What was your favorite toy as a kid?

travelover

travelover

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Reading this article makes me think back on my favorite toys. Hands down, my favorite was my erector set.

Which toy will make the hall of fame? Battle heats up


The other 2014 nominees are, My Little Pony, Rubik's Cube, Slip 'N Slide, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Toys and the toy trucks sold each holiday shopping season at Hess gas stations.
The two winners will join last year's honorees, the rubber duck and chess, along with the 51 other toys inducted since the hall was established in 1998. Previous winners include Etch A Sketch, Play-Doh, Barbie, Mr. Potato Head and the Frisbee.
But items such as the cardboard box and stick have also made the hall for inspiring kids to transform them into play things on their own.
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It depends on what age. One I remember I think was called a "Tic Tock Clock" that did actually keep time, had an adjustable pendulum, but the neatest thing was that I could take it apart and put it back together. And it still worked afterward!

Like travelover and probably many others here I'd have to say my overall favorite was the Erector set. What a shame they stopped making those.

I can see why though, since with the electric motor I made some contraptions that would have amputated fingers had someone been foolish enough to stick their hand in it. No doubt that somewhere several someones were that foolish.
 
Walt34 said:
...........Like travelover and probably many others here I'd have to say my overall favorite was the Erector set. What a shame they stopped making those................
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A few years ago I bought the nicest Erector set they made for my grandson. Wow, what a disappointment. Not only was it way overpriced, but it lacked all the cool stuff (like good DC motors, transmissions and winches) that I loved as a kid. I still have my original set, plus a few antique versions that I scored at Goodwill.
 
Walkie Talkie from Radio Shack.
 

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Bicycle, skates, hoola hoop, pickup sticks.
 
check6 said:
Lionel electric train
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+1, though when we were young kids we couldn't really 'play' with it too much, it was very nice set.

Erector Set, Slinky, and Silly-Putty. Though the Slinky would get a kink pretty quickly, and the Silly-Putty would just get gross. But fun while they lasted.

Skateboard and bike.

-ERD50
 
Table top hockey.


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check6 said:
Lionel electric train
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OMG, what an incredible thing.
My father was kind enough to buy a sheet of plywood, 4x8 feet, and mount my tracks on it. All the peripherals, buildings and such, were placed appropriately and the layout just kept getting better every year. Incredible fun.

Alas, the layout was stored in the garage from January to November each year, and when I was about 13 years old, we came home from a trip one year to find that the garage had burned nearly to the ground. Some neighborhood kids had played with matches and it got out of hand.

Everything was lost. That train set would probably be worth a lot today.
 
Building stuff- Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs. They were wood back then. Bless my parents, they were pretty non-sexist for that time. My sister and I both had dolls and made clothes for them, but my sister was able to transfer her stitching skills into a career as a doctor!

We had Dad's old Erector set- metal, with an engine. Dad became a metallurgical engineer and had a big part in building our first house. I played with it some, and it was great for developing my abilities with small hand tools, but taking the things apart so you could build something else took a long time!
 
Aurora slot cars. Taught me all about electric motors, rewinding armatures, electricity, gearing, and other cool stuff.
 
Lionel train here as well. I'm still somewhat of a train nut. I had my 58 year old Lionel passenger train running on a circle of track in my basement a couple of years ago. It's not running now - I need to work on track electrical connections and elevate it to table height.
 
Legos, if measured by hours spent, from before they came in fancy kits. I remember a few windows, some roof panels, simple "men", single axle wheels and a big bucket of bricks.

If nostalgia is the criteria, my two brothers and I would probably vote for the maple truck toy from FAO Schwartz. It was big and sturdy, with an articulated cab and a box trailer that measured about 12 x 12 x 16. I think the makers thought of it as a small toy box. What they didn't realize was it was big enough for a toddler or grade-schooler to lay down on his stomach and steer it, toboggan style. We wore out the vinyl floor in the converted garage that served as out playroom, pushing each other in timed races, demolition derbies, obstacles courses and any other high-energy activity we could think of. Mr. Clean had no chance against the marks left by the hard rubber wheels.
 
Matches and black cats were pretty exciting.
Added plenty of realism to miniature WW2 reenactments with the plastic army figures.
 
If a bicycle qualifies as a toy, then that's what I'd vote for. We'd spend all day on our bikes--riding them in the hills, going to neighboring towns, playing Frisbee tag in the street, etc. A Schwinn "Kick-back" Stingray and later a Schwinn Varsity 10 speed (metal rack welded on the back for newspapers).

Other than that:
1) Lincoln logs/pine blocks/green (US) grey (German) army men (all used together to have "wars").
2) Monopoly game
3) Frisbee
4) Crossman 760 BB/pellet gun
5) Estes rockets

Most anticipation with least actual play time: Cox .049 control-line aircraft.

I guess I would have begged for a Gameboy/Playstation if they had made them then. I'm glad they didn't, as I learned a lot more about other things in the absence of "prepackaged" computer games.
 
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I had a 4x8 Tyco HO train layout but I think it was more a toy for my dad. Interestingly, the 'toy' I remember playing with the most was a sewing tool of my mom's. I don't know what it was called but it was a wooden ruler (about 12' long) with a metal Y-base and it had a metal piece that could slide along the the ruler and flip out. It was sort of similar in appearance to Thunderbird 1 and I used to 'fly' it all over the place!
 
I have three brothers and we all had to share stuff like the erector set, lincoln logs, and tinker toys. It was all fun. I had other little toys that were my own, but I don't remember much about them. The first big toy that was my own, was my bicycle. It was a hand-me-down from my older brother, who got it from a friend when he got a new bike, but once I got the bike, it was mine. I think I was 6 years old, and I rode that little bike everywhere.
 
I got a pony when I was 8 and never played with anything else after that! His name was Heyward.
I'm sure before that it was Breyer model horses that I played with most.
 
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