve children in learning, but they are fun, easy to use, and ever-changing. In addition, many science processes such as, investigation, discovery, experimentation, observation, definition, comparison, and classification can be learned simply by playing with bubbles.

Bubbles help children develop self-concept as they learn about themselves and the world around them, and language development is enhanced when children learn new words to describe bubbles, explain tasks, and label and record bubble experiments.

Bubbles are made of air trapped inside a hollow liquid ball. The colors visible in bubbles

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come from light reflecting on the bubbles’ surface. Bubbles float up because warm air is lighter than cold air. If the air blown into the bubble is warmer than the air around it, the bubble will float up.There are many great bubble recipes to choose from. You will need to experiment to find a bubble recipe that works for you. The type of dishwashing liquid you use, the weather outside, and the type of water you use can all affect bubble quality. Some mixtures produce longer-lasting bubbles if placed in the refrigerator for a few minutes or if allowed to stand for a day or two before using. More detergent than water creates giant bubbles and adding glycerin or sugar slows down water evaporation that causes bubbles to pop.

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Now, most people these days wouldn’t put those two words in the same sentence. Around here, we do all the time. The neatest thing going on in the shop in recent years has been teenagers coming in and buying vintage portable manual typewriters. It started out as a handful of kids coming in over the summer seven or eight years ago and grew every year to the point that its no longer a trend. Parents started coming in and buying them as Christmas gifts and birthday presents for the kids. Its so funny watching some of the dads coming in with their kid, and he’ll walk in with his head down and say “I don’t know why but for some reason my kid wants a typewriter. What do you have.” Then I’ll glance over at the kid and give him a wink as he’s gazing around the room in awe.

After a while I started asking the teens that come in why they were interested in typing when they had their computers. I got lots of different answers but the most common ones were, its cool and different or its more fun than my computer. It took awhile to figure out but most teens don’t think twice about typewriters. The ones coming in are the creative type of kids. That is the ones that are the future writers, artists, musicians, poets, actors, photographers, etc...

Kids typewritter

I sell alot of vintage typewriters every year and over half of them are to teens. I include high school and college kids amoung them. They are dicovering that connection between typing are writing that older writers have always talked about. I for one, am very excited about young people becoming typewriter enthusiasts and I see many teens that are totally into it and started collecting typewriters.

For me, nothing is more fun than watching a sixteen year old girl (or boy), picking out a old Corona or a shiney black 1930 Royal for their birthday present. Its fun to watch the process of them deciding which machine to buy as they line up six or seven machines that they like and slowly eliminate them down to two or three and then agonize over that final decision. Some kids imediately see the machine they want and its a easy choice.

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Children are the great forgotten Baywatch fanbase.

Whilst adults may have had their own (highly suspect) reasons for appreciating the show, it was the strong plots, intricate characterisation, and the fun of imitating that run-and-dive combination in your local baths which had children hooked on this quality show.

In honesty, due to her lack of flexbility it was difficult to get Baywatch Barbie to do a true run-and-dive. But that didn’t stop Baywatch Barbie being the best idea since Poptarts.For most children the appeal of Baywatch Barbie was not only that Baywatch + Barbie was a genius combination, but that this Barbie could be played with in the BATH. Baywatch + Barbie + Bathtime?! The possibilities were endless. And so Baywatch Barbie would rescue the turbulent waters of the Upstairs Bathroom from the evil clutches of Mr Matey. These scenarios would gradually increase in mundanity over time, descending via ‘Barbie Takes a Part-Time Job At The Baths’ to ‘Barbie Gets Her 50m Badge and Her Mum Buys Her Some Quavers From the Vending Machine to Celebrate’.

Baywatch Barbie came with a number of vital accessories, To these accessories, of course, would be added the other staples of bathtime. And so Barbie would be left floating perilously on letter S of the Kids Bathtime Foam Alphabet, her dolphin trapped helplessly underwater in the empty 2 litre vanilla softscoop carton which had at some point become an indispensable bath toy. Baywatch Barbie is for everybody whose Barbies would require therapy if they had memories.include high school and college kids amoung them. They are dicovering that connection between typing are writing that older writers have always talked about. I for one, am very excited about young people becoming typewriter enthusiasts and I see many teens that are totally into it and started collecting typewriters.For me, nothing is more fun than watching a sixteen year old girl (or boy), picking out a old Corona or a shiney black 1930 Royal for their birthday present. Its fun to watch the process

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Baywatch barbie of them deciding which machine to buy as they line up six or seven machines that they like and slowly eliminate them down to two or three and then agonize over that final decision. Some kids imediately see the machine they want and its a easy choice. The best part are the killer smiles on their faces as they leave the shop with their new old typewriter. Its like Christmas morning all the time. I never get tired of that. Sometimes I’ll get a phone call from a parent months later saying how much their daughter loves the machine and still types everyday. How cool is that!

Many more teens are bring in their parents or grandparents typewriter or picking them up at garage or yard sales and getting them cleaned and tuned up to use. Older kids are getting them on Ebay. But they’re finding them and using them in many different ways. My daughter has had a 1940’s Royal Companion since she was seven and I can see her now typing up newsletters to friends and dinner menu’s for the week for my wife and I. I wish I could post some of them, they’re hysterical, but my daughter would kill me.

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Baby's toys Be it a pile of old diecast toy cars or a baseball card collection, even an old train set, it’s easy to see them as childish things and dismiss them. But, thanks to show such as American Pickers and the such like, people are starting to realize the value in things that they used to play with as a child that now can sell for thousands to collectors.If you are expecting to find a “diamond” in your attic or believe that old barbie is worth it’s weight i gold, in most cases you would be wrong, however it can be surprising the return value that you can find in toys and nostalgic keepsakes. This is why I have chosen to make this fairly wide open category the topic of my next hidden value article. This time, I am doing something a little different. In many cases I could, and may well do, a separate article just on one of these sub-categories. However, Here are 5 types of toys and collectibles that can be missed and some examples of what to watch out for in each.

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