08-04-2011
( Reply#: 6770 ) |
Bill Bucko |
I think Miller may have sold dinosaur figures before 1957. Starting in the early 50s if not the 40s, the company produced high-quality plaster manger figures for Christmas, beautifully hand-painted; many of you may remember them. I have some photos copied off Ebay, if interested.
I bought my Miller figures at Woolworth's, across the street from Goldblatt's. The Miller figures had a table to themselves, at the east end of the building near the bus stop.
Many of the Miller prehistorics were modeled after figures in Rudolph Zallinger's classic murals "Age of Reptiles" and "Age of Mammals," in Yale's Peabody Museum.
Below are some notes I made several years ago. [Please note that I have not verified whether the URLS listed are still up, or the magazines still available.]
PUBLICATIONS:
(1) Prehistoric Times, back issue # 26, Oct.–Nov. 1997, has a 3-page article, “J.H Miller Revisited,” currently available for $ 5 postpaid: (several small photos; lots of info on the company's early history, taken from “Collecting American-Made Toy Soldiers, 3rd edition,” by Richard O’Brien)
http://www.prehistorictimes.com/backissue.html
(2) Plastic Figure and Playset Collector, back issue # 67, August 2000, has an article, “Toy Figures from the elusive J.H. Miller,” by Mike Fredericks (I haven’t seen this yet)
http://www.hat.com/PFPC2.html
(3) “Dinosaur Collectibles,” by Dana Cain and Mike Fredericks, has several paragraphs on Miller in the introduction, and two pages in the listings (all too brief, in light of the attention given to much less important figures in this book).
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0930625994/qid=1105678714/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/103-5730826-2447845?v=glance&s=books
WEBSITES:
(1) The Figure Junkie: http://www.geocities.com/timspfd/fj/figurejunkie.htm
has a brief Miller page: http://www.geocities.com/timspfd/fj/manu/JHMiller.htm with photos of several jungle animals (no prehistoric ones):
(2) Better: Realm of Rubber Dinosaurs: http://www.rubberdinosaurs.com/
has a Miller page: http://www.rubberdinosaurs.com/miller.htm
with good photos of the large Giant Ground Sloth and the bottom of the large Stegosaurus; a photo of the Alien from Venus; and a table, classifying the prehistoric figures into series.
(3) And the best site: Dinosaur Collector, http://www.dinosaurcollector.150m.com/
has a paragraph on Miller on its companies page: http://www.dinosaurcollector.150m.com/companies.htm
which links to this further page, with 8 good photos: http://www.dinosaurcollector.150m.com/Miller.htm .
To my dismay, this page contains a disturbing report that the founder of the company—who must have been a man of great personal initiative and independence—absconded to Communist Cuba in 1961! That a brilliant entrepreneur would do such a thing, seems utterly bizarre; and I certainly hope it isn’t true.
I currently have 12 Miller figures bought on Ebay, most with some slight damage to them; perfect figures are very rare. They do bring back many memories!
Bill
Warren G. Harding Class of '63 |
08-04-2011
( Reply#: 6771 ) |
HassoBenSoba |
BILL--
Thanks for posting all of this info; I think you sent the links to me a few years ago, but I lost them in a crash. I must check out a few of these articles if they're still around.
12 Miller Figures? - Which ones do you own? I'll post pictures if I have them.
In the meantime, here's a photo of Miller's wacky NEBULA alien from their series:
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/MillerNebula.jpg[/IMG]
AND HERE's a flyer from Ameritech from c. 8 years ago--- they actually use a picture of Miller's NEBULA guy for their ad!!
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/MillerNebPhone0001.jpg[/IMG]
LR |
08-04-2011
( Reply#: 6772 ) |
Bill Bucko |
They're all arranged on top of a bookshelf:
from the "small" set:
protoceratops
from "large" set:
dimetrodon (two)
stegosaurus (two)
tyrannosaurus
giant ground sloth
brontosaurus
non-set:
triceratops
rhinoceros
mastodon or mammoth, whichever it is
cave
Bill
Warren G. Harding Class of '63 |
08-11-2011
( Reply#: 6790 ) |
HassoBenSoba |
Here's a pic of some of our own Miller Dinos and Mammals, taken on an overcast summer evening in our back yard in 1957; I remember it distinctly. When the photo was developed, my dad said "Man, you'd swear they were real!" Yeah....except for the giant prehistoric 2X4 that somebody forgot to move out of the upper-left corner.
