The blog has done quite well this year thanx to all you wonderful readers. The beginnings of 'Toys and Stuff'' dates back to 2009 when I was inspired by the Moonbase Central blog over in the UK, headed up by Woodsy, Wotan, and Scoop and subsequently added to by contributing authors (included yours truly). It featured a lot of space toys which fascinated the heck out of me, and the dioramas and photography inspired me enough to want to have a go at it myself. My blog follows an unsuccessful website also titled 'Toys and Stuff'. The website was a bear to update and I had been looking for a different means of sharing my passion, and that's when Moonbase Central gave me the impetus to go the blog route.
My first post was on Oct 8, 2010 and titled: "Japanese Small Navy Tin-litho w/Friction Jet Motor unk Mfr"
Back then I speculated as whether or not I had enough toys to maintain a running blog, but here we are, 14 years, 4669 posts, and 2,686,010 pageviews later and still chugging along. There are a gazillion types of toys out there, but my main passions were:
-Airplanes and helicopters
-Space toys (those representing real-life space endeavors as well as fantasy and sci-fi)
-Military (Ancient, American Revolution, Alamo, American Civil War, WWII, and later)
-Vehicles
-3-rail O-gauge trains and all associated with it
-Breweriana (beer mugs/steins, coasters, and anything related to beer/wine/spirits)
-Castles and Medieval stuff in general
-Dragons
-Fire and Emergency
-Paper/cardboard buildings
-Pirates
-Boats/ships
-The Flintstones
-Gas/Filling stations
-Harry Potter
-and more
gosh, there's almost a gazillion categories right here!
I hardly ever know what I'll end up covering whenever a new year rolls around, it just sorta happens. 2024 was my year to catch up posting photos of vehicles I had taken but never posted, as well as vintage spacemen/aliens, and military figures and vehicles. I also got deeper into Harry Potter toys and collectibles this year.
What's in store for 2025? I still have loads of spacemen and aliens to photograph so I'll try to continue that series of posts as well as a bunch of WWII military stuff. As well, it looks as if I'm going to re-engage my Flintstones collection. Having gone through my photo files the other day it was apparent a lot of toys weren't posted back in the first wave of 2012-13 or in the second wave of 2018. So we'll be looking at a third wave in 2025. I also have some nice tin-litho filling stations that have been hanging around here for years that need photographing as well as a bunch of vintage playsets.
I am kind of getting antsy to make some diorama boards to photograph the toys on and perhaps to help tell stories. This year was about temporary set-ups like the GIANT Plastics alien invasion...
...or the Pirate toy set-ups
However, I never got around to any knight-&-castle or WWII set-ups this year. Of course, building dioramas is a lot of work, and they take up space and this is already a postage stamp-sized house so that will be a challenge. We shall see.
Anywho, that's it in a nutshell I hope all of you are able to meet and exceed your collecting goals, and while 2025 promises to be a year of great change, let's hope and pray that it doesn't diminish your love of collecting and building!
Happy New Year and - Enjoy! Opa Fritz
