Amazing Toys of Marvin Glass: 1950's to 1974 by Joyce Grant

When I apply for ARCs on Netgalley, I usually go for the romances because that's kind of my thing. But sometimes these rando titles appear, and they're so off-the-wall, I can't help myself - I apply for that sh*t.

THE AMAZING TOYS OF MARVIN GLASS is a collector's guide-cum-art book cataloguing the brainchildren of Marvin Glass, an influential toy designer whose greatest influence spanned from the mid-50s to the early-70s. Some notable toys of his that you may recognize are Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots, Operation, Ants in the Pants, and Mystery Date, to name a few.

The pictures in this book are high quality and look glossy. It's an ebook, so I can't really talk about page quality or anything like that, but based on the resolution in my e-copy, I'd guess that this would be really nice in hard cover.

Each picture of each toy has a price range from what the toy would be worth in good condition with the original packaging and what it would be worth mint. Most of them are still fairly affordable, not much more expensive than a new board game would be if you purchased it from the store. I'm a board game fiend, and I was amazed at how fun some of these board games looked. There's one called Billionaire, one about auctions, one that looks like Clue(do) except with witches called Which Witch? Oh, and then there's a haunted mansion one! I think some of these games need re-releases.

At the end of the book, you find out the author is a collector and seller of these toys, herself, and it includes a link to her webpage, timewarptoys.com. I believe she said that she was in business since 1996, which is pretty impressive. But not surprising. I've noticed that a lot of these collector books are written by collectors, and I like that, because their passion really shows in how the book is put together and in the knowledge of the material. I've gotten two other books from Netgalley about collectors, one about knockoff barbies from the 60s-80s and one about Victorian glass domes and esoterica, and both were absolutely wonderful and fun to read.

If you are a fan of toys, grew up in the 50s-70s, like vintage things, or enjoy quirky coffee table books, I think you would enjoy AMAZING TOYS OF MARVIN GLASS. It was a breezy read, and I had a great time flipping through it (figuratively) in between historical romance novels.

4 out of 5 stars!