Toys: It All Started with A Missing Box of Monopoly

I've never had my own Monopoly board game when I was a child. My cousins had a set and since we all stayed together naturally we didn't need to get another set. We (me, my elder sister and my two elder cousins) had loads of fun acquiring land, building houses, hotels and making each other bankrupt. I especially love those metal pieces representing each player. My favourite pieces were the hat and shoe.

Fast forward to circa 1998 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I was studying for my art diploma and stayed in a mother-fucking shit hole of a rundown rented flat. The place was so dilapidated I had occasional nightmares about the slime in the bathroom got attached to my feet and started devouring me. However two good things came out of the living hell: I made friends with a bunch of very cool seniors – it was the first time I ever saw a woman parading her bare tits, realised a person will not die instantly no matter how much a person smoked (that person was not me, for the record) and a person can have so much sex until they lost consciousness (again, not me, I merely helped dragged the unconscious back into the room he just had sex in); And the other good thing: I found a box of 1970s Monopoly, almost mint, apart from being yellowed by age.

I checked with everyone in the flat if it was theirs as I found it in one of the many unused cupboards in the living room. I also checked with the landlord and nobody seemed to want it. So I took it back with me to Penang when I finished my study. And in my room it stayed, untouched, for a few years. I would occasionally marvelled at how new and complete the game board and its bank notes were because it's obvious they've only been very gently played with (my cousins' board were almost torn in two and most of the notes were all curled up at the corners from the heavy play).

I started working in Singapore 10 years ago so my room in my grandparents' home has not been occupied since but the door was not locked just in case my visiting aunt needed a room to spend her nights. At this point my cousins and their parents already moved to a new home of their own and so did my parents and siblings. The occupants who were still there were my grandparents, my uncle TB and his son SP.

About 7 years ago, my grandparents' home went under renovation during mid-year. It was a spur of the moment decision by my grandfather after his visited one of his friend's refurbished house. It couldn't wait until I came back to pack my things up. They told me all my stuff would remain in the room while they renovated the place.

By the next Chinese New Year, when I had my spring break, I went back to my grandparent's house to re-organise my room and hopefully able to move some stuff to my parent's current home (which was small and didn't have a room for me but they did have a store room of sort). Guess what? I couldn't find the Monopoly.

I was extremely upset but what could I have done? It could've been the renovator, uncle TB (who has a habit of selling things at Penang's famous Thief's Market for some spare cash) or his son SP. So upset as I was, I told myself it didn't belong to me in the first place, so hopefully now it's gone to some caring hands. I tried to just let it go but the memory of it never really went away.

5 years ago, my parents moved again to another house. The house came with TWO storerooms so it was really great for me to store all my childhood stuff I didn't bring with me to Singapore. When I was going through my stuff, something which I've totally forgotten about after Primary School (1988) caught my eye and fond memories came flooding back:


Source: http://www.toydreams.co.uk/mask/maskboxed.html

There are tonnes of MASK literature online so I'm not going to repeat here. As you can see from the box, DYNAMO is an off road vehicle which will split into 2 – a chopper and an assault cart. It also comes with two action figures, neat. The other one I had was VANDAL, a bulldozer which splits into a plane and a jeep. Also with two action figures. This is a bad guy. I was very happy to have re-found them! BUT...

YES BUT! Just 3 months ago, I had a break in Penang and I was going to bring these two toys back to Singapore. GUESS WHAT? I COULD NOT FIND THEM! I've looked everywhere in both storerooms but I just don't know where they were hiding. Over the years my mum had shifted things around and added other stuff to those storerooms but she assured me she hasn't thrown anything out (when we were younger she threw away a working Polaroid camera citing expensive films, she threw away MANY things...) and I trusted her on this one because I've nagged at her (haha role reversal) over the years not to simply throw away my childhood memories and certain things become valuable with age. (07 Dec 2012 Update: Apparently there is a THIRD storeroom! Mum shifted my MASK toys and some other stuff there!!)

This frustrating incident, my sentimental feelings working overtime coupled with the sad memory of the missing Monopoly opened a flood gate on, you guessed it, eBay! And what a wonderful place it is! One can find anything, SIMPLY ANYTHING! As long as you have the money for it and know when to stop, it is one of the best places on the Internet.

My quest begun with getting back the one I used to have: DYNAMO. And it arrived yesterday! I LOVE parcels!



And I think the two Bruce Satos are very happy to be here!

This is for back-up just in case I really can't find the old one when I go back again to Penang this coming August. I'm gonna move everything out of those storerooms and open every boxes!

Anyways, DYNAMO came in a sealed box with the cardboard insert and the stickers are still not applied yet! It's like buying a new 80s toy! And I think it's been stored in a warehouse that's built underground because the colour on the box are still vividly clear and nice (ad agencies should build a warehouse like this to store their precious precious Pantone charts).

Oh I just noticed my previous entry was dated 17 June 2010, about the same time I started my eBay frenzy (sometimes I bid till 5am), which I had to put a stop to yesterday haha. So yes, more things from eBay to come!