When a coin is inserted: doors open and the room is lighted revealing four morticians and four poor souls on embalming tables, the morticians move as if busily at work on their grisly task and mourners standing outside bob their heads as if sobbing in grief.

Absolutely incredible…

From the item description:
Lot 207
“St. Dennistoun Mortuary” Coin-Operated Automaton, attributed to Leonard Lee, c. 1900, the mahogany cabinet and glazed viewing area displays a Greek Revival mortuary building with double doors and grieving mourners out front, when a coin is inserted, doors open and the room is lighted revealing four morticians and four poor souls on embalming tables, the morticians move as if busily at work on their grisly task and mourners standing outside bob their heads as if sobbing in grief, ht. 30 1/2, wd. 24, dp. 17 1/4 in.

Estimate $4,000-6,000

Source

Can you even imagine discovering such a thing amidst your perusals of books? Perhaps not everyone would go weak in the knees like I would…but it would make my day (maybe my year) to discover one.

I wish I had one of these in my library.

See more information at the source.
And check out a big Flickr set with more images.

This was the ONLY way to play with Weebles back in the day!

“Hey…would you cut me a slice of that potato salad?” I’m not sure why the mid-20th Century as a whole felt that all food was better served molded and congealed.

Maybe Snuggles can cook up something better.

Now THIS is a great piece of food!

My kinda cookbook…

Clearly the world’s most amazing self-help book:

And a book I want very badly!

A book that the occasional SheWalksSoftly reader might have actually had:

Why it pays to be nice…

“Hang on…I have to put my face on.”

An accessory for the man about town:

And quite the dress design…

I’m intrigued…

I never expected a Mighty Dark-Winged Avenging Lord of Chaos to be named “Bryan.”

Pleasant dreams, kiddies…

It seems I had a bunch of images lined up to post, so expect another Desktop Goodies installment soon…

This plastic light bulb was powered by one AA size battery. The actual flashlight bulb is a 1.5 volt elongated, frosted bulb. The instructions say to replace the lamp with a standard 1.5 volt flashlight bulb once the original burns out. The flashlight bulb is contained within a non-breakable plastic full-sized light bulb. You can tell it’s authentic if the top of the bulb is stamped “ML” and surrounding these letters are the words “Mystery Light Bulb.”

The trick in lighting the bulb was to make an electrical connection between the bottom of the metal lamp base and the side of the lamp base. You could do this by wearing the special ring included in the box, by using aluminum foil concealed in your hand, or in your mouth if you want to practice the conventional Uncle Fester method.

One of the great dangers of this toy is that the bulb base was not reverse threaded. This allowed the 1.5 volt battery operated bulb to be easily screwed into any 110-115 Volt lamp socket! Knowing this toy might cause a possible fire or electrocution would most certainly evoke a sly smile on the faces of the entire Addams clan.

Did anyone have one of these? Or any other old spooky products you might like to share?

Source

To see a full view of every angle, click on this nine second video:

They are available in different sizes and materials in his online store. I wish I could treat myself to the tiny one at the moment. On the wish list it goes!

To see a large gallery of Crania Anatomica “in action,” click here.

Narrow buildings packed with windows…ever so slightly askew…towers with delicately crooked spires abound…

His monsters and mad men are wonderful as well.

His blog is filled with fantastic sketches and finished work, so take a look.

A Rumble in the Tummy:

Look at the happy fellows…

If I ever get a mannequin for clothing design, I do believe I will paint some sort of anatomical design on it. here’s an interesting twist on the idea:

PORKTERGEIST!

See more here.

Look at “Rudy the Bull” and the fire in his belly!

Such unique little characters…almost cute…almost disconcerting…

See more here.

See many more lovely outfits here.

For the car:

When you’re on the go…

I love how they got the font correct:

And there were a number of items dedicated to one of my all time favorite characters: ZAP ROWSDOWER

And for the no-nonsense Rowsdower fans, we have the shirt, the sticker and the magnet.

My apologies to those who are unfamiliar with the show. I promise my next post will have more mass appeal (well, for my regular readers anyway).