Welcome to a 2nd showcase of
Randomly Retro Pin-Badges from the clutter pile.
The previous article received a
suitable number of hits which warranted this part 2 even more. With a
large biscuit tin in storage stuffed full of buttons there is
certainly more than enough to pass a trilogy. Some of these feature
designs that range from whacky, cheesy and downright cool spanning
from the past five decades. So read on and marvel at the next 5
artefacts from pin-badge past...
1/ Bristol & West Snoopy
Promotion (1987)
Whilst NatWest costumers enjoyed the premium
of Piggy Bank characters, B&W kids savers received a Snoopy's
Doghouse ceramic moneybox instead. I wanted a Powermaster Optimus
Prime so bad back in those days, so I had an account set up with the
local B&W building society. The insentive got me into banking at
a primary school age and whatever was left from my allowance through
buying Marvel comics and Garbage Pail Kids stickers went towards the
fund. 4 years later, there was no Prime, but the collection went
towards a Sega Master System I ended up passing on after a month. Oh
yeah, the Snoopy badge (none of the other Peanuts characters were
included in the promotion – not even Woodstock!) was part of a
membership pack including some stationary (and that doghouse
moneybox!). As for Powermaster Prime, I ended up acquiring his souped
up Japanese God Ginrai counterpart in 2002 for next to nothing!
Waiting does pay off.
2/ Vanilla Ice, Big Magazine (Early
90's)
This most likely came with the same
magazine (or it might have been Smash Hits!) I found with a feature
on how to mimic the artists trademark beak hairstyle. There's an
earlier blog I wrote with a scan of the feature
here - a blog which Vanilla Ice
himself linked to via his official Twitter account. Nice to be noticed.
3/ Turtle Action (1990)
One in a long series of TMNT badges
available from various greetings cards retailers. The image depicting
Leonardo swinging through a white background (despite the rope being
on the opposite side) is one of many images drawn in that 'no black
outline' style on a lot of UK produced Ninja Turtles merchandise.
4/ Transformers Autobot Bumblebee (1985).
Acquired from the front of a
Transformers birthday card. An insignia, a Transformers G1 logo and
the name and function of a Transformers character are the design
layout. There were other name badges too, including some for the
dastardly Decepticons. Despite no character image, I was content
enough to have a polished Transformers logo all the same, despite my
name not being Bumblebee.
5/ Care Bears, Birthday Bear (1985)
This suitably selected Birthday
Bear card badge belonged to my brother. Like with Transformers, there
were other character pins available too. A decent little artefact
from the days when the Care Bears brand (pre-remakes) was at its most
strongest. If memory serves correct these were also a free gift with
an issue of Marvel UK's weekly Car Bears comic as well.
That's
it for the second lineup of Randomly Retro Pin-Badges. A third
summary of random enamel goodness is already in the pipeline. Whether its goodness is entirely up to you.
Until next time!
-HERO