What is your favorite retro toy?

The Tootsie Toy Douglas DC-4E Super Mainliner from 1938



-dixon cannon

Am I the only one who gets more excited about seeing the orginal box graphics than seeing the actual toy? I'm enjoying seeing the boxes with the toys!

GWD said:

LAWN DARTS!

Best most dangerous toy ever made!

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We used to call them 'Jarts' and I'm not sure why!

-dixon cannon

I always loved my Johnny Eagle Lieutenant .45 that shot real plastic bullets. I wish I still had it -they're worth a fortune now and a real collectors item if they're complet.



-dixon cannon

Not sure if this is retro enough but I loved my Stretch Armstrong. I also had the green reptile monster version.

Lincoln logs! I could build things for hours. And playing board games with my Aunt.

Lionel tinplate!

What a trip down memory lane this thread has been. The summer I turned six I got a bb gun and a pocket knife from the old man. We spent many days walking in the woods, while he gave me lessons in safe gun handling, marksmanship and safe carving techniques. One of my most cherished memories.

But, for play, after a couple of fourth of july incidents where one of my brothers forgot to let go of a firecracker soon enough, the old goat would unlock the trunk of the car on the morning of the fourth and hand out to each kid (there were six of us) a whole bag of bubble gum, two new cap pistols, holsters and belts and dozens of boxes of caps. A whole day of gun fights ensued. On the whole 'roll of caps with a hammer thing': We would find a log of the right dimensions and set it up for use as a cannon. Then set a flat rock on the back with a whole tube of caps on that, then hit the thing with the back of an ax.:eusa_doh:

Had a good number of the other stuff aforementioned as well. Too bad childhood can't last about 80 years, although I do my best.

A grown cousin got me a pocketknife of the Swiss Army type when I "graduated" from Brownie to Junior Girl Scout, so eight. It had two knives, a nailfile/screwdriver, a scissors, a tweezers, and a toothpick. I loved that thing so much.

I carried it everywhere. At the time my dad had a Buck knife *he* carried everywhere, and I was a daddy's girl. Mine was really tiny, the smallest "keychain" sized pocketknife, which was perfect for me because I was very small for my age with tiny hands (at eight I was the size of a six year old) but I surprised a Boy Scout scoutmaster with how sharp it was. It was little and it had a star on it but that was no reason for me to let it be DULL. lol

Dixon Cannon said:

We used to call them 'Jarts' and I'm not sure why!

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"Jarts" was a brand name of lawn darts.

Cheers,
Tom

I have ONE lawn dart. One solitary lawn dart. Seems you can't sell them on eBay. Just looked and none listed. Two that were "completed" ones appear to have been canceled by eBay. Not sure why. Doesn't say.

Matt

Want Jarts? Order the parts and build 'em!

http://www.lawndartparts.com/

Want to compete with them? Too late for this year, but here's the Annual Jarts Tournament web site: http://www.jarts.com/

Have fun!

Tom

Viola, all I got to say to you is, "What a dame!"

bow and arrow set and Little Lulu

My husband's favorite was his little bow and arrow set! TV was new in the 50's, and cowboys and Indians were his favorites. He always rooted for the Indians!
I didn't have many toys, but I used to dress my cats up in doll clothes.
Do you remember the Little Lulu comics?

The Evil Kinevel Stunt Cycle brings back memories. I can still remember holding the handle and turning the wheeelie bit. I have never thought of that toy for a very long time. One of my fav retro toys is my dad's clockwork Hornby Trainset.

I also have many great fond memories of playing with the meccano sets I got over the years. I still have them waiting in storage to give to my son when he is old enough.
One of the greatest toys of my youth was not bought from a shop but was just bunch of wooden offcut blocks (from the builders adding extensions to the house at the time) that my dad put in a cart with wheels on it. I had hours of fun building things with those wooden blocks.

That is a great tinplate Hornby set. :eusa_clap

dickandchristin said:

Do you remember the Little Lulu comics?

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Last week I found a copy of "Little Lulu and Tubby in Hawaii" (a Gold Key Digest from 1973) and have been reading it to my three year-old son. Classic stuff, even if it isn't the original.

I started to buy the Dark Horse reprint series when it started, but quit after two volumes because the printing errors were irritating -- pages printed out of order.

BeBopBaby said:

Speaking of Big Wheels, I had a Fonzie big wheel that was supposed to look like a motorcycle. I tried to google for a picture of it, but couldn't find one. I would ride that big wheel around in circles in the basement while listening to an old 45 of The Champs performing Tequila on my Mickey Mouse record player. All the while pretending to be in a biker gang. lol

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Is this the one you mean?

John in Covina said:

Real fireworks from firecrackers to cherry bombs to M-80's and bottle rockets.

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Funny, I was just thinking about single-use toys such as fireworks. When I was a kid in the 60s, we would buy "Piccolo Petes" from the nearest fireworks stand. "Piccolo Pete" was in bold letters vertically along the staff, and it was mounted upright on a small wooden stand. You were supposed to light it and it would whistle loudly for about 30 seconds. We would modify them by crimping them at the "P" in Pete (usually accomplished by hammering it with a rock on a hard surface). By crimping it in the right place, it would not only whistle loudly, but when the fire reached the crimp, it would blow up like a cherry bomb! Hey, you're talking about 12yo boys, to us this was great fun!

Also more peaceful and safer fun like the board games "Uncle Wiggley" and "Candy Land".

I also remember a series of plastic models that I can't remember the name of, but they were some kind of evil-looing "gremlin" like creature with a large head and an big open mouth with tongue hanging out in a hot rod, clutching an oversized stick-shift. Darn, the name is very near, when I remember it I'll come back and edit, or maybe somebody else recognizes these models from the mid-60s.

One other and probably my all-time favorite "toy" from memory lane around the same time period. I lived in the burbs, and there was a furniture store a block away next to a vacant lot and some woods. We would take the discarded cardboard boxes that couches and chairs came in and knock out the bottom and top and lay them on their side. We could then get inside and propel it by crawling on our hands and knees so that it would roll along with us inside, similar to the treads on a tank, hence we called them "tanks" and had a blast trying to roll over each other in the vacant lot. Vision and direction control were limited, often we had to get out and change direction manually. We would sometimes cut little "windows" in them to peak out, or just stick our heads out the side to spot the "enemy tanks".

These same boxes could also be dragged into the woods to make a "fort" or play house out of. The paper padding that came with them made great carpet, we would sometimes even get Mom to pack a lunch so we could picnic inside of them.

I had a thing for Lincoln Logs. I would spend hours trying to make different models of cabins. To this day, my husband and I have a dream of building a log cabin. I guess it all started when we were kids.