SCALEXTRIC: Vintage Toys that last the test of time

History of Scalextric (Link)

Scalextric came from the Scalex brand of Minimodels Ltd, which was a clockwork powered race car system that first appeared in 1952. Their inventor, B. "Freddie" Francis, showed Scalextric ("Scalex" plus "electric") cars at the annual Harrogate Toy Fair in 1957 in the UK. In 1958, unable to meet demand for their popular range, the parent company was sold to Lines Bros Ltd, who operated as "Tri-ang". Their subsidiary Rovex, which specialised in plastic, then developed Scalextric, converting the metal cars to the easier and cheaper to mould plastic. The track, which was originally a rubber compound, became moulded plastic at a later date. Production continued at Mini-models in Havant until 1967, when it moved to Rovex's own site.^[1]

When Lines Bros collapsed, their subsidiary Rovex-Triang, which handled Scalextric and the Triang railway brand, was sold off, eventually becoming Hornby Railways. Although Scalextric remained based in the UK, most of the products are made in China.^[1]

Results were hit in 2007 by the closure of the Scalextric Race World retail store in Tacoma; Scalextric-USA created a store front in Auburn, Washington showcasing Scalextric slot cars, tracks and accessories.^[2]

James May's Toy Stories - Scalextric

I had no idea!!!

I had no idea that Scalextric is such a big deal until a box of what I consider worthless plastic turned up in a recent house clearance and one of our customers informed me that it is actually worth a bit of money to an enthusiast. I found the above BBC show by Top Gear show host James May very entertaining and well worth watching if you have an interest in Scalextric that is. Bellow you can see two pictures, the first is how it arrived and the second is after I sorted it out. I'm hoping to set it up on a table in the next few days to see if it actually works. If you are interested in Scalextric and would like to call in and have a go once it's set up feel free to drop by any day. I hope it doesn't sell fast so we can have lots of fun over the next few weeks play instead of working. 

How it arrived

After I got my hands on it 

This simple track covers the table an the box is still full

Scalextric @ Deccie's Done Deal

Wouldn't it be fun if we had 200ft of it like this guy.

SILVER-REED SILVERETTE II TYPEWRITER: Do you fancy yourself a Jessica fletcher?

THIS ITEM IS NOW SOLD

For those of you who have no idea who Jessica Fletcher is:

Murder, She Wrote

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 

Murder, She Wrote is an American television mystery series starring Angela Lansbury as mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher.^[4][5] The series aired for 12 seasons from 1984 to 1996 on the CBS network, with 264 episodes transmitted. It was followed by four TV films and a spin-off series,The Law & Harry McGraw. It is one of the most successful and longest-running television shows in history, with close to 23 million viewers in its prime, and was a staple of its Sunday night lineup for a decade.^[6] The series is also successful around the world.

Lansbury was nominated for a total of ten Golden Globes and 12 Emmy Awards for her work on Murder, She Wrote. She holds the record for the most Golden Globe nominations for Best Actress in a television drama series and the most Emmy nominations for outstanding lead actress in a drama series forMurder, She Wrote, with those nominations netting her four Golden Globe awards. The series received three nominations but no wins in the Outstanding Drama Series category at the Emmys. It was nominated for a Golden Globe in the same category six times and won twice.

Since the series ended in 1996, a series of four TV movies were released between 1997 and 2003, a game created by Legacy Interactive was released for the PC platform in 2009.^[7] A second game is currently in development.^[8] A spin-off book series, written by Donald Bain, continues to the present.

SILVER-REED SILVERETTE II TYPEWRITER

Today we acquired the bellow pictured bright blue portable typewriter. This Silver-Reed  Silverette II typewriter would be a perfect Christmas present for anyone who is either interested in or dreaming of being a novelist. Maybe your already a professional writer and would like to add a nostalgic touch to your life of typing. I love to hammer away at metal keys and hear the rhythmic clatter of the hammer hitting paper, there is something therapeutic about typing on the real deal. If nothing else a real typewriter is something the kids will love to play with and when they aren't occupied learning how to type it will make an interesting ornament placed in front of a vase of flowers. Well do I remember playing for hours as a little boy on the type writer Deccie brought home from a car boot sale. When I was young computers had just been invented, the typewriter was on the way out, today the keyboard and the mouse are becoming a thing of the past as touch screen technology becomes more wide spread. Owning your very own vintage typewriter is like owning a little piece of history, a little token of human ingenuity all of your own. 