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/MillerDinos570001.jpg[/IMG]
Here's an E-Bay photo of three of the mammals in excellent condition-- Wooly Rhino, Giant Sloth (aka Megatherium), and the Mammmoth/Mastodon (?). I can still smell the wax.
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/MillerDinos3.jpg[/IMG] |
08-11-2011
( Reply#: 6792 ) |
Jay |
I don't remember these dinosaurs that were offered by the Miller Company. However, didn't the local Sinclair Oil gas stations back in the 1960's offer green dinosaur toy statues? |
08-12-2011
( Reply#: 6799 ) |
Bill Bucko |
quote:
Originally posted by Jay
I don't remember these dinosaurs that were offered by the Miller Company. However, didn't the local Sinclair Oil gas stations back in the 1960's offer green dinosaur toy statues?
Yes; those figures were made by the Miller Company, too. Miller also made special figures for (I think it was) the World Fair and other events.
MARVELOUS photo, Larry!
Bill
Warren G. Harding Class of '63 |
08-12-2011
( Reply#: 6800 ) |
HassoBenSoba |
Bill--
Glad you like the pics; I got the color ones a few years ago from E-Bay.
Here's one I posted in another thread:
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/MillerDinos2.jpg[/IMG]
And here's the Miller "little" dinos; I guess they were running out of ideas, since they had just done big dinos two years before, and five of these 8 little ones were repeats.
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/MillerLittleDinos.jpg[/IMG]
The two not included here were a brontosaurus and the teleoceras---a grey-colored rhinoceros-like mammal. I got my set for '59 Christmas from Stork Town in Woodmar Mall.
Larry- |
08-13-2011
( Reply#: 6808 ) |
Bill Bucko |
I bought a set of 8 small Miller prehistorics around 1958 at Woolworth's, for I think it was $ 2.98. They included the 6 in your photo, plus brontosaurus and brontops (a mammal, copied from the Rudolph Zallinger mural). They came in a yellow cardboard and plastic carrying case. Would be worth a thousand dollars today, if in the condition I bought them!
Bill
Warren G. Harding Class of '63 |
08-13-2011
( Reply#: 6815 ) |
HassoBenSoba |
Here I am on Christmas morning of 1959, proudly surveying my new set of Miller "mini"-dinos; brother Mike is in the background messing with his new Marx Cape Canaveral set. (Mike had posted this same pic somewhere on Sheptalk a few years ago).
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/59Christmas0001.jpg[/IMG]
Bill--pardon my nit-picking, but the mammal of the set was a teleoceras (same family as the brontops); I was only aware of this because the name was printed on the yellow cardbaord carrying case.
Larry |
08-14-2011
( Reply#: 6816 ) |
Bill Bucko |
On the contrary -- "BRONTOPS" was printed plain as day on the yellow carrying case I bought! I am quite certain of it. I was a young dinosaur "expert" too, you know!
If you clearly remember reading "teleoceras" (which I never saw or heard of in my youth), it must be that Miller issued two different versions.
Bill
Warren G. Harding Class of '63 |
08-14-2011
( Reply#: 6818 ) |
HassoBenSoba |
Oh, Yeah?? We'll see about that...
Just kidding. I may try to get ahold of one of those magazine articles and see what it says. I suppose anything's possible, especially after 52 years.
LR
|
08-15-2011
( Reply#: 6827 ) |
Bill Bucko |
quote:
Originally posted by HassoBenSoba
Oh, Yeah?? We'll see about that...
Just kidding. I may try to get ahold of one of those magazine articles and see what it says. I suppose anything's possible, especially after 52 years.
LR
Dinosaur Collectibles, by Dana Cain and Mike Fredericks, page 33, lists the Miller figure as Brontops.
The article in "Prehistoric Times" magazine, No. 26, has a photo on page 29 also labeling it as Brontops. It was colored gray, just as in the Zallinger mural (which also includes a Teleoceros).
Surviving examples are rare; in the roughly ten years I've been watching Ebay for Miller figures, NOT ONE Brontops has shown up!
P.S. The magazine article denies what several people (including myself) claim: that there was a much larger series of Miller figures. I KNOW I owned a huge stegosaurus (a little over 5" tall, and very bulky) for several years. Exactly like the so-called "large" Miller stegosaurus: same waxy material, same openings on the bottom of the feet, same color scheme. Yet dealer and expert Mario DeMarco has talked with people who have seen the Miller factory's records, and they can find no record of the larger series!! It is a mystery. But I KNOW what I held in my hand and played with for several years, around 1957-59!
