Did anyone else collect these?

LightAmber - my daughter used to collect novelty erasers but some of them had a sickly smell that I found unpleasant!

I have a collection of the Tetley tea folk and the little houses they lived in, My granddaughters used to love playing with them , but they are too old for that now.

I used to collect novelty erasers, if you heard at school that one of the shops had a hard to find one you begged parents to let you go to the shops after school to buy said treasure! Must have spent a fair few pounds on those, still have them somewhere in a large shoebox.

It's an interesting idea isn't it.....swapping buttons ( which I remember) or collecting things.

They had value and interest and a tactile quality. How things have changed with the advent of the virtual world.

I saved Whimsies too and had forgotten about them until I read this post.
I also made Airfix aircraft which were on my dressing table until my mother accidentally knocked a couple of them onto the floor where they broke. She was more upset than I because she knew what care I had taken making and painting them.

I don't think I was really a collector, but I know I had quite a lot of Whimsies including Lady and the Tramp among other Disney characters. I am sure my mother gave them away when I left home.

M0nica, I’m not sure whether I can ask this on an open forum, but here goes; as you seem to have a knowledge about collectables and such. Please forgive my cheek.
May I ask what to do with a 1930’s tea trolley? It was my parent’s, and is glass and chrome, with round tubular, chrome sides, supporting two clear glass shelves. I have seen modern ones, in magazines, and wondered whether an original would be sought after ?

I collected Disney characters that stood on a plinth and you pushed in the base to make them move. Can’t remember what they were called!

Thanks Callistemon and * MOnica* (It's good to learn something new every day!)

My Wade Whimsies went to the charity shop. Some of the rarer ones can be valuable but when I checked, I didn't have a valuable one.

Yes, boheminan those were Wade Whimsies, that was the name for the whole genre, that started off being almost entirely tiny animals but expanded to include Disney characters and much more.Nearly all came in those little round boxes.

boheminan Wade Whimsies were tiny china models of animals. I can't remember if they came in sets or singly, at one time you could buy crackers with them in; I bought those crackers for my DC.

My DD collected Polly Pockets. Last year we found some in the loft in a pink plastic Polly Pocket suitcase. DD put them on eBay and they went for £130! Apparently the case was the real rarity. It must have cost a couple of quid at the most 20 odd years ago.

Wade Whimsies? I'm trying to work out what they were/are. As a child I collected little china painted figurines, mostly Disney characters made by Wade. They came in pretty little round picture design 'hat boxes', with a wooden wall mount (shadowbox) to display them on. Are these Whimsies?

DH went to an auction sale today and bought about 20 Wade Whimsies for a couple of £s. We will put them in a box on our stall to sell on at £3, reductions for multiple buys and under 12s

Beatles cards from bubble gum packets - we used to swap them at school. I also collected small glass animals - I remember making a frozen pond scene with a mirror, cotton wool and a glass swan when I was about 6 or 7.

Gollie badges from jam & marmalade.

3D pictures from Weetabix packets which fitted into the viewer my dad got me and the masks from the backs of Cornflake packets.

I still have the books of cigarette cards my dad collected - one is full of football players and another of butterflies and Mum collected movie stars. There is another of dogs which I used to love looking through as a kid. We did look to see if they were of any value as they are probably about 80 years old but no one wants them.

I also collected the Brooke Bond cards. I was always a bit OCD so I was always frustrated that I could never collect a whole set before they brought out the next lot.

I dabbled in stamps but gave up when I figured out that there, too, I would never be able to have them all!

I still have 15 Wades Whimsies, took them to the Antiques Roadshow when they came to town, was told they might fetch £1 each if I was lucky! I don`t want to sell them though, or I wouldn`t have bought them in the first place. I now collect Lilliput Lane houses, but am told that to keep their value I should also keep the boxes, but I don`t have the space, and don`t buy them to sell on anyway.

I wish I knew what had happened to my whimsies!

Hi TerriBull - When I was at junior school we used to collect scraps and swap them exactly as you described! Did you go to school in Surrey by any chance?
I also used to collect foreign dolls and china piggy banks.
Now I collect china jugs.

My mum had a bathroom full of frogs for the same reason.

Ditto for me with hedgehogs for some reason!!

And that greyduster is exactly how I managed to acquire over 60 owls, many of them given to me and rather “tacky”. With the exception of some favourite and more tasteful ones they graced the shelves of a London charity shop when we downsized to move north. But theres still plenty of other things left which I have no doubt my children will dispose of thoughtfully..... I wish, it’s more likely to be ruthlessly! ?

It’s amazing how, if people see you have two or three of anything, they assume that you would like more. That’s how I ended up with thirty seven china bells which came as presents in dribs and drabs and are now in a box in the loft!

As a child I collected all sorts of things - military buttons, cloth badges, foreign coins, fossils, stamps, cigarette cards, ‘interesting’ stones, marbles. Now, it is small silver items, Napoleonic military figures, and sea glass. All of which will go into the bin when I move to the great junk shop in the sky!