FOR THOSE WHO LIKE A LITTLE HORROR

During WWII advertising exec John Stover was looking for a way to furnish a dollhouse for his three daughters. Because of the war, imports of German miniatures (where most of them were made) were halted and materials and resources at home were being diverted to the war effort. As a result, Stover founded Grandma Stover's, named after his mother. The kitchen-table business grew and soon he hired more people to make doll-house miniatures out of materials he was able to scrap together.

Business boomed, but then dropped off in the 1950's. Stover got the idea to expand the line into party favors and marketed them to gift and stationary stores. Each cardboard-back blister pack contained a number of miniature items, such as champagne bottles, tiny babies, milk bottles, food and other items combined into themed packages.

He also introduced the "Fun Miniatures", a line of gag gifts, including the ones shown here today. My guess is they were sold in the 60's. 

VINTAGE UNIVERSAL MONSTER WALLETS & WALL PLAQUE ART

Talk about a blast of nostalgia! Up for bid at Heritage Auctions are these original paintings used for the art on those monster wallets and vacuform plaques we saw ads for (and maybe even some of you purchased them) in FAMOUS MONSTER OF FILMLAND way back in the 1960's. They were manufactured by Standard Plastics Products, Inc., based in South Plainfield, New Jersey, apparently now a Superfund Site!

Each piece is painted on 8.5" x 12" illustration board (maybe gouache or acrylics?) with the image measuring  6.75" x 9". Unfortunately, the artist is not identified, but whoever it was took inspiration from a certain Aurora model box painter. Being auctioned singly, at the time of this writing, each one has bids over $1,000.

Note: As mentioned, if you take a closer look at these, you'll notice that they come pretty close to the images painted by James Bama for the Aurora monster model kit box art, especially The Wolfman!

VINTAGE FAMOUS MONSTERS IRON-ONS

Seen in many issues of FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND and other monster magazines were ads for these iron-on transfers. I was pretty restricted to what I was allowed to watch, read, etc. when it came to monsters, but like any other Monster Kid, the obsession only grew stronger.

There was more than one style of these with the "Mani-Yack" line being the most popular. With the transfer and card backing they measured 12" x 18". The first two images shown here were sold at auction on June 1 for $525.00.

G-G-G-GORGO!

Fans of Gorgo will be happy to hear there's a new action figure coming of the giant sea beast. Due this July from Titanic Creations is the vinyl "Aquatic Gorgo" figure, based on the color scheme from the cover of Charlton's GORGO #14 by Bill Montes and Ernie Bache. Included in the limited, 500 piece run is a baby Gorgo. With 26 points of articulation, Mother Gorgo stands 6" tall and Baby Gorgo 2.5".

Pre-order the figure HERE or HERE.

GORGO #14 (Charlton, August 1963).

Read more about Gorgo HERE.

UNIVERSAL MONSTERS WALLET ORIGINAL ART

Here's a blast from the past! I'm sure any Monster Kid worth his mummy-wrapping will remember these when the were advertised in FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. Usually printed in color on the back cover was this full-page ad for Universal Pictures Monster Wallets and Wall Plaques. Monsters included were: Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, The Phantom of the Opera, The Wolfman and The Creature from the Black Lagoon. The same image was used on both the wallets and the plaques, which were vacuformed in "3-D" with a black border frame and an eyelet to hang them with.

Back page ad from Famous Monsters of Filmland.

Shown below is the original art from this page. Note the Wolfman is pictured with pointy ears, the same as James Bama painted him on the Aurora model kit box art and The Phantom the same way, using the James Cagney image from MAN OF A THOUSAND FACES.

Included in this vintage monster artifact is a transparent cellophane sheet overlay with the lettering, "Universal Pictures Monsters" in white and yellow. Painted on 19" x 22 7/8" illustration board, the image measures 12.75" x 16.75".

This vintage piece of vintage monster art was sold by Heritage Auctions on November 20 for the tidy sum of $16,250.

Art without transparent lettering overlay.

Art with transparent lettering overlay.