A Spooky Finale!

 Well, I started to write about another Halloween game, but it was kind of dull, so I went a little crazy and added in some Hallo-extras!

Let's do the game first, shall we?

This was a thrift store find a few years ago. It's not as old as I'm usually interested in, being from 1983, but Scooby is from the 60s, so I guess it qualifies. Scrappy is probably one of the most hated cartoon additions ever. I'm not kidding. Scooby fans apparently love to hate him! 

The box is open!

And under the board is...well...not much.

There are a ton of instructions for a game for little kids... I'll let you read through them.

Here is the board all set up...

And here is the spinner. It seems like they could have just used a die, but this game seems to have been designed on the cheap.

Here is the board with nothing on it. It's a race game with a double track- one for Scooby and one for Scrappy!

And that's it. 

It's a nice enough game, but for my Halloween finale, it seems weak... So, let's look around the attic for random items, shall we?

The first think I found is a puzzle that I've featured before, but I really like it! So here you go!

Not "Haunted Mansion," mind you, but "Haunted House!" I'm nerdy enough to think that's really cool!

Here are the pieces! They're all there!

Next we have a new tumbler that I bought last year at Spirit Halloween. It looks plastic, but it's actually ceramic and very heavy. This side features a really cool Rolly Crump design...

And this side has the official logo...

I also got this large, heavy ceramic coffee mug.

On the reverse, we have our favorite hitchhiking ghosts...

Speaking of heavy things bought at Spitit Halloween, this wall plaque is made of very heavy resin and is almost a foot tall!

That's all I bought at Spirit, but I picked this up at a yard sale. I know nothing about it, but it's still in the plastic wrap and has the Disney World price tag on the back. It cost 15.00 originally...

Yes, it's our favorite Haunted Hotel!

Finally, we have another wall plaque that my daughter got me a couple of years ago. It's a little larger than the other one, and much lighter, being made of plastic... But it has a secret!

If you press the scull on the bottom of the sign...

BOO! It lights up and plays Grim Grinning Ghosts! Very cool! And Spooooooooky!

So there you go! 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

I'm already planning next Halloween's posts!

Until next time, keep searching for spooky treasure!

Of Spooky Mansions and Hidden Treasure

 This week I have another (sort of) Halloween themed board game with an interesting twist- there's no board! The game is Mystery Mansion from 1984, and while it's a little later than my Baby Boomer focus, I played it with my daughter, so it counts, dadgummit!

Mystery Mansion is a search game that challenges you to actually build the mansion as you go! During game play, players add room after room to find a treasure chest. They then can search each room by looking in and under items. Cards show you what to search. BUT, there are fake chests as well as the one with the treasure. And you have to drag the chest out of the house to open it! Trap doors and Secret Passages make things even more interesting!

Here's the game...

And inside the box...

The different colored rooms are different levels. 

The cards control much of the play.

There are stairs, secret passages, treasure chests, and player tokens to round out the parts.

The instructions are pretty involved, but easy once you get going. Here are the most important ones...

The game play is actually pretty exciting! There is a good blend of  strategy and luck, which is difficult to design into a game. The random elements of "building" the mansion mean you never get the same house twice.

There really isn't much spookiness involved, although the box makes it look like there would be. Still, it's a fun and unique game!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!

Spooky Time!

 In the glitzy star studded world of blogging sometimes you accidently blog about something twice (yes, I've done it) and other times you could swear you wrote about something, but you can't find it. Today is the second one (I hope). 

Around this time of year I start to wear my special watch. Which watch? A witch watch? A wrist witch watch? Noooooo...This watch!

Yes, it's my limited edition Haunted Mansion watch! It has the Haunted Mansion font, little skulls for most of the numbers and three ghosts...but not the three that most people associate with the Mansion, which is all the more interesting because it came packaged with this sculpture (I don't have this part, I got the picture off of the interwebs)

As you can see, THESE ghosts are the iconic "Hitchhiking Ghosts" from the attraction's finale. The watch ghosts aren't, though.