Bill
Warren G. Harding Class of '63 |
08-17-2011
( Reply#: 6850 ) |
HassoBenSoba |
OK--
So check this out. It's the "NORTH STAR" alien from the Miller Company's "Earth Invaders" from 1958. This is an E-Bay photo of an original that is intact, but with lots of paint-wear. The design is really off-the-wall; my younger sister liked him because he looked like two spoons stuck together. Our imaginations went crazy when we discovered these guys in Newberry's in Woodmar.
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/NorthStar.jpg[/IMG]
"NORTH STAR" |
08-28-2011
( Reply#: 6890 ) |
HassoBenSoba |
HERE'S TWO MORE of the Bizarre "Earth Invaders" from the Miller company's 1958 set.
This is the alien from CERES, another of the totally-wacked out creations; looks like an African ceremonial mask on top of a spider-like body--
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/MillerCeres.jpg[/IMG]
And this humanoid/bird-like/lightning bug combo is the SATURN critter.
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/MillerSat.jpg[/IMG]
I remember that my grandmother had taken my brother MIke shopping one Saturday in early '59; before my mother and I left home to go pick him up, Mike said to me on the phone:"Wait til you see what I got today!". The suspense was killing me, and when we got to the Gramster's house Mike whips out his new SATURN DUDE-- I was thrilled, but also bummed that I hadn't gotten it first.
LR |
08-28-2011
( Reply#: 6892 ) |
seejay2 |
This stuff reminds me of the grocery store across the street from Ace theater. This was long after it was an A&P. They had a 'gumball' type of machine in the doorway that dispensed rubber insects and spiders and such in clear plastic capsules at 25 cents a rap. Lots of spiders and grasshoppers and stuff, but only one scorpion, that we could see. We blew more quarters on that crap trying to get that scorpion, knowing that whoever the lucky guy was to get it would immediately be raised to diety status. I remember the manager coming over there and shaking the hell out of the machine so that one of us could get the little devil. Somebody did, it wasn't me and I really don't remember who it was. He was probably assumed up into the clouds at that point, that's why.
Anyway, that pretty much closed the Rubber Bug chapter of the book in my crowd...Cj |
08-28-2011
( Reply#: 6893 ) |
HassoBenSoba |
CJ--
Yeah, those gumball things can drive you nuts. My little niece wanted a pink plush pig out of one of those big arcade-type machines with stuffed toys that was in the entrance of our local Sterk's store. I tried to get that sucker for weeks using up lots of change, and finally went to the night manager, who I knew; he said that if I came back at closing time, he'd use his key to open the arcade and sell the pig to me. So I returned at 5 minutes to midnight---we walk over to the machine--and the damn' pig was gone. Such are the lessons of life.
Congratulations on your 500th post!
Larry r |
08-28-2011
( Reply#: 6895 ) |
seejay2 |
500!?!?!? Man I didn't even realize that I had that kind of time on my hands! Do you think that maybe a TV crew and some celebrity will be pounding on my door to hand me a poster sized check for an unbelievable amout of money?? Oh boy, I wonder when they'll be here.
OK, enough buffoonery.
I used to tutor a guy who's job it was filling those arcade machines and he said that there was a set pattern on placing those animals in there to make it near impossible to win.
Do you remember the story about a little kid who climbed up the discharge chute into one of those machines in a store? Fire department had to come and get him out.
Terry (my student) decided to fake a picture like that and simply opened the front of the machine and put his son in it and then took pix. I saw the pix. Loved it!!
By the way, the store manager took the pig, before you came, and gave it to his own kids...Cj
|
09-09-2011
( Reply#: 6942 ) |
Bill Bucko |
A dealer has just offered a number of Miller prehistoric figures on Ebay, including the rarest:
brontops:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140604128063&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123
trachodon:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=370541341468&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123
protoceratops:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=370541340621&ssPageName=ADME:B:SS:US:1123
with several good photos of each.
In good times, I'd expect each to go for over $200. But given the recession, they might go for less. Still, I'm sure they'll be out of my price range.
Bill
Warren G. Harding Class of '63 |
09-09-2011
( Reply#: 6943 ) |
HassoBenSoba |
BILL--
Thanks for posting this; these 3 Millers are in GREAT condition, especially considering that they were manufactured 52 years ago and are pretty fragile; somebody obviously took good care of them.
I'm tempted to bid on the Teleoceras...oops..Brontops.
Larry |
09-16-2011
( Reply#: 6963 ) |
Jim Plummer |
Hey guys, I have a question. Why are dinos so cool? We all love them but if they were around today-life wouldn't be so pleasant.
