Childhood toys

[Dizastrow 4]

What is the one toy you remember from childhood.  Stories Welcome.

Plastic Army Men!  I used to have thousands of these little guys.  All the trucks and tanks included.  I would have huge battles inside and outside .  My next door neighbor dug up a mass grave I had built years after I buried them.  I could never figure out what to use for bombs, so i ended up using dominoes to wipe out whole legions of soldiers.  I bet if I sat down, I could still get into it. 

[Easy Bakes 253]

I used firecrackers for my plastic army men.

back in the day they would sell fireworks to kids.

Matchbook cars and tracks. Winters were long in Michigan.

[blade2k5 1,523]

Matchbox cars. My old man built me a road grid with concrete in the backyard that I would play for hours with my nifty toy cars. Back in those days, each individual car cost around $.49 apiece.

[ky72x 13]

Lucky for me, they still are relatively cheap (only 99 cents).

Yep, I still buy them, but more for a collecting purpose. I guess it's because of my love for cars that I still like the Matchbox and Hot Wheels die-cast models today.

[Duke87 1,070]

Yeah, I was big on Matchbox cars, too. Although not all of them were actually Matchbox. Many were Hot Wheels, some were by other companies you've probably never heard of. Corgi comes to mind as a name that was on the bottom of several of them.

I remember that I always would beg my mom to buy me one or two of those things every time we were in (okay, now here I'm going to date myself) Woolworth's.

By the time I got too old for those things, I had nearly 300 of them. Not all of them survived my childhood, some of them broke. Most of them survived, though, and they're all sitting in a box in the attic now.

Although, my collection of Matchbox cars pales in comparison to my collection of Lego... which fills several boxes in the attic.

And both pale in comparison to my collection of baseball cards, which is just epically excessive. Difference is, those aren't in the attic and I'm still actively collecting (though not as much as I used to).

The temperatures they'd be subject to in the attic wouldn't be particularly good for them, anyway.

[Meg 368]

Do they still sell Mold Master?   I'm guessing no, since it's on a site called "timewarp toys".

 

You guys would have loved it.   It's described as "A machine for injection molding of real plastic toys".     (as opposed to fake plastic toys, I guess.)

 

If you can see that picture, that gold tower thingie is a heater that melts the plastic.  The white boxy thing at the bottom is the mold.  Well, one of them.  There are a variety of molds, to make soldiers, cannons, jeeps, tanks, guns, etc.   I remember that the tank used up a lot of plastic.  I think it had a mold to itself.  You could make several soldiers in one mold.

 

It was easy to "re-do" things.  All you had to do was throw the soldiers or whatever back into the hopper and they would melt again.   The trick was keeping the different colors of plastic separate but that wasn't difficult because the plunger cleaned out the hopper very thoroughly.

I imagine this toy has since been banned for being dangerous or some silly thing.   The plastic, in it's fully melted state, just wasn't that hot.   I checked this out personally.  As a kid, I did not appreciate being told that I wasn't allowed to do things that my brother was allowed to do so I often did them just to prove that I could. 

[skyliner22 16]

I grew up with these. I think they are way better than Hot Wheels or Matchbox.

Definately need to update the collection. I'm missing all those cars in that picture!!!!

I have a ton of them still, may keep them forever

[Explodingsims 3]

Originally posted by: Duke87

Although, my collection of Matchbox cars pales in comparison to my collection of Lego... which fills several boxes in the attic. quote>

Ah, good, I'm not the only one.

When I was a kid my favorite toys were Thomas the Tank engine wooden toys. I had a MASSIVE bin full of track and other full of trains. I would fill my whole room with layouts. I also had some other non-Thomas trains in there too. Like the Silver Bullet.

But let me tell you. Finding a wooden Annie and Clarabell was the hardest thing ever for me. No stores sold them!

I think I also had a fairly impressive Lincoln Log and Tinker Toy collection.

Oh, and large assortment of Marble Machine parts.

[skyliner22 16]

^^^ According to my mom, I was a huge Thomas fan. I had plastic toys of some of the  engines and a small station set.

