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ArishMell · 70-79, M
@TraditionalSchoolboyChris[i] Meccano[/i] has had a rather chequered history since Hornby sold it, but it is still made and has a following of adults using it to make very advanced models.
Discussing this and other constructional sets like[i] Lego[/i] and the (long-gone) [i]Bayko[/i]* with friends who like me are interested in serious model-making, we wondered if the manufacturers of such kits have lost the original point.
This was to encourage children to think for themselves and having been guided by the examples in the kits' instructions, make models to their own designs.
Instead, the modern manufacturers seem to assume children now have no imagination or initiative, so sell single-model kits. Once you have made the model illustrated on the box... then what else do you, or even can you, make with the parts?
==
*[i]Bayko[/i] was an architectural model set. It used a rectangular base drilled with a matrix of small holes into which you inserted thin, vertical steel rods of lengths in storey increments to hold the various brickwork panels, window-frames and doors by grooves down their sides. Though somewhat constrained by the outlines of the one-piece roof, you could make a wide variety of buildings from each set.
'
Edited to correct a mistake.
Discussing this and other constructional sets like[i] Lego[/i] and the (long-gone) [i]Bayko[/i]* with friends who like me are interested in serious model-making, we wondered if the manufacturers of such kits have lost the original point.
This was to encourage children to think for themselves and having been guided by the examples in the kits' instructions, make models to their own designs.
Instead, the modern manufacturers seem to assume children now have no imagination or initiative, so sell single-model kits. Once you have made the model illustrated on the box... then what else do you, or even can you, make with the parts?
==
*[i]Bayko[/i] was an architectural model set. It used a rectangular base drilled with a matrix of small holes into which you inserted thin, vertical steel rods of lengths in storey increments to hold the various brickwork panels, window-frames and doors by grooves down their sides. Though somewhat constrained by the outlines of the one-piece roof, you could make a wide variety of buildings from each set.
'
Edited to correct a mistake.
ArishMell · 70-79, M
Many boys in the early-1960s liked to play with toy guns or "bombs" that fired paper percussion-caps. Or more peacefully, they played marbles (aka "alleys" - which might have been regional dialect). Serious stuff too - very often the game was played against a stake, the marbles themselves. (Hence the expression, "losing your marbles"?)
The girls plumped for things called "Jacks", which were small metal shapes tossed a foot or so above the hand, the idea apparently being to catch as many as possible of about 6 of them, while timed by the bouncing of a small rubber ball. That, skipping-ropes and hula-hoops.
Cereal manufacturers often used small puzzles as promotion-tools. These were packed in with the cereal, and generally either interlocked metal-puzzles working on the key-ring principle, or plastic "kits" that assembled a small model ship or vehicle from half a dozen parts. One variant was a tiny plastic submarine that would gently submerge and rise in a bowl of water, by the action of baking-soda loaded into a cavity below the conning-tower.
'
My personal favourite was the "Ten-In-One-Scope". It consisted of 2 pairs of lenses on an ingenious folding frame that acted as handle and also held a mirror and compass. You could configure the instrument as simple and compound magnifying-glass, plain or magnifying mirror, binoculars or telescope, or simple compass. I'm not sure what the remaining three contrived functions were. The box proclaimed, "Not a toy but a real scientific instrument!" - rather let down by the low power and rough-and-ready optical qualities of the moulded plastic lenses!
===
In my teens (late 1960s - early 1970s) there were a number of crazes, one per Summer it seemed. I recall:
- The "Gonk", a type of doll that like the golly on the Robertsons Jams labels, would be seen as [i]very[/i] "non-PC" now;
- "Klackers", which were two golf-sized hard plastic balls on a cord with a central handle, and said to be responsible for many wrist injuries sustained in trying to keep them bouncing rapidly off each other by flicking the wrist;
- Bull-roarers (I forget their sales name) that were simply lengths of coloured, corrugated polythene tube that produced a whooping sound when energetically whirled.
