For once, the common sense gene kicked in...
Sunday, January 22nd, 2006 02:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanWhen I was a kid I looked after my toys. They got the odd chip in the paintwork from being played with if they were particular favourites, but by and large they didn't suffer much damage. Some of the more fragile plastic ones would get glued together when inevitable accidents occurred, but even they would not be harshly treated until the signs of obvious repair became to great to meet my exacting standards1.
Once a plastic model had deteriorated to the point of no return, it was fair game for destruction in the back garden with games involving stones, marbles and as many vocally-generated Ba-booms as I could manage. In Telford there is even a house with a busted model of Stingray built into its foundations, though that was accidental as it hadn't quite reached the level of degeneration required for toy martyrdom,2 and somewhere out on what the locals call the cinder-hills if they haven't been built on yet, there is a very weathered 40 year old catapault-fired Fireball XL-5 glider I lost when I was 7. I think it disappeared into a gorse bush, but that's only a guess. I never found it again much to my annoyance.
Anyway, the point is, that the metal toys, being generally more robust tended not to meet this sort of fate. When I finally grew out of toys, several neighbours' kids and junior cousins inherited a fair collection of toy cars and such pretty much in full working order, and only partially scratched or chipped.
Except for my Batmobile which one day fell victim to an unexpected and still unexplained bout of vandalism involving a claw hammer, a bottle of lighter fluid and a box of matches. I have always rather regretted that act of destruction, and have never properly explained to myself why I did it, other than noting thatI wished I hadn't done it almost as soon as I'd finished smashing it to smithereens.
Now, nostalgia is a wonderful thing, and I do have a fair collection of pointless if not worthless goo-gaws and totems around the house (excepting, of course, the TARDISes, which are neither worthless nor totems)3. It occurred to me that e-bay is the place to go to acquire a nostalgia-fuelled replacement for the toy I destroyed all those years ago. It would look nice collecting dust on the shelf along with John Steed's Bentley4. So I looked on e-bay with a view to bidding on a 1966 Corgi Models' 267 Batmobile (It had to be the 1966 version 267 as the early 1970's re-issues did not have the red bat-logo on the wheels, and some had towing hooks for the Batboat, for Heaven's sake. My standards haven't fallen that far).
If I still drank strong liquor, I should have had to calm myself with a double scotch.
You should see the prices even quite tatty models are fetching out there! It's insane. All the more so when I consider that the toy I had probably cost my parents around 5/- (25p) back then. Even allowing for forty years' inflation, that does not work out at £399.99 as I have seen a couple going for (I doubt they'll sell with an opening bid at that price, but I have seen them creep up in bidding wars from around £30 to well over £200). I still occasionally look to see what they are currently fetching on e-bay -this weekend in fact, thus this post- but this ritual has turned into a sort of morbid curiosity, which is laced with a deeper regret that I smacked the bejasus out of something that would have netted me a handsome profit all these years later.
Thank the Lord that I managed to hold onto all my old Lee & Kirby Fantastic Fours from the 1960s!
1Exacting to the point that I wouldn't mix toys of different scales beyond a certain point. I could just about accept a 1/72 scale Airfix aeroplane in the same game as an 00 scale Corgi car, the pilots were just rather tall, which of course they should be, since being a fighter pilot was a very glamorous job; but I looked with contempt at those kids who played happily with a 1/100 scale Matchbox double-decker bus and a 1/48 tank in the same game. What were they thinking?
2Someday archaeologists will wonder about the significance of this little plastic "ritual" object. If only I could be there to see their faces.
3Not in my little world they're not, thank you very much. Stop giggling at the back.
4It is a sign of how far my standards have slipped since I was 10 in that it does not worry me that the Corgi model of the car is based upon the 1927 Bentley in British Racing Green, whereas John Steed actually drove a 1935 Bentley in British Racing Green.
Once a plastic model had deteriorated to the point of no return, it was fair game for destruction in the back garden with games involving stones, marbles and as many vocally-generated Ba-booms as I could manage. In Telford there is even a house with a busted model of Stingray built into its foundations, though that was accidental as it hadn't quite reached the level of degeneration required for toy martyrdom,2 and somewhere out on what the locals call the cinder-hills if they haven't been built on yet, there is a very weathered 40 year old catapault-fired Fireball XL-5 glider I lost when I was 7. I think it disappeared into a gorse bush, but that's only a guess. I never found it again much to my annoyance.
Anyway, the point is, that the metal toys, being generally more robust tended not to meet this sort of fate. When I finally grew out of toys, several neighbours' kids and junior cousins inherited a fair collection of toy cars and such pretty much in full working order, and only partially scratched or chipped.
Except for my Batmobile which one day fell victim to an unexpected and still unexplained bout of vandalism involving a claw hammer, a bottle of lighter fluid and a box of matches. I have always rather regretted that act of destruction, and have never properly explained to myself why I did it, other than noting thatI wished I hadn't done it almost as soon as I'd finished smashing it to smithereens.
