Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories

With titles such as "Sticking Pins into Billy", "Always Tell Mother", "Little Miss Grumbletone" and "From Crybaby to Helper Boy",  Uncle Arthur's is chock full of fuel for your child's many years of psychotherapy to come.  I've copied some of my favorite lines below.

Dolgins Spring/Summer 1980 Catalog

Dolgin's was a small chain of catalog showroom stores in the midwest similar to Service Merchandise.  They began as a pawn shop in the 1920's before becoming a jewelry store.  They expanded into other products in the 1950's and peaked in the early 1980's before being bought out by Best, another catalog showroom chain.  Dolgin's is once again back in the jewelry business.

Enjoy this peek into their catalog showroom from 1980.

The Superhero Merchandise Catalog

Yet another find at the now legendary (well, not really) 10 cent comic book garage sale (the treasures just keep coming! Well, actually this is the last one), The Superhero Merchandise Catalog from 1976 is essentially just an assemblage of all the ads you would have seen in comics at the time pushing their toys, records, t-shirts and knick-knacks.  There's no price on the cover, so I imagine this was given away free at comic book shops.  

I never once ordered any merchandise from a comic book and looking through this comic, I feel like I missed out.

A New World

Another find from the great 10 cent comic book garage sale is this copy of "Hal Lindsey's There's a New World Coming".  It's the comic book telling of the Book of Revelations, just right for terrifying kids into religion. Authored by Christian evangelist Lindsey and illustrated by former Marvel and Archie artist Al Hartley, it was published in 1973 by Spire Christian Comics, a publishing company started by Hartley.  Spire also licensed the rights to the Archie characters for other Christian-based comics.  Hartley did art for Marvel's sister company's men's magazine "The Adventures of Pussycat". Although he gave up the work after becoming a born again Christian in 1967, his "Good Girl" style of comic art is evident throughout this comic.

Longines Symphonette Turntable

My neighbor, knowing I'm a garage sale fanatic, approached me about a month ago looking for a turntable for his teenage daughter.  I didn't have anything, but told him I'd keep an eye out.  It was only a few weeks before I came across this Longines Symphonette turntable at an estate sale.  They wanted $15 for it, but the volume was spotty.  I knew it was most likely just a dirty potentiometer and easily fixed, but I played it up for a $5 discount.  A little squirt of DeoxIt and it worked great.

It's a neat little system, but certainly not state of the art, even for the late 1960's when it came out. This would have been your basic teenage starter system which fit in perfectly for the scenario I was filling.  It's strictly a turntable, no built-in tuner. It was cool looking enough to make me second guess giving it away, but in the end I did and my neighbor's daughter was ecstatic.

Comic Books Uncovered

I'm still on the mend and what better way to spend that time than reading comic books.  I wrote about the comic book find I made at a garage sale a few weeks back.  The comics were ten cents each and the vast majority were coverless.  But for 10 cents, I wasn't ashamed to pick up a bunch of the orphaned adventures. While collectors call them worthless, I'm here to defend the lowly coverless comic book.

No cover means no false allusions as to what takes place in the book itself.  Most of the scenes on comic book covers never happened in the interior anyway.

No cover means you jump right into the action, no wasted time flipping the cover page.

No cover means no worries if you spill chocolate milk on it.

No cover means I have no problems leaving them in the bathroom hoping my kids will latch onto one and become a fan.

Usually, the first splash page acts as a second cover, reiterating what happens (or doesn't happen) within the comic.

You still get to enjoy art by some of the greats including Don Heck, Stan Goldberg, and Dick Ayers.

And as always, there's the ads.

Tiger Rocket Pinball

Game play on this Tiger Rocket Pinball LED handheld game from 1979 is pretty basic, but I'm sure I would have enjoyed it at the time.  The trick is to press the flipper when the LED above the flipper is lit.  You can sustain a fairly long game using this method unless the "ball" comes straight down the center.

McCall's August, 1956

I apologize for the lack of posts this month, but an illness has seriously sidelined me and probably will for the coming month.  But to hold you over, here's the August 1956 issue of McCall's and hopefully, I'll be back in full force soon.

Fallout

A logical follow up to "What to Do Now", "Facts about Fallout Protection" is  written from the premise that the "big one" has been dropped...now what?  Originally printed in 1958, this is a 1961 reprint. Note the green cannot penetrate your basement.  You'll be living there for the next 30 years. Good thing you put in that shuffleboard.