Meet these incredible collectors of the gags and novelties sold in old comics

Stan and Mardi Timm are serious collectors of Whoopee Cushions, Joy Buzzers, X-Ray Spex, Doggie Doodit, The Ventrilo, stink bombs, squirting flowers, and the other delightful gags and novelties that you might have seen in the back pages of comic books. The Timms are true scholars of these pop culture icons and the companies that manufactured the 1,800 items in their collection that the elderly men are now trying to sell as they downsize their lives. From Lisa Hix's profile in Collectors Weekly:

Novelties are so much more than goofy, silly things, Mardi says. Everything that comes on to the marketplace starts out as a novelty. Theyre things that are not common, things that make you say, Wow, Ive never seen one of those before! or What is that thing?'

The collection documents U.S. popular culture from the mid-1910s through today, Mardi explains. Exploring the Timms catalog, you can identify the problems that plagued Americans over the decadesparticularly in the early 20th century, when most Americans lived in more isolated rural communitiesand sometimes unintentionally hilarious ways they tried to solve those problems. (Is your bath cold? How about you plug an electric heating device into the wall and then put it in your water?)

We have the Tark Electric Razor, which is a scary thing for me, Mardi says. You put razor blades in it, you plug it in, and the thing vibrates. Now, would you want to put that on your face if you were a man? I dont think so.