[pcgirl24 3]

Barbies!

[Streetwise 3]

I still have my Matchbox and Hotwheels cars, and maybe some of the orange Hotwheels 'streets' that went with them. I especially remember the big loop.

One toy I had is one I cannot  remember the name of. It consisted of a big plastic base with holes in the top, a lightbulb inside of the base, and a wheel divided into wedge-shaped colors just under the base. Also there were many hollow clear plastic pieces, such as narrrow tubes of varying lengths, some of which were bent at various angles, not to mention domes, discs ,ect. Pieces were joined end-to-end, the domes were mounted on one or more of the plastic tubes, and so forth. The tubes would fit into the holes on the base. When your 'city' was finished, you would turn out the lights and have a multi-colored glowing futuristic 3D cityscape. Of course, the real fun would be when the color wheel inside the base was spun 

I keep thinking the name had 'Astro' in it (maybe 'Astro Lite').

 

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: Streetwise

I keep thinking the name had 'Astro' in it (maybe 'Astro Lite').

 quote>

 

Sounds right

 

 

[hamsterTK 93]

Haha, cool I think I had the same kind of toy cars as Skyliner. I think my Grandma bought them at the Auchan's in Houston.

When I was small I was totally obsessed with big trucks and tower cranes and cement trucks.

[Streetwise 3]

Originally posted by: SkiGeek

Originally posted by: Streetwise

I keep thinking the name had 'Astro' in it (maybe 'Astro Lite').

 quote>

 

Sounds right

 

 quote>

 

BINGO!

Oh, and I had a Bingo set, too.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: SkiGeek

Originally posted by: Streetwise

I keep thinking the name had 'Astro' in it (maybe 'Astro Lite').

 quote>

 

Sounds right

 

 quote>

 

The 1st Sim City !

I realy like my Erector sets. All metal peices, electric motors. cant sell that stuff too day.

Ski I would have LOVED that  Mold Master. I  just know something like that would never be allowed to be sold today.

I also spent a lot of time with my all metal Tonka Dump Truck. !

I think one of my cousins grand kids has it now. They just dont make toys like they used too.

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: Easy Bakes

I realy like my Erector sets. All metal peices, electric motors. cant sell that stuff too day.

Ski I would have LOVED that  Mold Master. I  just know something like that would never be allowed to be sold today.quote>

 

Can you believe that my brother kept his Erector sets and Mold Master for decades but abandoned them a few years ago?   My sister and I have since moved them to a secure place.  The Erector set is obviously missing many pieces but the Mold Master seems to be intact.

 

Have they really stopped making Erector sets?  Granted, there were a lot of little screws, bolts, and such.   but come on.

As for the Mold Master, it's not too late.  I found one for sale here.  I am quite certain my parents did not pay that price for it.

[hym 358]

Have they really stopped making Erector sets?quote>

Supposedly they are still for sale, but to be honest, I've never seen them in stores.

[Easy Bakes 253]

Originally posted by: hym

Have they really stopped making Erector sets?quote>

Supposedly they are still for sale, but to be honest, I've never seen them in stores.quote>

 

If they do i bet thier all plastic snap on peices.

[Eastwinn 6]

SkiGeek: That Mold Master is kind of funny and alien to me. I look to my right and outside of the windows plus 100 feet or so is a shop filled with a couple massive (MASSIVE) injection molding machines and you show me an injection molder the size of a tissue box.

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: Explodingsims

When I was a kid my favorite toys were Thomas the Tank engine wooden toys. I had a MASSIVE bin full of track and other full of trains. I would fill my whole room with layouts. I also had some other non-Thomas trains in there too. Like the Silver Bullet.

But let me tell you. Finding a wooden Annie and Clarabell was the hardest thing ever for me. No stores sold them!quote>

Not sure that this is exactly what you're talking about, but I had a fair amount of that stuff by the name of "Brio".

And yes, I had Annie and Clarabell.

Interestingly enough, some of the Thomas the Tank Engine characters (which were made for Brio tracks and stuff but not by Brio) had a design flaw: the smokestacks on them were too high for them to fit under some of Brio's smaller bridges. The solution in my case was that my dad filed them down a bit and repainted them, though I don't know what other kids would have done. I don't think many  people's fathers just had a huge box of old wood files lying around.

