Toys of Christmas past....

The majority of everyone is young. Can't believe i did not see a ghost buster mobile.

 

My favorites were the gas planes. One of my first ones was a Comet F-51.. Found this one and just had to get it..

 

Our 1961 Christmas presents were:

Robot Commander
King Zor
Odd Ogg

Surprisingly, I still have King Zor, the others wound up being dismantled for critical items like motors and gears...

 

In 1957 I was 7 years old. I remember going to the Sears store in Brockton, Massachusetts to see the Lionel Train set up. It was big and a guy sat in the center from where he controlled the trains. I'm sure the scene , two or three rows deep of kids struggling to see , could have been something for a Norman Rockwell painting. Anyway , I wanted a train set badly, but my Dad had died and my Mom was left to raise three small children..there wasn't much money . I remember in my prayers Christmas Eve asking God if Santa could bring me a train. Christmas morning came and there was the train.

I still have the train set and although it got used, its in almost perfect condition. If I can say a bit more .....The train set cost about $25 in 1957. Although I always appreciated it , it wasn't until I was a young man that I grew to appreciate how hard that $25 must have come for my Mother, who cleaned houses, took in laundry , and waited on tables to support her three kids. Thanks Mom.

Ya know, I think I'll dust of the ole Baltimore and Ohio and set it up this year.

 

Wow totally forgot about having that when I was a kid. Brought back a fond memory of constructing the buildings with the girders and panels that attached to the sides.

 

damn, I'm a criminal, I have a very lightly used set in the basement still in the box!

 

I got a Johnny Express one year, my Dad the trucker and his pals played with it more then i did the first coupe days.

 

Still have this exact set. Just luved that 57 nomad and all it's faux dents.

 

Cool I just sold 4 of them on Kijiji the other day. I had one as a kid but I'm thinning my "collection" I still have my Vertibird but it's for sale too!

 

BIG WHEEL ,1967 or so .Now that thing was fun.

 

Dam it, i want just one, i'm not letting my Dad play with it though..lol

 

LawnDarts, and there were knock offs called (jarts) we had the cheapies. I bought/ made and played with parachues, the striped red and white chute with the blue army man. I also made them out old sheets with anything for a weight, we were poor.

Also does anyone remember the projectiles that you shot up in the air with a slingshot, it had a weighted tip with two flexible metal blades and they would fall back down spinning like sesd pods? I also spent many hours flying kites and sending a paper messages up the string....March birthday, the windy month

 

I remember a lot of these. My first electric train was a Marx version. Cheesy compared to Lionel. I know it pissed off my father when my grandfather got it for me. My dad for some odd reason thought toys were a waste of time and children should be made to work from young on. (he was an ass. When mom finally divorced him and she couldn't deal with all the younger sisters and me, I went to live with my grandparents during third grade. Grampa got me Lionel and Erector toys that first year and the following years the train was added to. (I wanted passenger cars, but never got them) I had tinkertoys and I remember grandpa tried hooking up a 1/4 horsepower electric motor to a model windmill with a string for a belt. He turned it on and the tinker toys exploded and splintered into a thousand pieces and the string was turned into a blizzard of white flakes falling in the room. We both laughed our butts off over that. I also got the Kenner girder building set too. A Radio Flyer wagon and model cars he got from the Christmas store set up by his shop union. my first model was an AMT 1961 Mercury and next was the 57 T Bird kit. I even had a pedal car he got me when I was three, but never told my dad about it. Even his stepfather knew my dad was a douche. When my grandparents got too old to take care of me entering highschool, I went back to my dad and his second wife....back to the austere way of life for me.

 

some more 80s favorites for christmas:

 

Man, I forgot all about the plastic line control aircraft!! I got the cox .049cc PT19, and did that thing get some air hours!! Over time it was crashed, repaired and repeated so many times it ended up part plastic and part balsa wood. This led me on to building my own aircraft from balsa, they slowly got more elaborate and grew in size until I built a twin engined Woomera Bomber (WWII Aussy prototype bomber.), twin 2cc engines almost pulled me off my feet, that is until the control wire snapped and it nose dived into the ground and spread itself around! That was the last of probably 150+ aircraft model builds.


Doc.

 

Got this one year, and just sold it on the Bay for $$$$!

 

WoW! A lot of us had this!! I'm surprised!! I feel like I'm in the cool kid's hang out now!!

Doc.

 

Two toys I haven't seen mentioned are the Kenner Building and Girder sets in 1961 and the Mattel Vacuum forming set about 1964. I had the Kenner sets , ( Roads and Panels and of course several Building sets . My younger brother had the vacumm forming machine . I could make all kinds of kwell stuff for my A M T and Revell Model car kits with it ............Oh well- MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE ! scrubba

 

I got one of those one Christmas. My Dad got it for me from Sears. That thing was cool. Wish I still had mine. I think it got dumped when we moved from New York to Maryland.

 

I think this was my favorite Christmas toy set of all time, the Thundershift 500. I wore out both the cars and the track on this thing. Wish I had another for my boy.



This is all I have left of my own set:

 

Thanks for the memories.

 

I had a similar one called "Supercity" by Ideal. they were designed to be used with Motorific cars. Had a few of them too!

 

Twin 6 posted this on the Vintage image thread but it belongs here also.

Here are some lucky kids with a great toy from years ago
It's a 1955 Thunderbird Junior from the Powercar company of Mystic CT. It's not a pedal car it is electric powered with a Ford starter motor driving it and was made for dealers to use in promotions. These kids were very lucky as they were rare even back then.

 

Can you still buy those machines???? I could use one for my modeling bench...

 

You can buy vac form machines, most serious hobby web sites have them in various sizes, but if you want to get serious like my brother-in-law and I did you have to build your own. Though they are not the Mattel ones sold now days!

Doc.

 

Tanks Doc!.....

 

when i was 4(1962) my favorite toy was a 1955 auburn rubber co. motorcyle policeman. mom got them for me all the time, i think they were .19 cents. 5 years ago my son Josh was over on christmas eve and we were watching my old 8mm home movies. he got a glimps of my motorcycle . after the movies he said he would be back but had to go to a friends house. in the morning, we opened gifts and were all but done when Josh handed me my last present. as i fished thru the huge box, i thought it was a gag. then to my total suprise and amasement, there it was. a 1955 auburn motorcycle cop in pristene condition. after drying my eyes i asked him where he got it. he said he saw it and didnt know why but he had to have it and bought it 5 yrs earlier at a swap meet. i know proudly display it with my diecast cars and bring it out every christmas. merry christmas HAMBers.

 

My most forite toys were my Tonka trucks....... I still have a few too.

 

If these are all originals, man, and I'm not doubting they are, you've got the 'gold standard' in HotWheels.
Great collection.