Etch A Sketch. And also my Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots. The best.
Edited to add: Lincoln Logs and an erector set.
My father and I built a Heathkit shortwave radio. The kind with vacuum tubes! It still works.By the early 1960's I already had a crystal radio (rocket-shaped) and a little pocket-sized 2 transistor radio powered by a 9 volt battery. A neighbor's father had a Zenith Transoceanic shortwave radio that fascinated me and so I asked for a shortwave radio for my own. I was expecting a Japanese device but lo and behold, Christmas morning, I opened out a General Electric 8 transistor 3 band (AM, SW1 and SW2) radio made in Utica, New York. It was great fun listening to broadcasts from Europe on the shortwave bands late at night. Incredibly, I still have the radio and it still works! Here's an old ad for the exact radio: https://www.reddit.com/media?url=ht...pg?s=ee299bdfeb9dc00c4343858e9b301a3c52e1da9e
Tudor Electric Football is at the top of my list. My younger brother and I kept that set going for probably 7-8 years. After the first year we would get additional teams. We never got the prepainted teams - the plain ones were cheaper. We would paint them ourselves.
It was among the first electrical repair I recall performing. It stopped working, and we would tap it with our fingers to keep it going. I think I was 12 when I learned enough to open up the switch component and find the problem - broken wire. Fixing that and getting it working again was one of the childhood "milestones" for me.
I was a tomboy, and one of the most memorable toys I got for Christmas was a Class A racing set, the one with the cars powered by mainsprings that you wound up with a "Pitstop" winder.
Another was a set of rollerskates, the kind with metal wheels that you strapped on to your shoes. Dad told me to watch out with them, they'd go like greased lightening.
I was the only girl I knew who never requested or received anything Barbie.
What great toys do you remember getting for Christmas?
Creepy Crawlers
Incredible Edibles
I wanted "boy's" toys, but never got them, partly because my parents were old-fashioned, partly because those toys cost a lot (or so I was told). I wasn't at all tomboyish; I was creative.
Meanwhile, I liked to look at dolls, but never got the point of playing with them. What could you do with Barbie, except put different clothes on her?
Ah, I remember those! The Creepy Crawlers were made by heating up a liquid plastic mixture in a mold. Some of those units also allowed you to create vacuum-molded items by heating up a plastic sheet, flipping it over onto a mold and pumping it to remove the air. Given the risks of fire (overheating the plastic sheet), burns and the fumes from the plastic, I doubt they could ever sell something like that now.
Interesting how many of the items people remember are for making and building things. I particularly liked Tinkertoys and Lincoln Logs.
I was in a toy store recently and noticed there's still some segregation going on- everything pink, purple and doll-related in one section, construction stuff and cars and trucks in another.
My sister and I spent tons of time making clothes for them. In medical school her stitching techniques were so good they suggested she might want to specialize in surgery! (She became an OB/Gyn.)
Real steam engine - had load of fun with this but probably would be banned these days
Girls in the neighborhood “played Barbies” together, choosing names for our dolls—“Kathleen King” was one choice, deemed very elegant in small town south Texas—swapping outfits for various social events, having conversations about these events, and things like that.
Coincidentally, the History Channel has a series: The Toys That Built America. Both Etch a Sketch and Rock em Sock em have been featured in recent episodes. Interesting episodes.
My oldest and fondest memory of Christmas was the Lionel train set my father would set up around the tree. It was a simple oval track with a diverting section to add and unhook cars. The locomotive made white smoke and it had a passenger car, a coal car, a missile car that shot a missile, a log carrier car and a caboose. It was loads of fun and we played with it for hours. I still have it, cars and track.
I also have a Lionel train set my father’s uncles gave him when he was a young boy. The locomotive is enormous and very heavy and the track is big. I can’t imagine setting up inside a house.
Both sets need work, which I’ll get around to one day.
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Real steam engine - had load of fun with this but probably would be banned these days
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Oh, no they're not. I had one too and wore it out (a bearing failed and I never could find a replacement). Not sure of the brand but the Wilesco stationary ones look a lot like it.
Here are some sources (be prepared for some sticker shock):
https://www.ministeam.com/category/Steam-Engine-Kits
https://www.wilesco.de/en/
https://www.ministeam.com/category/Wilesco-Stationary-Steam-Engines
https://www.amazon.com/Wilesco-D18-Steam-Engine-Generator/dp/B0000WPAH6
Model trains. A great toy. Just ask Gomez Addams. ...