To celebrate the opening of my third Etsy shop, judysvintagetoybox, I am beginning a third blog, though the shop has been open a while. There are now over 200 items in the shop, so I have built it up from small beginnings and still have lots to add. The shop has vintage toys and dolls, games, nursery china, books and postcards. At one time MOH, Roy, and I had an idea to create a private Museum of Childhood in the garage but the idea never came to fruition so now we feel that we need to let go of our collections and I have made a start with some of mine, and some items from auction lots which I bought last year. I still have a quite large collection of vintage children's books, including Enid Blyton's, but I cannot quite decide to let those go yet - but I have enough to keep me going for now. As we are in the older age bracket and have not been going out so much since March it seems like now is a good time to concentrate on what we want to sell, without being tempted into buying anything else! I (well, we) recently moved a display cabinet from the garage into my work shed and it is full of vintage puzzles, dolls and soft toys, so plenty to be going on with. (The garage is now a shrine to my husband's motorbike /s by the way.)
We used to attend the local toy fairs, and others when we were away on holiday (just memories at the moment), as well as Museums of Childhood. Roy has a large collection of Britain's miniature figures and vehicles and of Dinky toys, but he is keeping those for now. We also have a garage with lots of the kid's stuff (our children were a boy and a girl) - games and toys, some of which date from the 1990s and some older - 1970s and 1980s - which we bought second hand at the time, so (with their permission) that will have to be sorted and added to the shop. I'm not going to be bored any time soon (!) but my usual routine is to work on the computer adding new stock in the mornings, then I have the afternoons free for other things. Sometimes we will have a trip out somewhere (though not so much lately) and on Sundays I usually have a rest! I also enjoy gardening and, as our garden is large, it was a consolation during lockdown (didn't we have a wonderful April and May, weatherwise) - I like to grow herbs and cottage garden plants and sometimes things just take root - like several buddleas this year - I also have a wildlife area for the bees, insects and butterflies. We have several bird feeders and bird baths so there is always plenty to see outside when the weather is kind. We live on the edge of a small village in the Cotswolds, so there is always plenty to see from the garden that isn't actually in it, such as the regular buzzards, herons and red kites and, during lockdown, white egrets.
Anyway - back to the toybox! This is a photo of the items that I have been listing, so some are already on the website, some are saved in draft form and some are yet to be listed.
The items already listed are the collection of advertising vehicles (green box); Peggy Nisbet doll (red box) and the toy train set, plus the postcards resting on top of the green box. It may be said that some of these items wouldn't have been found in a toybox, but for children from previous generations almost anything could be played with. I used to get my mother's Littlewoods catalogues when she had finished with them and would cut out some of the pictures - tins of food, I remember especially, possibly because being born in 1955 there was still a vague whisper of the after-effects of rationing. Maybe the shop should have been called judysvintagenursery where some of the nursery china and ornaments would have found a place, but it is what it is and I do remember playing with some china animals along with other soft toys in imaginative games, so I don't think that they were out of bounds. I actually decided to christen the shop 'judys', instead of my own name, in memory of one of my favourite annuals of the 1960s - I'm sure other girls from the same generation will remember it well!
That must be all for now,
Best wishes,
Julie
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