View this product on Facebook and find out the price

Link to Deccie's done Deal Facebook group

For anyone who is interested in the history of typewriters, take a read of the article pasted bellow. Click the link at the bottom to continue reading on the original site. 

The History Of Typewriters 

(Link to source article) 

The concept of a typewriter dates back at least to 1714, when Englishman Henry Mill filed a vaguely-worded patent for "an artificial machine or method for the impressing or transcribing of letters singly or progressively one after another." But the first typewriter proven to have worked was built by the Italian Pellegrino Turri in 1808 for his blind friend Countess Carolina Fantoni da Fivizzano; unfortunately, we do not know what the machine looked like, but we do have specimens of letters written by the Countess on it. (For details, see Michael Adler's excellent 1973 book The Writing Machine. Carey Wallace's 2010 novel The Blind Contessa's New Machine  is based on the relationship between the Countess and Turri.)
Numerous inventors in Europe and the U.S. worked on typewriters in the 19th century, but successful commercial production began only with the "writing ball" of Danish pastor Rasmus Malling-Hansen (1870). This well-engineered device looked rather like a pincushion. Nietzsche's mother and sister once gave him one for Christmas. He hated it.

Much more influential, in the long run, was the Sholes & Glidden Type Writer, which began production in late 1873 and appeared on the American market in 1874.

Christopher L. Sholes, a Milwaukee newspaperman, poet, and part-time inventor, was the main creator of this machine. The Sholes & Glidden typed only in capital letters, and it introduced the QWERTY keyboard, which is very much with us today. The keyboard was probably designed to separate frequently-used pairs of typebars so that the typebars would not clash and get stuck at the printing point. The S&G was a decorative machine, boasting painted flowers and decals. It looked rather like a sewing machine, as it was manufactured by the sewing machine department of the Remington arms company. For an in-depth look at this historic device, visit Darryl Rehr's Web site "The First Typewriter." The Sholes & Glidden had limited success, but its successor, the Remington, soon became a dominant presence in the industry.

The Sholes & Glidden, like many early typewriters, is an understroke or "blind" writer: the typebars are arranged in a circular basket under the platen (the printing surface) and type on the bottom of the platen. This means that the typist (confusingly called a "typewriter" herself in the early days) has to lift up the carriage to see her work. Another example of an understroke typebar machine is the Caligraph of 1880, the second typewriter to appear on the American market.


This Caligraph has a "full" keyboard -- separate keys for lower- and upper-case letters. Click here to read more about the Caligraph.The Smith Premier (1890) is another example of a full-keyboard understroke typewriter which was very popular in its day. Click here to read more and see the machine.
The QWERTY keyboard came to be called the "Universal" keyboard, as the alternative keyboards fought a losing battle against the QWERTY momentum. (For more on QWERTY and to learn why "QWERTY is cool," visit Darryl Rehr's site The QWERTY Connection .) But not all early typewriters used the QWERTY system, and many did not even type with typebars. Case in point: the ingenious Hammond, introduced in 1884. The Hammond came on the scene with its own keyboard, the two-row, curved "Ideal" keyboard -- although Universal Hammonds were also soon made available. The Hammond prints from a type shuttle -- a C-shaped piece of vulcanized rubber. The shuttle can easily be exchanged when you want to use a different typeface. There is no cylindrical platen as on typebar typewriters; the paper is hit against the shuttle by a hammer.

The Hammond gained a solid base of loyal customers. These well-engineered machines lasted, with a name change to Varityper and electrification, right up to the beginning of the word-processor era.Other machines typing from a single type element rather than typebars included the gorgeous Crandall (1881) ...

... and the practical Blickensderfer.
Continue reading........

Antique Carriage or Coach Lamp

This is an Interesting Old item we have in our shop.

This old carriage lamp is not worth a fortune but it is one of the most interesting items we have in our shop. But that's just my opinion, not everyone is into quirky old things like I am. I think it would look lovely cleaned up and mounted on the fire place with an nice fat candle. What do you think?

This is what it could look like done up

So if your looking for an interesting DIY project let us know. 

Check this item out on our Facebook Group and ask one of our Admin's the price if you are interested. 

