One of my all-time favourite heroes of toy making is Don Poynter from Cincinnati Ohio. He was born in
1925, he's 96 years old... or young!... and he made the most wonderful toys to make Americans laugh,
throughout the 60s 70s and 80s. I came across in the early 80s and corresponded with him.
The stuff he's made is unbelievable. The first thing he was known for apparently was
whiskey flavoured toothpaste. Did you ever see it? No, I never did. But for me the thing he was best
known for, when has gone around the world, is this thing here, which is the Bandit Box,
the thing that pinches the coin and puts it inside. So along with other items, I've got about 20 of
these brochures showing his items, and these ones here which I'm showing on the table; but that
best known one I'll show you first, because it's the one that's been copied the most, I think.
The Bandit Box - that's all it was; I'll just turn it this way round... so all you have
to do is put a coin on, a coin you want to save. So here we are, here's a one cent American piece...
It didn't pick it up that time... let's try again...
wooo... then it pinched it! Yes, it's getting a bit old, poor old thing! But it's
extraordinary isn't it? I'll do it one more time, then I'll tip it upside down and empty it.
I like this action, with it slowly moving around; that builds up your suspense doesn't it!
Beautiful! My goodness me. So this one has been copied many many times, by Taiwanese and all sorts
of people; but I think this is probably the best of them; the one that he invented and it's got I
think the most satisfying mechanism. He went to Japan for all his products; he found a
company that he tied up with, and spent at least two months of the year in Japan, overseeing the
production of these wonderful items. Now these ones here are all coin banks. This one here
for instance I got quite recently, the late 80s instead of the early 80s;
it looks like a flower, it's battery operated - there's the battery at the bottom -
and something's going to happen when you put a coin on it.
It's supposed to be a dangerous looking Venus Flytrap; a little bit of shaking and the coins come out again;
Let's do one more... I feel it ought to burp afterwards, because it's eaten two coins now;
so there we are. Those two are a fairly early one, and then a later one. This is
curious, because it's not battery operated. It's something that 'spoon feeds' coins...
a bit tricky this one because you've got to get the coin in the right place, and the right weight
of coins; but we'll have a go. We put the coin on there, we'll push this down, and we then release it...
oh it's gone back on here; let's see if i can put it a little bit further back. You can see what's going
to happen - the mouth is going to open and hopefully gobble up your coin, which you're trying to save.
Let's do it one more time... put it on here...
leave it on the top there... just push it right down... I'm pushing against a little sucker there...
Beautiful - well done! After all those years. These are all 40 year old toys.
What's amazing about them is they are Japanese, so the engineering is good, and they're lasting really
very well indeed. This is the most extraordinary one... I'll just take this coin out, and show this one here,
which is most extraordinary; this really fooled me, when I first saw it I couldn't believe my eyes.
It's a dog; when you push that down, out comes a long tongue, and quickly put your coin on...
He's gobbled it up! Isn't that extraordinary! Let's do one more, shall we?
Push that back - it's battery operation of course -
a bit longer... you've got to be quite quick... you have to hurry up put it on... and it gobbles
it up. My goodness me. There's a battery at the bottom like that and
well done 'Fido' - he's saved two cents there! That's pretty good! Oh, there's my other coin.
Then here's something else which is also functional, as opposed to just pure jokey, but
this is quite jokey; the idea is in the old days the stamps needed to be licked
by the tongue. So this is a 'Postmistress.' You have to first of all fill that with water put
ordinary tap water in there, and then it's ready to use. And in the water is a large tongue, which you are
about to see. When you push this, out it comes... get your stamp which needs to be licked, touch it on
there, which will be nice and wet, let go of it and stick it on the envelope, and it's ready
to go! Very clever idea. What a bizarre mechanism though. Of course nowadays stamps are
self adhesive, and come on greaseproof paper, and you just unpeel them. But that's
an extraordinary mechanism. He does do wonderful things! This is a bizarre one,
because it's not functional like these ones, it doesn't collect coins or lick stamps;
it just does something bizarre! It looks like I've got to put a coin in there doesn't it? So let's have a go...
Put a coin in... there we are... put it in...
Oh it's vibrating... now watch very carefully at the back here...
Did you see it? No, you probably missed it. I'll do it one more time...
It's only a very brief message. There are different messages - they give you 10 labels, saying
things like 'sucker' and so on; but my favourite is this one here, because it says.... you watch...
now hold it steady and watch this carefully... 'OUT OF ORDER' - well hang on a sec, okay it's out of order,
what does it do when it is in order? No idea! And it said nothing about it in the instructions...
