Thursday, March 3, 2011

The Treasures of Long Gone Ben

Well, I've been obtaining cool stuff left and right these last few weeks. I told you last post about riding this current wave of eBay addiction, and I think it's hit it's peak, and is starting to subside...which is a relief to my wallet, that's for sure. I'll show you some of the scores in a minute, but first, I gotta show y'all this painting.

I've been meaning to start a separate blog for my art, but I suffer from a deadly combination of laziness, and busyness. So until then...

This piece I just finished last night, and I'm pretty proud of it. I like painting a lot, and I don't get to do it nearly enough. This is currently hanging in my living room, and though I'm in love with it, it is for sale!



So, as I've said on here a few times, I'm a HUGE fan of the blog Gonked, Glooked, and Slurped. A few weeks back, they posted a picture of a nifty little toy elephant they picked up by artist Amanda Visell. It was love at first sight with that elephant, but I couldn't find a pink one. There's some gray ones out there, but I didn't like 'em as much. Luckily, my search led me to this amazing Amanda Visell baby-eating croc!



This Monkey/troll thing was made in 1965 by Belgian company Unica. A friend of mine found it in an abandoned house in the woods that was falling down. Apparently this house was left with everything, including food, sometime in the early-mid 1970s. I never made it out there, but I knew a guy that found over 1000 LPs in there...including some pretty killer garage rock stuff. Another friend, the one that found this guy, also found a bunch of old model cars and Ed Roth stuff. A girl I know found a bunch of journals by a girl that lived in the house in the late 60's, and wrote about records and experimenting with witchcraft. Sounds like the coolest haunted house on earth! Anyway, my buddy gave me this, it's really creepy, and I like it a lot.



Another recent eBay score was this sad eyed mop top figurine. It was made in Hong Kong by Perfekta, and I assume it's from the late 60's.



...Speaking of sad eyes...I recently finally scored a 1965 Hasbro Little Miss No Name doll. You may know her as the Sympathy For The Record Industry mascot...that's where I first saw her. These usually fetch a pretty penny on eBay, but her hair isn't perfect(which totally works, in this case), and her red patch was detached(which I've since fixed), so she was a little cheaper than some. I've wanted one of these for years! What in the hell were the Hasbro executives smoking?! This isn't even the weirdest/creepiest thing they put out in the mid-60's either...check out Peteena sometime!



Now if only I could track down an affordable copy of the Spaceshits' "Winter Dance Party"...

4 comments:

  1. Yowzers! Nice treasures. That troll/monkey seriously gives me the heebee geebees! I like his story of origin though! The story reminds me of a This American Life episode where some kids find an abandoned house like that and start to unravel the mystery. Its called The House on Loon Lake. It is a really fantastic listen. You will be riveted! I really super like your painting too. I wish I had the scrilla for art acquisitions. Keep the posts comin'!

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  2. We recently discovered Peteena and we're hopeful we'll come across a cheap one someday. Nice scores and thanks for the shout out! We liked the house story, too!!

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  3. that house story is something straight outta a movie. so jealous of the people who pillaged it first!!

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  4. I've actually heard the House On Loon Lake episode. The girl that found the journals played it for me one day when I was over picking her brain about the house...I tried to find it once, to no avail. I have a few more things friends of mine found out there, and I'll post them in the near future.

    When my mom was a kid in the late 60s, she and my uncle found a house that had been abandoned during the great depression, that still had cookies in the oven, and Corn Flakes in the cabinet.

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