Author Topic: Toys of yesteryear,  (Read 921 times)

Alfred

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Toys of yesteryear,
« on: Oct 19, 2018, 08:43:57 AM »

Looking at many toys today, my mind goes back many years when my children then were very young,
to begin with do you remember matchbox toys, my son had over eighty miniature toy cars which were very small hence the name match box and these toy cars were very cleverly designed and were cheap and came in many colours and makes easily recognised,
 the toy factory was then in east London,



other toys came to mind was the match stick gun which fired matchsticks ,spring loaded ,
a miniature of the guns the royal artillary fire on a 21 gun salute. and it fired the matchsticks really well,  great fun,.

 which my son had endless fun firing endless amounts of matchsticks  at leaded soldiers, of course many of you nearer to my age would remember those times, and the variation of toys for boys and girls was in abundance ,


and children in those times had a wonderful time being amazed at the range and variety of toys then being bought,   …….that's if you had the money to buy them
how ever the matchbox toys sold then were around 10p in todays money or two shillings in pre decimal money,


Q; so do you remember other makers of toys then that were the sought after toys of those times , if so will you share your memories of the toys that were available then, itll make interesting reading ,

sparky

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Re: Toys of yesteryear,
« Reply #1 on: Oct 19, 2018, 08:59:14 AM »
I spent many hours making various things with Meccano.

fortyone

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Re: Toys of yesteryear,
« Reply #2 on: Oct 19, 2018, 10:11:23 AM »
There were Triang Trix and Hornby trainsets. I think Triang made other toys too but they've gone along with Trix. Hornby are still sold though I think.

There were other makers of small cars back in the day but I've temporarily lost the name. These days you see several makes and Hot Wheels comes to mind.

I don't recall the name but I did get a miniature building set once with hard little terracotta bricks and some stuff to stick them together.

As sparky I enjoyed Meccano.

Some retro toys appear newly manufactured in the shops even today. I saw one of those magic robots that you turned to a question then put on a mirror next to that and it spun to the answer not that long back. Boot sales and charity shops sometimes bring back memories as does Antiques Roadshow.

Michael Rolls

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Re: Toys of yesteryear,
« Reply #3 on: Oct 19, 2018, 11:46:32 AM »
Dinky toys were the favourites of my brother and myself and much in demand for Christmas and birthday presents - we couldn't afford them for ourselves.
Mike
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Bee

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Re: Toys of yesteryear,
« Reply #4 on: Oct 19, 2018, 01:09:26 PM »
Don't know the make but I thought I would just put it out there that I still  have my bone china doll from the 1949 Christmas. :)
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Raven

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Re: Toys of yesteryear,
« Reply #5 on: Oct 19, 2018, 01:58:36 PM »
I was a great one for Jigsaws when I was wee, and Books, I was always reading. Still do a lot of both today and at the same time. ;D
I wasn't really into toys, I wasn't a girly girl and prefered to be away on my bike getting into mischief with my pals.  ;D

Johned

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Re: Toys of yesteryear,
« Reply #6 on: Oct 19, 2018, 02:34:54 PM »
My dad bought me a Hornby Gauge 0 clockwork train for Christmas 1937 and I still have the locomotive and some of the wagons and the layout was extended down the years.  I always wanted an electric train but they were a bit out of our league costwise and at that time we weren't wired for the 'leccy!  After the war, my dad having returned safely home and had the mains installed, my younger brother and self had quite an extensive Hornby Dublo setup until I got married and left home.  My sons and I had a layout when they were growing up and I still have much of the rolling stock and I hope to interest my great grandsons in due course.  I was heavily into Meccano and got up to a No 8 set but had to scrap the whole caboodle when the cupboard in which it was stored was impregnated by damp from a leaking water pipe which rusted the parts.  Our house insurance agent told me to put in a claim but I felt guilty about the high cost of the parts so did not bother.

zoony

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Re: Toys of yesteryear,
« Reply #7 on: Oct 19, 2018, 02:38:24 PM »
When Scalextric first came out dad bought one for us kids...ostensibly. Him and uncle Harry played with it more than we ever did..
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fortyone

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Re: Toys of yesteryear,
« Reply #8 on: Oct 19, 2018, 04:26:09 PM »
Ah yes Scalectrix. Cars flying all over the room.


I bought one for my son when he was 12 or so. He discovered that if you connected wires trom the transformer to the leads in a couple of pencils you could make huge sparks from them.


I discovered that this was the reason for all the singe marks on his bedroom carpet. I fixed the manky looking carpet by always shutting the door if it was open.

prestbury

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Re: Toys of yesteryear,
« Reply #9 on: Oct 20, 2018, 05:16:39 PM »
There were Triang Trix and Hornby trainsets. I think Triang made other toys too but they've gone along with Trix. Hornby are still sold though I think.
Hornby (Hornby Dublo) were the first of the model electric trains although they initially used a third rail system but after losing ground to their competitors (Triang) changed to a two rail system. Hornby also used to be the owners of Meccano and were taken over by the parent company of Triang. After changes within the Triang group came the birth of the autonomous Hornby Railways which is still going strong.

I do wish I had stored my Triang trains from the early sixties as they would be worth a fortune now. All I have left (somewhere) is the base of an engine (Princess Elizabeth), god knows where the body went.

There has been mention on this thread of Scalextric but also what I had was Minic Motorway which was an electrified OO gauge road layout and compatible with Triang trains.

fortyone

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Re: Toys of yesteryear,
« Reply #10 on: Oct 20, 2018, 05:55:18 PM »
I had a Trix and that had a third rail. One (and possibly the only) advantage was you could control two trains on the same set of rails.

Floydian

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Re: Toys of yesteryear,
« Reply #11 on: Oct 20, 2018, 08:41:19 PM »
I had an electric train set, a scalextric (with loads of extra bits) and a subbuteo table soccer set with several different teams. Hours of fun. When i felt i was too old to play with them they were all packed away and never saw the light of day again until years later when i decided to give them to my nephew (it never occurred to me that one day I might have kids of my own though as it happened we got daughters). I gave him the whole lot, showed him how to set it all up and he seemed grateful. A couple of weeks later i was visiting and asked how he was getting on with it all. He said the train (engine) didn't work anymore and only one of the racing cars. When i looked at them i could see they were ruined, it turns out he'd been putting the subbuteo players either on the train lines or race track and running them over... I'd had those things years and looked after them well, he'd had them a matter of weeks and trashed them....
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Diasi

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Re: Toys of yesteryear,
« Reply #12 on: Oct 20, 2018, 10:47:08 PM »
I had a Trix and that had a third rail. One (and possibly the only) advantage was you could control two trains on the same set of rails.

I've still got some of my old Trix Twin train set & the Trix Twin badge & shifted the boxes around a few weeks ago.

I'll have to have a look to see what bits there are & what state they're in.

Controlling two trains on the same track was really useful for simulating train crashes.  ;D
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