We collect unusual toys, and with a collection of over 20,000 (and rising!) that have been bought over the last 30 years, there is a wide variety of amazing things to share with you!
We don't do dolls! Our toys might have a fun or unusual mechanism, can be used to amaze or puzzle people, are a bit magical or maybe a bit scientific. Whatever the angle, they have to have something a bit 'special' about them.
Nearly all the toys you see here are from Tim's Toy Collection, and are no longer available in the shops. Many were bought 20 or even 30 years ago!
However we do have a small range of items that can be bought on-line. You can visit the Grand Illusions Toy Shop, www.grand-illusions.com
4:00 This one looks like an attachement point for a bicycle basket. The moving part locks the basket into place, but pulling on it you can lift the basket out of the lock. The round part clips on the bicycles steering rod. Could be missing a spring, could be from something else, but it looks like a locking mechanism for bicycle baskets.
Back in the 70’s there was a baby bottle system that used a bag as the bottle and it was placed in a plastic bottle shaped tube and the last device was used to “install” the bag in the tube. The idea was the bag was flexible and would collapse as the baby drank and that was supposed to reduce the amount of gas in the babies stomach.
Those two steel balls, which swivel to open some slots, remind me a lot of those balls you insert in the washing machine to capture the dye that leaks out from certain clothes while being washed at high temperatures. The cotton ball seems like a hint to its purpose, as it would absorb most of the dye by capillary action. Either that or it's used to dose a solid detergent to be used in the washing machine.
The red and black item may be a stack seperator. You hook it on the edge of a surface so the stack sits just on the small flat part. Then when you need to pick up the stack, you push the red piece in and it makes a centimeter gap to get your fingers under. I can imagine using it for tiles or other heavy items that are stored in stacks
The white bulb-shaped thing is an egg separator. You squeeze it to suck up an egg yolk. The green tool is for removing a staple from a stack of papers. And the silver balls are for your shoes. The cotton ball inside is soaked in a deodorizing chemical.
I haven't seen one of those red and black things in years! I'm having such nostalgia. And I looked over the comments and saw no one else knows what they're for. So I guess it's my time to shine! My uncle, who was all of our favorites. Me, my brother Jed and my sister Sam. Anyway. He always had that red and black thing. We asked him what it was for and Read More
This may be how gravity works. The relationship that locks them together. Maybe Terrance Howard, Walter Russell were right about our understanding of electromagnetism and gravity and how Einstein shouldn't have put electricity and magnetism as the same force, they are equal and opposite reactions. I've watched people experiment recently with magnets, small magnets, roughly 24 of them. When they are all together but they aren't touching, like in this video when one is moved it creates a ripple through the rest, maybe this is what we're seeing with gravitational waves. Apparently we detected two black holes merge one 30 x the mass and another 32x the mass of our Sun and it created gravitational waves problem was, this merger lost ALOT of mass and they couldn't explain what happened to it. Maybe there's some answers done this route
It's true about the first one. But, I also seen it offered for acoustic guitars. Effectively, anything made of wood that would (heh) suffer if it dried out.
The black and red thing almost looks like one of those tools people use to tie up balloons. Honestly i can never get them to work because they are so bulky but maybe thats why the piece comes out.
The chrome balls: You put aromatic oils on the cotton ball, and shove them in your stinky shoes or other places. You can rotate the half of the ball to open or close the vents.
The green thing is a staple puller, egonomic. The metal part goes between the top of the staple and the paper - then you squeeze the bar down, and it'll pull the staple out into a sort of M or W shape. The silver colored balls with the vent openings are mothball type devices or odor control balls - they've got lots of different uses.
Add Text: Doing something you shouldn't be doing late at night and then a eulers disk. Hahahaha so funny guys, just like the other 500 people. Amirite?
The green scissors is a paper joiner. It is like a staple without the metal clip, it is used when you have to put a small group of paper together like a letter written in that thin paper used for air mail. Just clip the corner of the papers and the hole will keep them together.
Silver Balls I've seen new in box before and are shoe deodourisers as others have mentioned, you soak the cotton in a sent of choice, adjust the opening to desired strength and pop them in when you put the shoes away. White Bulb I've seen new too, it is for seperating yolks from eggs as often you'll only want the yolk or white in some cooking processes or recipes.
The silver balls are shoe fresheners. I used to use those all the time for my hockey skates. Twist them to where there's no openings and it doesn't activate them. Twist them to where there's openings and the scent comes out of them and seeps into your shoes. The yellow and black thing I remember as a pool toy they just flip. The green thing is made for removing staples. I don't know what the black and red thing is but it seems that it goes on a flat edge and separates the stack of something. The white bulb with a plastic end pieces for removing egg yolks. And I believe that White and chrome object baby bottles in some way.
the silver balls are sneaker fresheners. Ive seen them sold at Walmart forever ago. You twist them closed while you wear the sneakers. Then Open them up and put them in your shoes when you are done. White bulb thing seems to be an egg yolk separator. It seems the red and black bit is part of an e-stop or interlock switch.
The first I did indeed get right, a Dampit style bass humidifier, but I've never seen a green one, they're usually a rather dull greyish.. The others I've no idea about, but I can believe the egg separator theory.. Most intriguing! Thank you Tim. 🌟👍
SPOILER: The answer to the first one surprised me because the acoustic guitars have owned have come containing a packet of some kind of silicate gel that REMOVES humidity. (You see something that does that in some bottles of pills, too.) So, why is the upright bass to be MORE humidified? Presumably this is used more in Arizona or the rain-shadow desert of the High Andes than in New Orleans or Scotland?
I think the silica gel is to remove crazy excess condensation that may arise during day/night temperature changes in a shipping container going from full sun to freezing nights for weeks at sea. Think water on the inside of window panes if you live somewhere cold- it can get close to a shot glass of moisture each night. Constant changes in humidity cause wood to move, and eventually crack. Woodwind instruments that you blow into are often slowly 'bedded in' with light, occasional use for this reason- to avoid cracking. I know upright bass players in the humid UK who use such products... I'm not really sure why they err on the more humid side of things, and I'm not an expert, but classical instruments DO crack when exposed to variations in humidity. Maybe it's the woods or finishes used, or simply the fact that that good ones are wanted to last for for generations, not decades. I hope that's vaguely helpful info!
@@martyclakson9226 Thanks. My father once went to an outdoor concert in Los Angeles. Since the orchestra was under a hardshell pavilion shaped like a tent, they didn't quit for a rainstorm. An oboe or clarinet split in half, and a grand piano (his memory is it was a Steinway) was ruined.
I thought the one made of white squeezy rubber and hard clear plastic was an ordinary turkey-baster with a missing set of changeable barrels because if you're roasting quails only a philistine would use the same gauge or cali'ber of baster on quails as they'd use for a turkey. I've had to suffer through chewing and pretending to enjoy sw'allowing many a quail or Cornish game-hen ruined by having been basted with the overk'ill baster designed for a turkey. It is shocking, I know, and I hope this Comment doesn't cause distress, but there ARE people who DO such things. Such is the modern deca'dent age in which we live.
The blank and red item may have been designed to be used as a safety switch on some machine. Removing the red paddle would prevent the machine from starting.