The creative thing on my part was this: the bottoms of the track peices were flat... and thus made great roads to run Matchbox cars along!

They still make Brio, though it's a lot fancier and more polished than it used to be. The track peices have "ties" carved into them now and they appear to now be much more selective with the wood they'll make them from. Some of my old peices were dark and discolored or had irregular grain patterns to them. All the new peices now are flawlessly uniformly colored with the grain along the length of the peice. I think it's lost some character due to that...

And, you guessed it, my old Brio is in a box in the attic, too.

I think I also had a fairly impressive Lincoln Log and Tinker Toy collection.quote>

I remember playing with Lincoln Logs in preschool and at other people's houses, though I never had any of my own. I did have some Tinker Toy, but only one set... and it's not in the attic, the peices to it gradually broke or got lost over they years and nothing remains.

They still make Tinker Toy, but of cours it's changed, too. In my set, all the rods were made out of wood. They're plastic, now.

Originally posted by: SkiGeek

Originally posted by: Easy Bakes

I realy like my Erector sets. All metal peices, electric motors. cant sell that stuff too day.quote>

 

Have they really stopped making Erector sets?  Granted, there were a lot of little screws, bolts, and such.   but come on. quote>

Apparently they're still made, it's just that they've fallen out of fashion since kids these days aren't interested in playing with old-fashioned metal toys... and I'm sure parents take issue to the small parts, too.

Still, when I got my first erector set, I had a new baby sister. She never swallowed any of the peices... by virtue of the fact that they never left my toom and she never went in there. Ingenious, I know.

Really, I think the biggest hazard with the small parts is losing them. I'm sure several of those little nuts and bolts have gotten sucked up by the vacuum over the years.

A more recent construction toy would be K'nex. Didn't exist until I was a bit older, but that didn't stop me from collecting a bunch of it. It's great for making bridges and other truss structures. The sets came with motors and gears and whatnot, too, but like with the motors and gears from erector set, I never used them and only built static, non-moving things. See, that's why I'm a civil enginner and not a Mechanical engineer.

K'nex, in their instruction manuals and FAQs, explains that if a child swallows one of the peices, it will pass through them harmlessly, lest any parents be concerned over the small parts.

And since, unlike Erector Set, K'nex is all plastic and has no sharp corners to speak of (everything is rounded), that's probably true.

It's simpler, though. The peices all snap together, and there aren't any nuts, bolts, or springs (though there are washers)

Neither my Erector Set nor my K'nex is in the attic... both are still in my room (though collecting dust).

[Meg 368]

Originally posted by: Eastwinn

SkiGeek: That Mold Master is kind of funny and alien to me. I look to my right and outside of the windows plus 100 feet or so is a shop filled with a couple massive (MASSIVE) injection molding machines and you show me an injection molder the size of a tissue box.quote>

 

   Yes, that would look weird if you are used to seeing the massive ones. 

 

Originally posted by: Duke87

I remember playing with Lincoln Logs in preschool and at other people's houses, though I never had any of my own. I did have some Tinker Toy, but only one set... and it's not in the attic, the peices to it gradually broke or got lost over they years and nothing remains.

They still make Tinker Toy, but of cours it's changed, too. In my set, all the rods were made out of wood. They're plastic, now.  quote>

The rods were wood but the other parts were not?   and I've seen that they make plastic Lincoln Logs these days too.    That's just wrong.

Originally posted by: SkiGeek

 

Have they really stopped making Erector sets?  Granted, there were a lot of little screws, bolts, and such.   but come on. quote>

Apparently they're still made, it's just that they've fallen out of fashion since kids these days aren't interested in playing with old-fashioned metal toys quote>

True.   We didn't have any electronic stuff to play with.   Even first "digital" clock I had was a flip clock.

Those are flat metal pieces on a rotating wheel  those little metal tabs hold the piece in place until it's time for it to flip over.   I still have a working model in a closet somewhere.  But I digress . . .

