Your favorite toys as a kid?

[LizzieMaine]

We had those too, but the log-cabin theme was kind of limiting. I was very frustrated trying to bulld a frontier-style suspension bridge.

 

[TimeWarpWife]

My two favorite toys were my musical Raggedy Ann doll and my Mrs. Beasley doll. Had I kept them, and in pristine condition, they'd be worth a small fortune now. But, no regrets, I had a great time playing with them.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

^ I had forgotten about those SSP cars. They weren't much more than a "one-trick pony" toy--pull the rip cord and let 'em go--but one friend and I spent hours racing them up and down his parents' driveway. Kenner eventually produced the "Smash Up Derby" versions with parts that would fly off when the front bumper struck something, but by then the novelty had worn off for us and we'd moved on to whatever our next fascination was.

In our neighborhood the hot car toys in the late-60s and 1970s were Mattel's Hot Wheels. Lesney Products had been producing their Matchbox line of die-cast cars for approximately 15 years before Hot Wheels appeared on the shelves, but for those of us steeped in southern California's "car culture" the Matchbox cars, though very well done, were relatively boring. I mean, imagine you're a young boy who sees "hot rods" everywhere he goes. Which of these are you going to choose?

I had both Matchbox and Hot Wheels when I was a kid but I had more of the former than the latter. Matchbox had been around since the '50s (founded in 1953) with most of their product line being mainly British cars with just a few American cars.

In 1969 Matchbox introduced "Superfasts" to compete with Hot Wheels which was introduced by Mattel the year before, and part of the Superfast line included more hot rod and fantasy cars. Interestingly Matchbox is now owned by Mattel.

There's a place in your area that specializes in vintage Hot Wheels and Matchbox called Toy Box Treasures. It's next door to King Richard's Antique Mall -- in fact it's in the same building but it's a separate shop. I picked up these two the last time I was there. The VW is circa 1969-72 and the Hot Wheels Woodie is from the early 1980s.

 

[scottyrocks]

I have a few early Matchbox. They have metal wheels. Hot Wheels (and then Johnny Lightning) featured larger plastic wheels and much thinner axles that enabled them being able to travel faster on a smooth surface (none of them worked at all on bumpy surfaces).

 

[3fingers]

Our small town dime store had a Matchbox display that turned. Each car was in a little window and there were a bunch of the little compartments on all four sides. You would choose your car and the clerk would get it out from a space in the center of the display. As mentioned above, they were mostly English vehicles at that time. Occasionally, if they had no more, they took the display model out, put it back in the box and sold it to you. A lot of dollar bills from birthday cards went into the dime store till in exchange for a Matchbox vehicle.

 

[belfastboy]

We were not poor but it was the 1950's ...father worked ...mom at home. My favourite, most used "toy" was my bottle cap collection. My father a travelling salesman would collect them for me on his route and bring them home at the end of each week. I sorted them into armies, the beer caps were best as many had coats of arms or a replication thereof., then battle formations on imaginary battle fields. I tossed the really bent ones, trying to keep only the pristine ones. If I had extras of any one type I would pry out the cork backing and press them into badges on my t shirt. Many many hours of solitairy fun at no cost. My parents parties in our 1950's RecRoom were the best as I would help clean up and rescue the beer caps from the trash. I guess it was just a simpler time.

 

[Zombie_61]

...There's a place in your area that specializes in vintage Hot Wheels and Matchbox called Toy Box Treasures. It's next door to King Richard's Antique Mall -- in fact it's in the same building but it's a separate shop...

I know the place, but I've never been there; I should make an effort one of these days.

 

[scottyrocks]

We were not poor but it was the 1950's ...father worked ...mom at home. My favourite, most used "toy" was my bottle cap collection. My father a travelling salesman would collect them for me on his route and bring them home at the end of each week. I sorted them into armies, the beer caps were best as many had coats of arms or a replication thereof., then battle formations on imaginary battle fields. I tossed the really bent ones, trying to keep only the pristine ones. If I had extras of any one type I would pry out the cork backing and press them into badges on my t shirt. Many many hours of solitairy fun at no cost. My parents parties in our 1950's RecRoom were the best as I would help clean up and rescue the beer caps from the trash. I guess it was just a simpler time.

I'm about 10 years behind you, but home life was pretty much the same as yours.

Re bottle caps, about all we used them for was a game called Skelly or Skully, depending exactly where you were from.

We would take a candle from the pantry, light it on the stove, and drip the wax into the bottle cap to give it weight and make it stable so it could finger-flicked on the street, on a special chalk-drawn course. It was a big square with numbered boxes all around it. The object was to the first to make a round trip of the numbers, from Start, outside the square, to 13, in a square in the center of the big square, and back to Start, taking turns flicking the caps.