The watch ghosts look a lot closer to these guys...

These are the spectral trouble makers from the 1937 short "Lonesome Ghosts!" This happens to be one of my favorite Mickey shorts, by the way, so when I saw the watch pop up on eBay, I just HAD to grab it!

Interestingly enough, Lonesome Ghosts was one of the themes that was seriously considered when the Haunted Mansion was going through it's development stage. It didn't stick (just like quite a few other ideas) but now they at least showed up on a watch. My watch!

By the way, the watch seems to be from the mid 1990s and was limited to 2000 pieces. Here's the back of mine:

I have number 513! I also obviously wear mine. I figure that's what it was made for, so in the fall of every year, mine goes on!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!

The Battle of Britains

 No, that wasn't a typo. This week's item is a die cast metal anti tank gun that I've had at least since I was six. It was produced by Britains LTD and, naturally, was made in England! This toy was, apparently, made from the mid to late 1960s and probably couldn't be sold today. Let's take a closer look and see why...

Here she is in all her olive green glory! The gun measures about five inches long.

A rather dangerous view. 

A much safer view. The silver button can be pressed and the gun raised or lowered for aiming. The breech is spring loaded, which means you can actually fire this sucker!

A shot of the "Britains" marking...

And of the "England" mark.

And here she is sitting next to her ammo of choice. You see, the gun originally came with plastic pegs to load it with, but those lasted about 15 minutes before they were all lost. It only took me about five minutes to discover that toothpicks work great, however!

You simply snap a toothpick in half, draw back the spring, put the toothpick in the breech, flip the sping back over and SNAP! the toothpick flies out! How far? Well, I actually tested it for this post, and I averaged about thirteen feet! That's why I'm pretty sure you won't be finding one of these in the toy aisle any time soon.

A closer look at the workings...

And the gun in the lowered position. 

I actually looked this toy up online and found these...

I'm pretty sure this is what the packaging on mine looked like. I don't really remember it, but this picture set off a few bells for me.

These are in a nicer box, though. The main reason I'm including these pictures is that you can see the plastic "shells." Wow, I haven't seen those in a few decades!

So there you have it! It's a really fun toy and it's really well built! It works just as well as the day I brought it home, about 55 years ago! So, I think it was a really good investment, overall!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!

The Sky's the Limit!

 This week I have a somewhat educational post (sort of). First...a story.

Once upon a time I saw an ad for an estate sale that mentioned "1960 toy cars." My alert buzzers all went off, and I found myself as one of the first people through the door! I was able to pick up about 30 Hot Wheels redlines, along with some Matchbox cars and accessories for a very very low price. It's still my best find ever, up to this point! All in all, a great day!

Among the cars there was this:

This is a 1968 Hot Wheels "Custom Fleetside." It's missing it's black plastic bed cover, but the color is desirable and the paint is in pretty darn good shape. So, not a bad find. Except that it gets better.

You see, since I've been collecting these things for a while, I immediately looked closer. You see, that little bit of black plastic in the bed didn't really look broken. I looked at another Custom Fleetside that I have and I saw that the bed cover isn't even hinged in that spot. It was at that spot that I knew that I had hit the jackpot!

In 1970 Mattel released a variation of the Custom Fleetside in a track set called the Skyshow. The idea was that the car ran down the track and then launched a glider off a ramp on the back. The tell, if you're missing the ramp, is the black ramp mount. The same black mount that is in my car!

You can buy replacement parts, and this is my estate sale find today!

Oh...and the hardest color of car to find? Hot pink! Yep, I hit the jackpot for sure!

By the way, later I found an empty Sky Show box at a flea market.

That's it on the top right...

Now, the point of this story is that if you collect something buy it when you see it, even if you don't know exactly what you're getting. A lot of times it may be a clunker, but once in a great while it can really be a treasure, and that's what the search is all about!

Until next time, keep searching for treasure!