I used to see coin machines where you could make your own plastic dino while you watched. These machines would be at places like the zoo etc. |
09-17-2011
( Reply#: 6969 ) |
Tom J |
quote:
Originally posted by Jim Plummer
Hey guys, I have a question. Why are dinos so cool? We all love them but if they were around today-life wouldn't be so pleasant.
I used to see coin machines where you could make your own plastic dino while you watched. These machines would be at places like the zoo etc.
I don't know about that, Jim. Heck, Larry is still around and life is pretty good. [:D]
Tom |
09-17-2011
( Reply#: 6970 ) |
HassoBenSoba |
TOM---
Now that you mention it, I've been feeling pretty prehistoric lately.
Jim--I believe that those dino-making machines you mention used the same basic technology that the Miller company did: they blew air into a dino-shaped mould filled with hot wax, leaving the open blow-holes on the bottom of each figure's feet---as you can see in this underside view of the 1959 mini Brontops figure:
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/MillerBrontops.jpg[/IMG]
The wax could only take so much abuse, which is why so few of the Miller figures have survived intact.
Incidentally---here's GROUP photo of all of the Miller "Earth Invaders" from 1958 displayed together---
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/MillerAliens1.jpg[/IMG]
The guy in the LOWER LEFT-HAND corner was the "Big Dipper" alien, and one of the wildest; looks like a hunk of green cheese with a nasty disposition. In the LOWER RIGHT-HAND corner is the alien from URANUS ('scuse me?!), probably the most surreal of them all, with his gigantic furry bear legs/paws and the tiny "pin-head" (as my mother called it) torso and head. His right hand was originally holding a huge black CLUB, but it's broken off in this particular specimen. This URANUS alien is the only one that I own an original of, and it's complete except for the lower part of its left arm. I think I paid $75 for it about 15 years ago, and he's now under glass.
TOM-- How about that big countdown to your 1,000th POST??
Larry |
09-17-2011
( Reply#: 6971 ) |
HassoBenSoba |
Here's another ancient treat from the Archives---
In January of 1959, having just received most of the Miller Aliens for Christmas and afterwards, I sat at the snackbar of our kitchen and drew THIS PICTURE of the Miller Aliens on a piece of WCFL station paper that my dad had brought home. You can compare my attempt to illustrate the figures with the actual photos above. Hey, what do you expect from a 7-year old?[:I]
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/MillerAlienDrawing590001.jpg[/IMG]
This pic has obviously survived many years.
LR |
09-18-2011
( Reply#: 6974 ) |
Bill Bucko |
Nice drawing. Seriously. As a former Montessori teacher, I like the innocent, unsophisticated way children draw. I still have lots of kids' artwork up on my walls.
Bill
Warren G. Harding Class of '63 |
12-24-2011
( Reply#: 7794 ) |
HassoBenSoba |
HERE's the Final Item that I have for posting on this thread, which I intentionally left for Christmas Eve.
This is probably my all-time favorite old family-album picture; it's Mike and me on CHRISTMAS EVE, 1958---
thrilled out of our minds, having just unwrapped my set of seven Miller "Earth Invaders" aliens which came from
Newberry's in Woodmar Shopping Center.
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/58XmaseveMiller.jpg[/IMG]
FORTY YEARS LATER, on Christmas night, 1998, Mike and I re-posed the same pic at my dad's house,
using a set of RESIN re-casts of the Miller aliens, which we ordered from a guy in New York.
[IMG]http://i989.photobucket.com/albums/af12/HassoBenSoba/MilllerAlienChristmas0001.jpg[/IMG]
AND, YES----- most of the ornaments on the tree in BOTH PICTURES are exactly the same ones, having been preserved for
40 years at that point. Now, it's more than FIFTY YEARS (see the new ornament pic I just posted on
the "Jefferson School" thread. The green and red tin-foil garland that's on the tree in BOTH of these pics ('58 and '98)
is still displayed by me every year (it also appeared in my 2009 "MEL BLANC's CHRISTMAS TREE" video on You-Tube).
SO HERE'S WISHING A MERRY ONE TO MIKE, wherever he is.
LR |
12-24-2011
( Reply#: 7795 ) |
Tom J |
Oh, Man, Lar, that is really something! I love it!
I sure wish Mike was still with us. He and I had just become good Internet buddies when he left us. I know you miss him something awful. You guys were close.
Merry Christmas!
Tomster |
12-25-2011
( Reply#: 7802 ) |
HassoBenSoba |
TOM--
THANKS for your kind words; I was glad that you and Mike were
good Sheptalk pals, and that you welcomed me into the fold.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!
Larry |