Well, it's tongue in the cheek, and it's a lovely idea, that takes your money off you
and I suppose you are a sucker if you keep putting your money in it, but it's entertaining too isn't it!
I think the first one I got of Don Poynter's pieces was this thing here, would you believe, which
is a golf ball joke; and there's lots of these around, but this is probably the most advanced.
It's a wind-up golf ball, would you believe! And the key is a solid one rather than a hollow square,
it's got a solid square, and you put it in, you've got to wind it up, you've got to make sure it's
turned off at the back here, and do a few turns, and it's got funny little feet which allow it to
walk on the turf, not the fairway but on the green; it's got a little button at the back here
which you hit with your golf club; so you lay it gently down on the green, quite close to
the hole, if you imagine me hitting it like this with the golf club, then what happens? It walks!
I thought it would walk straight into the hole, but no, instead it decides to do a meander
around the hole probably, like that. But it's a walking golf ball and it's got these little
legs going like that. Extraordinary and that those legs are made so they'll walk on the grass,
if you get on the green. Also when I was contacting Don I'd lost a lot of these keys,
because I kept on losing them to kids; He very kindly got his manager
in Japan to send me a dozen more keys, which I'm very pleased with. Now these I think are
my two favourites of all these toys, all the 12 or 14 that I've got; especially
this one here I suppose. This is a wonderful bizarre thing; it's not a coin bank,
it's just a completely bizarre thing. Because when you switch it on, which you obviously want to do,
that's right, it turns itself off! This was the original; lots of people have copied this,
but none of them have built up the suspense with movement and noise etcetera, which I like.
According to the brochures I've got, this was actually copyrighted slightly earlier,
so perhaps he made this version first. Turn it on, and it's got this wonderful high voltage insulator;
It is trying to turn itself off...!
Yes well, this is 40 years old; all these toys are 40 years old. So you have to
expect a bit of that; but that was a wonderful concept, when I first saw that;
and at parties the children laughed and laughed, and they thought it was so bizarre!
This is a bizarre one which I acquired in 1986 I think, but I've only just come across it again;
I showed it when I was showing bee toys, and Don Poynter I think patented it about 1985;
and it's got a bee there, suspended over a flower, because there's a little invisible bit of cord
coming down from the top, nylon cord; there's a magnet in the bee and there's a magnet in the flower,
so they're attracting each other; and when I put that down, it'll come back to there;
and on the display counter apparently they had something that shivered like this, and made it
move all the time; the slightest bit of movement and the bee's body moves, due to the clever way of
balancing the thing, so it's very very chaotic. And the wings shimmer and it just looks wonderful.
So a very very nice toy, no batteries involved, just a charming little thing to entertain kids. A good one!
Here's something which is very iffy because I've had it for so long, but there we are; and I
didn't realize it was a Don Poynter item until I looked at the catalogue he sent me in 1984.
The idea is it's a joke lighter which instead of squirting you in the face or doing something
with an electric shock, I've got both those in my collection, does this - it's got this stuff here
which you have to shake into it, and the switch doesn't seem to be working anymore, so I'll just
make a nice mess; do you mind me making a mess? I put this in here upside down, push it down like that,
yeah... foam foam foam... look - coming out of the top as well... squirt squirt... oh well...
there we are. So it's a joke lighter which squirts foam all over you; on my nose as well!
There we are. For the last two I'm going to get up and just come over to here, and then see if I can
reach across for the ultimate one. This one here
it might work or it might not, but it's certainly a very bizarre one;
I'll have to explain it perhaps; but let's see what happens. I'll push this...
Oh! His trousers have dropped, and there we are - his face lights up! That's right. So that's
what happens. He looks all menacing and then, oh embarrassment, because his trousers suddenly drop,
his hands come across because he's feeling you know protective about himself,
he doesn't want to expose himself, and he's lights up with a nice red light there,
because well - it's not working very well - because he's embarrassed, he's an embarrassed Frankenstein!
The last one I think I picked up about
third or fourth of my Don Poynter toys; this is just wonderful - it's such a bizarre idea.
It's a box which you have to do something with; in fact what you do is you push down like that...
oh my goodness me... it's pouring a drink! I'm going to try and stop it from doing another
round as well. There we are. So it pours you a drink, a shot of whiskey, and gives me a chance to
celebrate the work of Donald Poynter. What a man. Donald Poynter - he's a tremendous inventor.
Cheers mate - you really made me laugh!