We took great pleasure in blasting other player's caps off course. Of course, if we missed, our own cap would go flying way off course. Either result was always met with much yelling and gnashing of teeth.

In today's merchandized world, there are commercial versions of the board available, but we simply did something like this:

The boards I drew were a lot neater and bigger than this one, but that's the general idea.

 

[belfastboy]

I'm about 10 years behind you, but home life was pretty much the same as yours.

Re bottle caps, about all we used them for was a game called Skelly or Skully, depending exactly where you were from.

We would take a candle from the pantry, light it on the stove, and drip the wax into the bottle cap to give it weight and make it stable so it could finger-flicked on the street, on a special chalk-drawn course. It was a big square with numbered boxes all around it. The object was to the first to make a round trip of the numbers, from Start, outside the square, to 13, in a square in the center of the big square, and back to Start, taking turns flicking the caps.

We took great pleasure in blasting other player's caps off course. Of course, if we missed, our own cap would go flying way off course. Either result was always met with much yelling and gnashing of teeth.

In today's merchandized world, there are commercial versions of the board available, but we simply did something like this:

View attachment 171893

The boards I drew were a lot neater and bigger than this one, but that's the general idea.

I am sorry I never heard of this as a kid......we could have occupied ourselves for hours on this. Our equal would have been marbles. That was a favourite school yard game. The cool kids carried their marbles in a purple Seagram's whiskey bag with a draw string.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We used to play this with slight variation in my neighborhood, except with flat, thin rocks instead of bottle caps. The gutters on our street were unpaved, and it was easy to find raw material for a game by scrabbling around for a few minutes in the dirt and gravel. I had completely forgotten about this game until you mentioned it!

It never occured to us to use bottle caps -- although, since we had a Coke machine in the family, I had access to an infinite supply. I still have a cigar box full of interesting ones that I'd saved for one reason or another -- weird brands like Fruit Bowl or Sun-Spot or Orange Squeeze, along with a great many Coke, Crush, 7UP and others. No Pepsi though, we were poor, but we had good taste.

 

[scottyrocks]

And yes, there is a difference between Coke and Pepsi. if you've ever had a rum and Coke made with Pepsi instead of Coke, the difference is abundantly clear.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Yep. When I have a Pepsi, about an hour later I get very hyper, and am apt to say things out loud I might later regret. Coke doesn't do that to me, and I think it's because Pepsi has more caffeine and, probably, more sugar content as well.

Although, the comedian Paula Poundstone, a regular on our stage, always has two cans of Diet Pepsi before going out to face the audience, and displays the same effect while performing, suggesting it's more the extra caffeine than the sugar content. I wouldn't dare perform under the influence of any kind of Pepsi -- I'd likely cause a riot.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Meanwhile, on the subject of toys and street games --

Every kid who plays in the street knows hundreds of variations of baseball -- stickball, broomball, kickball, punchball, bounceball, and so on far into the night. We played most of these at one time or another, but our favorite was a game we called "Dingbat."

This was street baseball played with a regular wooden bat and a large playground-type ball -- either a red rubber Voit-type of ball like you had at school, or one of those cheap novelty balls with Mickey Mouse on it like you'd get at the five-and-ten. The important thing was that it had to be large -- at least bigger than your head. The pitcher lobbed the ball in with a slow overhand delivery, and the batter would stand slightly behind home plate -- usually either a manhole cover or an old pizza box weighted down with a rock, depending on where and when you were playing. As the pitch came in you had to run up to the plate and swing -- and it was very difficult to time this because the ball seemed almost to float in -- if it bounced off the plate, you were out, no matter how many strikes you had left.

If you hit the ball it made a resonant "ding" sound, hence the name of the game, but it tended not to go very far, so there was no worry about broken windows or dented cars. Parents approved of "dingbat" where they might have frowned on games played with a taped-up hardball or a rubber pinky, or god forbid, a super ball.

The usual street-baseball rules applied to Dingbat -- four fouls and you were out, invisible runners advance one base for a single and two for a double, action was suspended with no penalties whenever somebody yelled "CAR," and the game continued until your mother yelled out the kitchen window for you to get your backside in the house for supper or else.

I couldn't cut in in any kind of legitimate baseball or softball because of my weak eyes, but I was a genuine threat at "Dingbat." I always regretted it wasn't a "real" sport.

 

[Zombie_61]

And yes, there is a difference between Coke and Pepsi...

There's apparently another difference between the two besides flavor. I can drink Diet Coke all day long with no problems, but if I drink more than 10-12 oz. of any Pepsi product about 30-45 minutes later I get indigestion (sometimes fairly severe) and spend the rest of the day going to the restroom every 15-20 minutes. Lucky for me I prefer Coca Cola products anyway.

 

[scottyrocks]

I think just the thought of drinking any of that stuff all day long would put me in the loo.