Antique Walnut Veneer Chippendale Style Sideboard

Click on this Link to "View this sideboard on our facebook group"

Deccie's Done Deal Second Hand Furniture and House Clearances

Dear Customer

If you don't know me please let me introduce myself, my name is Deccie Lucey and I'm a bit of a legend around East Co, Cork Ireland. Due to my big grey beard, most children think I'm Santa Claus but I'm really just his younger brother. I'm posting this blog just to let you know that we didn't close shop, we just moved location to a much bigger premises At O'Shea's Salvage Yard, Belvelly Farm, Belvelly Cobh. Some people are still not clued in that we are still open so we are using every means possible to get the word out that we are still in business. Click this link to view a Google Map

Shop Philosophy & History:
Happiness is an inside job but the outside world can sometimes limit your options. We opened our first shop in 2009 right after the beginning of the banking crisis with the view that people will need to reduce there spending on essential household furnishings and there was a gap in the market for a real second hand furniture shop. While lots of second hand shops where closing down because they refused to lower the price to meet the economic climate we opened up because we decided to operate on a different business model to them.  Our philosophy is very simple, we sell at low prices, make people happy, keep the stock moving, which keeps the shop interesting and people go away happy and keep coming back. They tell all their friends what a great deal they got at Deccie’s, which keeps the shop full with new customers who have a need, but have limited options and access to cash due to the credit crunch. The first shop was very small but it was in a great location and helped us get established within the Midleton area. After 3 years in business it was time to move on as the roof of the shop was damaged by high winds and half our stock was now sitting in two inches of water every time it rained. Disaster!!! Not in our way of thinking, just time for a change, in every disaster there is an opportunity to grow and grow we did. Instead of looking for another small shop in a good location we decided to move to the biggest location we could find within walking distance of the town. With the intention of providing even better service to even more people, with the same business model. To put it simply, if your iceberg is melting move to a different iceberg!!!! after another 4 year in this location a fire in the building next door forced us to move once more. We are now located in Cobh which is a much more central location for all the surrounding towns. We went from having a 2000 square foot shop to having a 5400 square foot shop which again proves that with the correct attitude a disaster can be turned into a positive.

House Clearances
We buy and sell almost anything so if you have a shed full of unwanted items, an attic full of goodies, a new house full of the old owners furniture, you may be emigrating and need to get ride of excess furniture before you leave or maybe your just upgrading your home furnishings.

Then why not give us a call and turn your unwanted items into cash, we don't pay a fortune but we do pay for good items.

Obviously we don't pay for rubbish but we do deal with your rubbish if needs be, you can ether barter with us against the good stuff or we will charge a fee to deal with the dumping costs and man hours. It will also save you money on the cost of a skip or the trips to the dump, so if it's not worth dumping but you don't want it, why not support a local business rather than dumping good stuff that other people want and need.

The process is normally as follows:

    From your call to Deccie on 0872477491 or email us at infoatdecciesdonedeal@gmail.com and we will discuss the requirements of your house clearance job with you.
    We will ask to see the property before we quote you. 
    We will evaluate the job and either give you a quote to remove the items or pay you for the possessions depending on our evaluation of the contents.
    We will make an allowance for the household items and use that value to offset the labour and rubbish removal costs of the house clearance if that is your wish or we can buy the good stuff and clear the crap as two separate jobs.
    When we have come to an agreement then we will arrange a day to complete the job for you.
    Some house clearances can take more than a day if there is a large amount of household furniture and effects.
    All the saleable items will be sold through our used furniture store and everything else will be ether up-cycled, recycled or dumped depending on what can be done with it. 

We look forward to hearing from you.

Deccie's Done Deal on Facebook
Deccie's Done Deal is East Cork's premier secondhand destination, with almost anything bought and sold through our outlet, you will never know what you might find in our store until you walk in the door. But not everyone can call every day to find what they need as the stock moves fast at our prices and they might miss out. So we set up our facebook page: www.facebook.com/DecciesDoneDealSecondHandFurnitureShop so that our customers who would like to keep an eye out for something they are looking for at a good price can now do so by joining our group, we upload the new stock a few times per week. You can also let us know what your looking for and you'd never know we may be able to source it from our contacts. You can contact Deccie on 0872477491 or message Deccie Lucey on Facebook with any questions, price inquiries or comments. Thank you all for your eyeballs and please feel free to bend our ears. ;~)

Best Regards to you and your family
Deccie Lucey