Have any of you ever seen a Schuco Perfume Monkey? Made in Germany around the late 1920's, these little guys came in a variety of sizes and mohair fur color, highlighted with the oddball surprise of a hidden perfume bottle tucked inside. Just remove the head to find the corked glass tube nestled halfway in its brain, and sliding all the way down into his body cavity (like his spine has been replaced with a bottle.) This is the second one I've found, and unfortunately it also contains no perfume, nor even the slightest scent of one. I do hope it was banana scented though! Anyway, the monkey itself is fully jointed like a child's toy, and couldn't be more "adorable" with felt paws, and a metal painted face. Those cold, dead eyes make him look like he possibly swallowed a bottle of poisonous perfume or something. For an even more interesting variant on the Schuco monkeys, CLICK HERE for the compact version, where the body splits right down the middle and the monkey graphically opens up to reveal a mirror hidden within his torso-- no fooling!
It's like you got a monkey's paw and wished for the rest of the monkey!
ReplyDeleteOoh, I love that. Definitely a perfect place to hide the potions. Some ancient apothecary's Pez dispenser.
ReplyDeleteI remember decorative perfume and cologne sets from the seventies--do they still make them? In my childhood it was the thing at all the holidays: Glass race cars, windmills, dogs, etc.--all filled with overpowering smell. I used to play with them like toys for sure. Nobody ever threw anything away, thankfully, so the old cedar cabinets of my grandparents' house were always stuffed with models from years past. The clear ones look neat as hell filled with dyed water and arranged together. I sure wish I'd had one of these monkeys when I was a kid! It would look quite fetching loaded with glowing green Re-Animator reagent.
You're talking about the Avon perfume and cologne bottles, Mr C. Know them very well, and I've uploaded quite a few Avon posts here over the years, but one example of what you're referring to is this one:
ReplyDeletehttps://andeverythingelsetoo.blogspot.com/2017/08/courting-carriage.html