Automotive (and other) toys from our childhood

[Scott Colmer]

You can still find the spin welders. I got this one off eBay.

 

Hosted on Fotki

Edited May 12, 2016 by Scott Colmer

[my66s55]

I had most of the usual toys that boys had from 1950 thru the mid 1950's. Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs and so forth. The car ones, besides promos, where the F & F plastic cars that came in Post cereal  boxes. But the one I most remember was the Mattel fix it kit toy car like this one, only mine was red and blue.

[Roadrunner]

Several things I had as a kid that I'd like to have again; James Bond Attache case, Man from U.N.C.L.E. briefcase, Wham-O Super Ball (carded), Rat Patrol set and a Blue and Gray set. I'm sure there are others, but I need to think on it.

[Lunajammer]

I think I might have had that Mr. Machine, but I am not sure. I have a very vague memory of a clear toy I could take apart and put back together. I thought we had two and one was a train. 

SSPs Smash up derby cars!!!! I just started looking for those. A bit pricey now.

 

 

Don't for get these for ruining carpet and scored fingers. Also constant complaints from Mom about the smell

Hosted on Fotki

 

 

And the best way to take that to the next level was to make it so you could eat them. How about the Incredible Edibles? Friend had it, but nobody dared actually eat them. They still kind of smelled like the Creeple Peeple.

Edited May 11, 2016 by Lunajammer

[Foxer]

I was into Cowboys (Wild Bill Hickok, especially) when I was 10 in 1956 and always had a nice holster, single if I could switch with my friend. There was a Drugstore about a third of a mile away that had a  Nichols Stallion 45 I would constantly stop to check out. I really wanted that beauty and saved for quite some time to buy it. When I went to buy, the druggist called my Dad to check on me ... and my dad said yes!

It was a huge gun for me at that age always thinking it was a scale copy of A Colt 45. It had 2 piece cap cartridges that took round cape and fired with the gun! The pearl handles got lost as I always had the black ones on.

My daughter now is in possession of it, less box, pearl handles and all but one cartridge. It went thru quite a lifetime with me!

[sjordan2]

I had a huge arsenal of Nichols cap guns including that one. Some of them would be banned for sale today because of their realism.

[Snake45]

I had a huge arsenal of Nichols cap guns including that one. Some of them would be banned for sale today because of their realism.

Most places they'd just need to have a red tip on the end of the barrel. There might be a few places where even toy guns are banned, but that's not widespread in US.

[Harry P.]

It took a lot of searching to find this one... all I could remember was German windup cars.

This is a German "tin toy" road layout made by Technofix. The cars were wound up with a silver key, and each car would come to a stop when it came to the colored spot on the road. You would control the traffic, avoid collisions, and make each car go again by pressing the correct color tab at the front of the layout.

I had this exact toy as a kid, and again... wish I still had it, as I would assume it would bring a pretty good price on the collector market today.

Here's a video I found that shows how this thing works...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwiMGwj6Fko

[Harry P.]

I still have this:

I had one very similar. Can't remember if it was Tonka, Nylint, or Buddy L.

[Kit Basher]

I had one very similar. Can't remember if it was Tonka, Nylint, or Buddy L.

Mine is a Tonka.

 

[Tom Geiger]

I have an old VHS tape somewhere that was 2 hrs of 1950s-70s toy commercials. I remember a lot of the toys and it was interesting to see how they tricked us into wanting them before truth in advertising laws.  In the commercial for the big set of army vehicles and soldiers that all fit in an airplane, they equipment all moved in a marching style out of the plane.  In real life it was just a pile of junk that you couldn't even load into the plane the way they showed.

My favorite was a commercial for a Johnny Eagle rifle that had sound effects.  It starts with a police officer taking a phone report of shots fired. They dispatch two cops that looked like Keystone Cops and the two kids came running out of the woods at them rifles drawn and shooting with the gunshot sounds.  The cops just started laughing and the last frame was the cops petting the kids on the head.   Today they would have been shot dead!

[Snake45]

Topper made Johnny Lightning cars, Suzy Homemaker, the Johnny Seven O.M.A. (One Man Army) and Johnny Eagle Lieutenant M14 rifles, definite must-haves for all young Cold War commie killers in training:

 

As I mentioned earlier, the Johnny Eagle stuff came along just as I was moving along from toy guns to model cars, but I always coveted that Colt .45 and a few years ago scored one on eBay. It's top row center in this pic. At lower left are a pair of MACO .45s in black and white. I had one of these in bright jungle green as a kid, and have searched eBay for another one off and on for a decade, no joy. I also had a great Marx 1911 (and their Luger), but IIRC it was downsized just a bit from the full-sized replicas and toys in this pic. Someday I'll pick up another one, though, "just because."

