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Post by tarkintino on Jan 19, 2024 18:29:02 GMT -5
The fishing gear ad was on a lot of King Comics. But give me Russ Heath ads any day: Great as the various "armies" ads were, they were a great example of false advertising; not once did the ads--with fully fleshed out, colorful characters--ever say the figures were flat, 2-dimensional little statues, almost gaming pegs! One of my brothers had the western set, and it was nothing like the ads!
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 20, 2024 0:19:20 GMT -5
How well I know, tarkintino . I pestered my mom to order the Civil War set for me (In 1963, IIRC; tons of kids were obsessed with the Civil War because of the centennial anniversary) and she warned me that it was a rip-off (using 1963 slang). A buck-forty-nine was big money then (equivalent of 15 bucks today!), but I think she thought it was worth it to teach me a lesson. I absorbed that lesson well. Here's what fooled me into thinking I was getting the Holy Grail of soldier sets: (Possibly Fred Ray art?) And here's the kind of stuff I got:
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Post by driver1980 on Jan 20, 2024 6:43:42 GMT -5
Blimey, Prince Hal! I didn’t know they’d be quite like that!
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Post by MDG on Jan 20, 2024 8:56:24 GMT -5
Blimey, Prince Hal ! I didn’t know they’d be quite like that! This book, now out of print, is an illustrated compendium of "what you ordered" vs "what you really got."
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Post by driver1980 on Jan 20, 2024 9:24:52 GMT -5
Blimey, Prince Hal ! I didn’t know they’d be quite like that! This book, now out of print, is an illustrated compendium of "what you ordered" vs "what you really got." Thank you. Looks like a good book!
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Post by Icctrombone on Jan 20, 2024 9:55:37 GMT -5
I remember putting on those x-ray glasses at one point as a kid. It showed an outline of the body and some lines simulating bones on the person you would look at.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 20, 2024 10:06:00 GMT -5
I remember putting on those x-ray glasses at one point as a kid. It showed an outline of the body and some lines simulating bones on the person you would look at. If anyone had asked me who on these boards would have ordered X-Ray Spex, I'd've picked you, Icctrombone. (I would have been the friend who asked to borrow them.)
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Post by Icctrombone on Jan 20, 2024 12:32:43 GMT -5
I remember putting on those x-ray glasses at one point as a kid. It showed an outline of the body and some lines simulating bones on the person you would look at. If anyone had asked me who on these boards would have ordered X-Ray Spex, I'd've picked you, Icctrombone . (I would have been the friend who asked to borrow them.) Ha, I couldn't afford that. I don't remember where I saw it.
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 20, 2024 12:48:49 GMT -5
If anyone had asked me who on these boards would have ordered X-Ray Spex, I'd've picked you, Icctrombone . (I would have been the friend who asked to borrow them.) Ha, I couldn't afford that. I don't remember where I saw it. Yeah, sure. And I just read certain magazines for the articles.
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Post by jason on Jan 20, 2024 14:17:37 GMT -5
I would have thought those soldier toys would have been at least 3 dimensional ones like the little green army men. Makes me wonder what you got if you ordered one of these sets:
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Post by Prince Hal on Jan 20, 2024 15:08:06 GMT -5
I would have thought those soldier toys would have been at least 3 dimensional ones like the little green army men. Makes me wonder what you got if you ordered one of these sets: Well, here's Task Force, apparently available and certainly affordable (and worth every penny) on e-bay: www.ebay.com/itm/133246650515
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Post by tarkintino on Jan 20, 2024 17:50:19 GMT -5
Blimey, Prince Hal ! I didn’t know they’d be quite like that! This book, now out of print, is an illustrated compendium of "what you ordered" vs "what you really got." I have this book, and it is FANTASTIC! Anyone growing up on comic books from the 60s - 80s will recognize some or all of the mail order items covered...and Demarais' description of the item and if lived up to the ads were hilariously true.
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Post by codystarbuck on Jan 20, 2024 20:15:58 GMT -5
I would have thought those soldier toys would have been at least 3 dimensional ones like the little green army men. Makes me wonder what you got if you ordered one of these sets: I bought that; it was Battleship on the cheap. The bulk of those pieces were no bigger than a nickel and the plastic base was segmented in grids and they gave you cardstock markers to mark squares, as you played the game. The vehicles and pillboxes are too small to have any detailing and it was bad. The Revolutionary and Roman soldiers were a bigger rip-off, though. For what you got, you could get a bag of Army Men and have a better war. My neighbor and I used to use pieces of wood and things to create fortifications, place out our army men and then bomb them. Then, I got the Guns of Navarone playset and we expanded it. I ended up creating a whole base around the thing... Not pictured is the plastic sheet that lay under the mountain, with roads and the coastline, for the amphibious landing. I added a pair of halved gallon milk juc=gs, which became hangars, for the two Corsairs from my Flying Aces aircraft carrier... I took some gravel from our driveway, to create trenches, took the wire coil from some old notebooks and made it barbed wire, my dad sewed together a few scraps of cloth, which I turned into sandbags and created a whole perimeter defense, plus close air support. That carrier was pretty cool, as it came with 2 Corsairs, one Navy, one Marines, and two catapults. The main one, down the center, ran on a little belt that pulled the shuttle forward, while the plane was hooked into a rubber band and stretched to the anchor point. The planes had little stubs, underneath, that fit into a socket, on the shuttle, holding them in place until the shuttle hit the end of the beltway and inertia launched it. The side catapult was just a rubber band, stretched to an anchor point and you pressed a lever that lifted the plane out of the anchor and let it shoot forward. The only problem with it was that the shuttle would get out of alignment, on the belt and might not travel all the way to the end of the beltway and launch the plane. Then, you had to realign it. After the belt broke, the planes were repurposed to provide air cover for the Navarone base. About the only thing I didn't have set up was a rail line, to be sabotaged.
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Post by impulse on Jan 22, 2024 9:13:03 GMT -5
I loved playing with army men when I was younger. I wasn't otherwise big into G.I. Joe or military or gun toys or play like some other kids, but somehow they were fun.
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Post by tartanphantom on Jan 22, 2024 11:39:51 GMT -5
I loved playing with army men when I was younger. I wasn't otherwise big into G.I. Joe or military or gun toys or play like some other kids, but somehow they were fun.
When I was a kid here in the South, and when it was cicada season, I would go around and pick up cicada molts off of the tree trunks (they were everywhere) and create my own scenario with the cicada husks as alien invaders vs. my green army men.
Of course, I would assist my valiant miniature plastic battalion with the aid of my BB gun vs. the invading "giant" cicadas.
If only I had a Super-8 camera and some black & white film, I could have been the next Roger Corman.
Ah, the days of childhood before the advent of game consoles and other digital devices... when one's own imagination ruled the day and a kid's biggest summertime worries were yellowjackets, ticks, and stepping on sandspurs, barefoot.
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