The "Slinky" appeared around this time, and though intended as a toy soon found itself among the school physics-lab equipment for demonstrating wave motion.
The girls plumped for things called "Jacks", which were small metal shapes tossed a foot or so above the hand, the idea apparently being to catch as many as possible of about 6 of them, while timed by the bouncing of a small rubber ball. That, skipping-ropes and hula-hoops.
Cereal manufacturers often used small puzzles as promotion-tools. These were packed in with the cereal, and generally either interlocked metal-puzzles working on the key-ring principle, or plastic "kits" that assembled a small model ship or vehicle from half a dozen parts. One variant was a tiny plastic submarine that would gently submerge and rise in a bowl of water, by the action of baking-soda loaded into a cavity below the conning-tower.
'
My personal favourite was the "Ten-In-One-Scope". It consisted of 2 pairs of lenses on an ingenious folding frame that acted as handle and also held a mirror and compass. You could configure the instrument as simple and compound magnifying-glass, plain or magnifying mirror, binoculars or telescope, or simple compass. I'm not sure what the remaining three contrived functions were. The box proclaimed, "Not a toy but a real scientific instrument!" - rather let down by the low power and rough-and-ready optical qualities of the moulded plastic lenses!
===
In my teens (late 1960s - early 1970s) there were a number of crazes, one per Summer it seemed. I recall:
- The "Gonk", a type of doll that like the golly on the Robertsons Jams labels, would be seen as [i]very[/i] "non-PC" now;
- "Klackers", which were two golf-sized hard plastic balls on a cord with a central handle, and said to be responsible for many wrist injuries sustained in trying to keep them bouncing rapidly off each other by flicking the wrist;
- Bull-roarers (I forget their sales name) that were simply lengths of coloured, corrugated polythene tube that produced a whooping sound when energetically whirled.
The "Slinky" appeared around this time, and though intended as a toy soon found itself among the school physics-lab equipment for demonstrating wave motion.
vetguy1991 · 51-55, M
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@vetguy1991 Was it the 80s?
vetguy1991 · 51-55, M
MrsMiller31218 · F
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@MrsMiller31218 popular
ancientmariner · 61-69, M
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@ancientmariner Nice
ArishMell · 70-79, M
@ancientmariner Tri-ang manufactured a large range of model vehicles and cranes, in sheet-steel, for many years before Tonka.
Tri-ang's were simple and generic in style; whereas the Tonka Toys are closer to real prototypes, and at the other end of the scale range the die-cast Dinky and Matchbox vehicles, were definite models of specific vehicles.
Tri-ang's were simple and generic in style; whereas the Tonka Toys are closer to real prototypes, and at the other end of the scale range the die-cast Dinky and Matchbox vehicles, were definite models of specific vehicles.
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@Quizzical name one
valobasa4ever · F
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@valobasa4ever Love teddys
valobasa4ever · F
PrivateHell · M
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@PrivateHell HEMan
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@Chevy454 Oh, this one!
Picklebobble2 · 56-60, M
Picklebobble2 · 56-60, M
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@Picklebobble2 Hahaha looks fun
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@SW-User Yes!
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@SW-User I played with every single one hahahaha
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@SW-User Classics
ancientmariner · 61-69, M
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@ancientmariner I remember those
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@UnlikelyTomato Is that like Lego?
goagainsttheflow · 26-30, F
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@goagainsttheflow Those were popular
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@LostGuy Know that one
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@SW-User Nah. Never got into those
Torsten · 36-40, M
the tennis ball tied to a pole thing where you would hit the shit out of it to wrap it around pole before other player does the opposite side, or in me and my brothers case, try and hit one another with the ball the most
UndercoverBard · 31-35, M
Yea, the classic giga pet
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@UndercoverBard I had the T-rex hahaha
UndercoverBard · 31-35, M
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@UndercoverBard hahaha