[Harry P.]

Mine is a Tonka.

I do remember mine had a crank that would raise and lower the ladder.

[MGL]

I was always fascinated by Dads tow truck so Mom said she went to a half a dozen stores looking for a Tonka tow truck for me one year for Christmas. It was the twin boom wrecker in blue and white with the single cab from the dump truck. Wish I still had this, some day I will get around to finding another one. (I'm  on the ship and can't post pictures but here's a link to one). Apparently I can't post links from my work computer either, sorry.

 

[Sixties Sam]

This is a cool thread - brings back tons of memories. I had metal trucks (Tonka, Ny-Lint?) and diecast tractors. I had, and still have several block sets (Curtain Wall, Skyline, Block City, Girder & Panel, and the Bridge & Turnpike set that went with it) Erector set, too. I had lots of cap guns, including a Mattel Shootin' Shell rifle that shot plastic bullets. Try marketing that today! I had a Lionel HO train set - the only year they made HO trains in 1957(?). Still have the locomotive and a couple cars, one with two rockets on it as cargo, and the loco was driven by rubber bands! I had one of the first Aurora Model Motoring HO scale slot car set, with the vibrator motors in the cars. Anyone remember those? I discovered model cars when AMT brought out the first customizing kits in 1958. My first one was a 58 Imperial. I was immediately hooked on model cars and built about 250 of them through my teens. Good times!

Sam

[Scott Colmer]

Did the mattel shooting' rifle or hand guns have red plastic bullets? I have a faint memory of having a gun like that. We shot it in the house once, during the Tom Jones show. The bullet hit a lamp, made a lot of noise. My Mom screamed about it and was the last we saw of that toy.

 

And here's one more of my favorites.

Hosted on Fotki

[Sixties Sam]

Scott, I think the bullets were a gray color. Maybe they made them red later to make them easier to find after they bounced off of lamps!

Sam

[slusher]

Did the mattel shooting' rifle or hand guns have red plastic bullets? I have a faint memory of having a gun like that. We shot it in the house once, during the Tom Jones show. The bullet hit a lamp, made a lot of noise. My Mom screamed about it and was the last we saw of that toy.

 

And here's one more of my favorites.

Hosted on Fotki

I got one of these for Christmas one year. Loved it until my Sasquatch sister stepped on the helicopter later that year...

[Snake45]

Did the mattel shooting' rifle or hand guns have red plastic bullets? I have a faint memory of having a gun like that. We shot it in the house once, during the Tom Jones show. The bullet hit a lamp, made a lot of noise. My Mom screamed about it and was the last we saw of that toy.

 

Many of the Marx guns used a red plastic bullet, which fit over a pot-metal "shell casing" and was actually propelled by a common cap tediously inserted into a slot in the potmetal. Their 2/3 scale M1 Garand rifle used this, as did their 1:1 scale Colt Detective Special. The Luger and 1911 used the bullets and the caps, but didn't need the potmetal shell--the cap loaded directly into the gun.

Oddly enough, this system might today legally qualify as a "firearm," if someone wanted to make a case of it.

[Kit Basher]

I do remember mine had a crank that would raise and lower the ladder.

It sounds like the same one. Mine has a sort of "steering wheel" that turns and raises the ladder. There is another one you turn to extend the ladder. It was thoroughly played with, but never went outside. I suppose that is why it survived. Unlike the many metal vehicles that slowly returned to their native molecules in the sand pile.

 

Edited May 13, 2016 by Kit Basher

[Tom Geiger]

I had this Murray pedal car when I was a tyke.  This isn't me in the photo, just a picture of the same car I found on the Internet a while ago.  I probably got it when I was two and it eventually wound up in my grandmother's basement when we moved to Germany.  When we returned three years later I found that my grandparents gave to my younger cousins and it was long gone.

[Kit Basher]

Anybody have a "Crash Mobile"? If I remember right, it was all held together with rubber bands, and kind of keyed together. You pulled it back, then let it go. It would roll across the floor until it hit something, then fall apart in a bunch of pieces.

Edited May 13, 2016 by Kit Basher

[Harry P.]

I never had a pedal car, but my friend Bob did, and he let me use it.

Man, the longer this thread goes, the more pleasant memories it brings back. Literally stuff I hadn't thought about in 50 years!

[Harry P.]

It sounds like the same one. Mine has a sort of "steering wheel" that turns and raises the ladder. There is another one you turn to extend the ladder.

I also remember that the ladders were not painted, but were natural aluminum.

[Tom Geiger]

And how about metal lunch boxes... the ones with the glass insert thermos... I can still remember the sound of the glass filled milk sloshing around when I broke it. My sister and I challenge each other to find unusual and meaningful gifts.  I gave her this one for Christmas one year.