Now, nostalgia is a wonderful thing, and I do have a fair collection of pointless if not worthless goo-gaws and totems around the house (excepting, of course, the TARDISes, which are neither worthless nor totems)3. It occurred to me that e-bay is the place to go to acquire a nostalgia-fuelled replacement for the toy I destroyed all those years ago. It would look nice collecting dust on the shelf along with John Steed's Bentley4. So I looked on e-bay with a view to bidding on a 1966 Corgi Models' 267 Batmobile (It had to be the 1966 version 267 as the early 1970's re-issues did not have the red bat-logo on the wheels, and some had towing hooks for the Batboat, for Heaven's sake. My standards haven't fallen that far).
If I still drank strong liquor, I should have had to calm myself with a double scotch.
You should see the prices even quite tatty models are fetching out there! It's insane. All the more so when I consider that the toy I had probably cost my parents around 5/- (25p) back then. Even allowing for forty years' inflation, that does not work out at £399.99 as I have seen a couple going for (I doubt they'll sell with an opening bid at that price, but I have seen them creep up in bidding wars from around £30 to well over £200). I still occasionally look to see what they are currently fetching on e-bay -this weekend in fact, thus this post- but this ritual has turned into a sort of morbid curiosity, which is laced with a deeper regret that I smacked the bejasus out of something that would have netted me a handsome profit all these years later.
Thank the Lord that I managed to hold onto all my old Lee & Kirby Fantastic Fours from the 1960s!
1Exacting to the point that I wouldn't mix toys of different scales beyond a certain point. I could just about accept a 1/72 scale Airfix aeroplane in the same game as an 00 scale Corgi car, the pilots were just rather tall, which of course they should be, since being a fighter pilot was a very glamorous job; but I looked with contempt at those kids who played happily with a 1/100 scale Matchbox double-decker bus and a 1/48 tank in the same game. What were they thinking?
2Someday archaeologists will wonder about the significance of this little plastic "ritual" object. If only I could be there to see their faces.
3Not in my little world they're not, thank you very much. Stop giggling at the back.
4It is a sign of how far my standards have slipped since I was 10 in that it does not worry me that the Corgi model of the car is based upon the 1927 Bentley in British Racing Green, whereas John Steed actually drove a 1935 Bentley in British Racing Green.
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Attempting the impossible
Date: 2006-01-22 10:58 am (UTC)Oh, and whilst we are on the subject, it IS possible for a man to have too many Tardises. :-)
Re: Attempting the impossible
Date: 2006-01-22 11:00 am (UTC)Heretic! Infidel! Baboon!
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 12:56 pm (UTC)I cannot remember which doctor - and cannot check at the moment, as it resides at my parent's house - but I think it might be Jon Pertwee.
I do not wish to sell this, but I would like to value it - and have been looking everywhere online but cannot find anything similar to compare it to. Would you have any idea what it might be worth?
Re: Attempting the impossible
Date: 2006-01-22 02:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 02:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 03:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 03:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-22 11:45 pm (UTC)Ah yes, I had very fond memories of the Fantastic Four. Sue Storm was MY heroine, she was a girl, she had a husband, she had a baby, she was a superhero for goodness sake. I wanted to be her when I grew up. I could save the planet and save people, and have a home life. I could support my own Reed who worked very hard, but couldn't manage without me.
I got the chance to play her in a LARP in Boston. Ooooh goody here was my chance to reread them. Went out and got the brick versions, and started reading. Took about 3 hours before I hurled it across the room very very grumpily.
The evidence of the crappness or quite possibly the crappness of my memories:
Sue Storm is a woman 100 times more concerned with whether she is wearing the latest Paris Fashions than saving the world. She obsessed with whether Reed's dinner is cooked or not, and whether he eats it rather than staying in his lab to try and find something to change them back. When a chap wearing fishy flippers comes along and sweet talks her she forgets the man she supposedly loves and goes off with him. Her skills are so defensive, and she doesn't get to do anything offensive for ages and ages.
The language is dire, so fecking sexist. I got absolutely furious. What really really frustrates me is how my memories got so skewed.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-23 12:32 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-23 12:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-01-23 12:29 pm (UTC)I found myself singing the theame in the shower the other day, and cursing myself for not being able to get past line two.
"I wish I were a spaceman, the fastest man alive!
I'd zoom around the universe in Fireball XL5!
Erm... la la la da da (trails off)
(pause - then with added conviction:)
I wish I were a spaaacemaan! The fastest man aliiive..."
I can't remember what I had for dinner last night, but...
Date: 2006-01-23 01:43 pm (UTC)The fastest guy alive
I'd fly you ‘round the universe.
In Fireball XL5.
Way out in space together.
Conquerors of the sky.
My heart would be a fireball.
A fireball.
Every time I gaze into your starry eyes.
We’d take a path to Jupiter and maybe very soon,
We’d cruise along the Milky Way and land upon the Moon.
To a wonderland of stardust.
We’ll zoom our way to Mars.
My heart would be a fireball.
A fireball.
And you would be my Venus of the stars."
batmobile
Date: 2006-01-23 08:02 pm (UTC)If I remember correctly, the doors opened too. I need one of those missile launchers on my daily commute. I'd load it with rocks and animal dung instead of plastic missiles or matchsticks.