MOLDVILLE Automatic Souvenir Factories

That great 1960s SMELL!

This is the story of MOLDVILLE's attempt to recreate the legendary smell of 1960s Mold-A-Rama of L.A. machines and toys.

I myself am not lucky enough to have a memory of ever having seen a Mold-A-Rama of L.A. machine back in the day, but some people do. And those that do invariably speak about the wonderful SMELL of the experience. People similarly speak of the wonderful smell of the earliest JH MILLER plastic toys made in the late 1950s that were made from an earlier, manufacturing version of the Mold-A-Rama of L.A. machine. But nobody knows the source of the scent. Was it created by the hot raw plastic? Or from the colorant? Or from an additive?

I have spent the past year researching this. I have been lucky enough to have gathered some information about the original Sinclair wax from confidential sources - but none of the information tells us what the composition of the wax plastic was. We DO know that the wax plastic was (and is still) a polyethylene, as was the plastic used in the late 1950s by JH MILLER, but that's really about all we know for sure.

I started my research by gathering what may (or may not be) 1960s era wax stuck in the nooks and crannies of the supply hoppers in back of old Mold-A-Rama of L.A. machines, particularly machines that were sold by the original Mold-A-Rama, Inc. of L.A. company to operators as parts machines in the very late 1960s. We found three separate samples this way. I figured that most likely these samples of plastic in its supply form would be from the early 1970s - but with a decent chance that maybe at least one of them is in fact Sinclair wax from the 1960s.

Below a bit of the first sample of raw supply wax is pictured - let's call it OLD WAX #1:

You'll note from the three samples above that the plastic supply appears colored. In fact, the raw wax plastic itself was colorless, but it appears colored because back in the 60s and into the mid-70s colorant was added as a very fine POWDER and mixed in with the plastic supply when fed into the supply hopper in the back of the Mold-A-Rama of L.A. machine. The powder was a bit messy, and actually caused the inside of the metal hopper to take on the color as well (see below). (The 'colored' condition of the inside of the hopper is a good indicator as to whether we likely have a sample of old wax or newer wax.)

1965, powder colorant was available from Mold-A-Rama of L.A. in seven colors:

BLUE, RED, YELLOW, GREEN, COPPER, WHITE, or BLACK.

Starting around the mid-1970s, the operators decided that the POWDER form of colorant was too messy, and instead impregnated the colorant into small pellets of the wax plastic, and used it that way. So when the small pellets of colorant are then mixed in with the colorless wax plastic supply no powder remnants dirty the hopper.

The big question is, of course: do these samples of old wax plastic supply smell? ... Yes! And it's a VERY fun, pleasant smell. But is it THE smell that is legendary among those that remember the 1960s? I didn't know because I didn't see my first Mold-A-Rama of L.A. machine until just two years ago when MOLDVILLE was delivered to my garage.

So what did the 1960s operating machines and souvenirs smell like, and was it the same smell that I now have sampled in three baggies? And how was the smell achieved? Was the smell from an ingredient within the wax plastic, or something mixed in with the powder colorant?

To further our research, in addition to the three samples of old wax plastic, we set about seeing if we could find samples of old colorant - particularly colorant with the same great smell. Unfortunately no vintage POWDER colorant in supply form is known to survive (other than that which is already mixed in with old wax.)

Below is an old colorant POWDER mixed in with wax plastic. We've picked it because it has a bit of the pleasant smell to it. Not AS pleasant to my nose, but definitely in the ballpark of the pleasant smell of WAX samples #1, #2 and #3. Let's call this COLORANT #1

Here's another old colorant that definitely has the pleasant smell to it - this time impregnated into plastic pellets. Let's call this COLORANT #2.

And we were able to move things in the barn and get to one last sample of vintage colorant that has the pleasant smell: a vintage supply of COPPER pelletized colorant that hasn't been used in decades (mostly because it doesn't seem to mix well with the plastic used today.) Again this is colorant impregnated into plastic pellets. We'll call this COLORANT #3:

Next up is to melt down some vintage toys from the 1960s to get a sense of what the smell was of an operating machine with a hot vat of vintage colored wax plastic. While it does pain me, these Sinclair dinosaurs are perfect for my purposes as they are engraved from the Sinclair Dinoland tour from 1966-68, placing their date of creation to the time when the machines smelled their best!

So does it smell?.......YES! It does! It is definitly just like our three samples of vintage colored wax and samples of vintage colorant, though if I were describing it like a wine I would describe the smell as deeper, more distant than the samples, with a bit more burnt flavor than my samples.

So what IS the smell like you might ask? What does it smell like?...

I've heard this from at least four people who remember the 1960s. When I heard it in an email for the first time, I literally went to the local store and bought a box and couldn't wait to get it home. Sure, I remember it smelled great, but I couldn't really remember if it is this same smell that I've been smelling in my vintage wax samples and colorants. I opened the box and opened a baggie of a vintage wax and ...

I have heard that Crayola has trademarked the great smell of their crayons (and thus the great smell of vintage Mold-A-Rama of L.A. machines!) It's probably true - it is quite distinctive. And nobody on the outside knows how the scent is accomplished. Is it in the calcium carbonate, wax, colorant? The same sort of questions I have for the source of the smell with vintage Mold-A-Rama of L.A. toys. Was Binney and Smith (makers of Crayola Crayons) a supplier of colorant to Mold-A-Rama, Inc. of

Since the vintage 1960s mold souvenirs smell just like CRAYOLA CRAYONS, it became quite obvious to me how I needed to color Moldville RetroWax™: using CRAYOLA CRAYONS themselves! So I did - and it works GREAT! Look at how well just a small piece of one Crayola Crayon dispurses into melted Moldville RetroWax™:

From the melted dino experiment I can see that a rich amount of pigment was used by Mold-A-Rama, Inc. of L.A. in the 1960s. As such, I'm finding that a vat of Moldville RetroWax™ requires a good number of Crayola Crayons for the molded souvenirs to take on a good rich Crayola Crayon/Moldville RetroWax™ smell.

MOLDVILLE Wax-A-Rama Mold Machines FOR SALE or LEASE

That great 1960s SMELL!

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