Alco Archives - PS

Man of Graphite

Mantooth — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 04:00:00 +0000

Another one down in my quest for these awesome superhero pencil sharpeners of my youth, this Superman is particularly great although it does beg the question:

Why is his midriff bare?

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Super Sharp

Mantooth — Tue, 10 Sep 2013 04:00:00 +0000

This past weekend while I set up at Canadian Toycon, my son made a comment about what he hoped to find and how I’ll probably go home with nothing, as usual. This is usually the case, as I’m pretty much into oddball things while he loves that unsold Star Wars prequel merchandise, toy shows are pretty much his oyster.

So, I was elated to turn a corner and run into these wonderful carded pencil sharpeners by Alco. I have been quietly trying to piece together a set of their Superhero school supplies for years, not by ebay searches but merely by finding them at shows and antique malls.

Above is Batman and below is Wonder Woman in although that’s pretty obvious, I don’t know how many they made in this set as they’re made later than the ones I remember but I look forward to finding out….

The Alco sharpeners are in my book:

Rack Toys: Cheap, Crazed Playthings is a limited edition 144 page book from the creator of Plaid Stallions. Order from us and get three free promotional post cards.

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Bat Math

Mantooth — Tue, 14 Aug 2012 04:30:00 +0000

I have known weakness and affection for the superhero school supplies created by Alco in the mid 1970s. So I was overjoyed to find this recently at a toy show, a Batman slide rule that I had no idea existed.

Now my mind races if Batman was the only character in the line of slide rules, seeing as Alco used characters like Shazam and Superman for other merchandise. Is there an Aquaman or Wonder Woman slide rule? Am I seriously contemplating collecting them all?

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Superheroic School Supplies

Mantooth — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 04:01:00 +0000

One of my sideline obsessions (because I need more) are these mid seventies to early eighties superhero school supplies by Alco. I proudly had the Batman from this set on my desk as a kid and I remember our local stationary store (remember those?) had a display of these in the window.

This Shazam is the sole carded entry into the series, I remember seeing it as a kid wondering why he was holding a lighting bolt like that.

This Wonder Woman is a later run by Alco, Wonder Woman is usually the first one you find of most vintage toy lines.

Stumbled on these at a local toy show of all places. As you can see my collection isn’t huge, it probably wasn’t wise to turn on others to this, see you on ebay!

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