Still, when I got my first erector set, I had a new baby sister. She never swallowed any of the peices... by virtue of the fact that they never left my toom and she never went in there. Ingenious, I know. quote>

When did we decide that people didn't have common sense?  I mean, yeah, some of them don't but still . . .

A more recent construction toy would be K'nex. Didn't exist until I was a bit older, but that didn't stop me from collecting a bunch of it. It's great for making bridges and other truss structures.  quote>

I first saw K'nex in one of those bizarre classes I took at work.    The instructor said afterwards that the exercise was based on the assumption that most people our age hadn't played with K'nex so we would have to think outside the box to use them.  

[Barbarossa 51]

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  Edited September 7, 2012 by Barbarossa  

[Dizastrow 4]

I guess another big one would be Super Mario Brothers.  The hours I wasted on that game, especially SMB3!! 

[Duke87 1,070]

Originally posted by: SkiGeek The rods were wood but the other parts were not? quote>

The little round connectors were also wood. But the other stuff (wheels, clips, etc.), which wouldn't be practical to try and make from wood, was plastic. Now it's just all plastic. The rods are thicker, too, for some reason. Maybe Playskool decided they broke too easily when they were thinner. 

and I've seen that they make plastic Lincoln Logs these days too.    That's just wrong.quote>

Indeed.

Although, I can understand the logic in switching to plastic. It's much more versatile and easier to work with, since you don't have to carve it or cut it, you can just mold it. It's also far less brittle than wood, so it bends and deforms instead of snapping in two if it's abused... which is a plus because if you took an old tinkertoy rod and snapped it in two the broken ends would be all sharp and splintery... easy to hurt yourself or others with. And, well, you don't get splinters from plastic, either.

The other aspect of it is a matter not of reality but of perception: the "greenness of it". People have this idea that making things out of wood is bad for the environment since you have to chop down trees to do it. On the other hand, plastic is recyclable.

What people don't realize is that wood is not as un-green as you might think, considering that logging companies don't just cut everything down and then leave it... they plant new trees where they cut the old ones down. It's a completely renewable resource. On the other hand, plastic is petroleum-based... and the plastic toys are made out of is very rarely recycled plastic since recycled plastic of the type used to make such things is of a lower quality than newer plastic. And those toys aren't exactly recyclable, either, considering most recycling programs only accept "disposable" plastic containers such as milk jugs or soda bottles.

Originally posted by: Dizastrow I guess another big one would be Super Mario Brothers.  The hours I wasted on that game, especially SMB3!! quote>

Technically, the "toy" would be the Nintendo, Mario being a game for it.

But yeah, good luck finding a guy born in the 80's who didn't play that game as a kid.

[WillG_75 19]

I had over 20 Mega Buckets of Legos. Fun times. Hope to pass them off to my kids someday

[panthersimcity4 162]

Around the mid-90s my favorite toys were Play-Doh and then later on near the end of the 90s, Pokemon cards - I had a whole crapload. Later on I would go on to be obsessed with legos. I remember always building cities out of them (a precursor to Simcity?)

Then around 2001 or so I began playing The Sims which continues to this day. I also played Simcity 3000 at the same time. Ahh, the good ol' days...

I also remember as a young tot being obsessed with anything pertaining to Thomas the Tank Engine. To make a long story short, I've always loved trains.

[Duke of York 23]

I would say...Matchbox cars and plastic army men as well.....

[simsider 4]

Anyone remember super van city

[fukuda 351]

+ cars, trucks and buses and also homemade cardboard buildings and tunnels...

I built entire cities with all of these and my imagination

[Zelgadis 638]

I guess "favorite" would depend on what age we're talking about here.

For me...

Very young: Something called a "take-apart car." Seems there are lots of toys with that name. I've never been able to find a pic of the one I had.

Pretty young: Matchbox and Tomica cars. I still have them and I still buy them, though now it's more Johnny Lightning and Tomica.

Young: Legos. Lots and lots of legos. I still have them.

@SkiGeek: My first alarm clock looked like that too, so no worries. It's not that old.

ISF