Anyone collecting non-train toys from their youth?

When my kids were at the right age, I looked for some of the toys I enjoyed when I was a kid. The ones that come immediately to mind are Fascination (maze game), and Remco Science kits, which came in small cans.
For a while was also interested in finding a Remco Coney Island crane toy, and a specific style Gilbert chemistry set, but didn't buy,  

I did, Marx playsets. But now thinking of selling them.

I have about a dozen tinplate cars, trucks, and military vehicle toys and rockets from the 1950s.  I've tried to get heavily into this because I do not know where I could possible put the stuff.

I have some Avalon Hill games from the 70's when I was a teenager. I am hoping my grandsons will want to play when they get older. I have my baseball and football cards too. My Mom threw out my other toys, but these were organized on a bookshelf and survived. I honestly miss my toys. I still have my baseball gloves and footballs, once I got my first car I kept them in the trunk!

When I was buying trains via private sale, many times the trains came with erector sets. But the pieces were always just tossed in a box or two. Never got a nice boxed set that was anywhere near collectable condition until I inherited a set. I am keeping that set as a collectable.
A while back, a took all of the jumbled erector pieces out on my screened porch and sorted it. My sons and I used that stuff. We built a ferris wheel (simpler than the one pictured above), and powered it with a Fleishman live steam engine for a school science fair. It was a big hit.

I have a currently Lost In Space Robot and an Oscar Meyer Weinermobile. I'm still looking for a good condition Major Matt Mason, a Johnny Toymaker car molding set , a Thingmaker Creepy Crawlers and a Creeple Peeple molding set. I had all of these as a kid and have been cruising Ebay looking for them, been skunked a couple times on Major Mason and missed out on a pristine Johnny Toymaker last Christmas that a Goodwill in Cleveland was selling on Ebay. I'm really surprised by how popular these items are.

One toy I had but I've never seen that I would kill to get was what I think was called a Moonwalker, it had a body that looked a little like a VW Beetle, long metal legs about a foot long that had tires on the ends. When you turned it on the legs moved forwards and back and a ratchet in the wheels allowed it to move forward. If anyone else had one or can remember exactly what is was called I'd be grateful for the info.

 

Jerry

I had a few pressed steel vehicles as a kid. My favorite was my Tonka No. 5 Pumper. When it "disappeared" when I was away at school, I made it a quest to find another, and got a ladder truck to keep it company. I don't collect pressed steel vehicles, however.

yup.

 

Gilbert erector sets

Gilbert Auto-Rama slot cars

Marx play sets

Tonka and Structo trucks

Hubley and Tonka bulldozers, grader, sand loader, etc.

Ertyl farm tractors & equipment

Ideal pirate ship and Roy Rogers stagecoach

Kenner Girder & Panel, Bridge & Turnpike Building sets

early all-wood Lincoln Log sets

early all-wood Tinker Toy sets

 

if i can remember it, i look for it.  Never too late for a happy childhood.

Every time I see a great toy that I had in my childhood (or even one that I wished I had in my chiildhhod ), I have to resist the urge to buy it.

 

Watching Toy Hunter on TV doesn't help...

 

Andy

I've got over 300 older G.I. Joes and newer, finely detailed WWII figures made by Dragon models, plus about 2 dozen 1/6 vehicles (tanks, wagons, motorcycles, etc).  I think of all the figures I have only 1/2 dozen are the original G.I. Joe (which turns 50 this month).

 

If you think our 1/48 size trains take up a lot of room, you ought to try finding space for 2 dozen vehicles, some of which have approx a 2'x4' footprint.

 

I was just on a 1/6 scale forum (I've been away from the hobby for 8 years now) and what some people have done with these figures, as far as turning them into pieces of art, is amazing.

If you are like me, you probably meant you tried "not " to get heavily into this because you do not know where you could possibly put the stuff.  I had the same problem a number of years back when I started recollecting a lot of the 1960's toys.  I really enjoyed those toys from Remco and Marx such as The Johnny Reb cannon, Remco Frogman, Great Garloo, Robot Commando and GI Joe.  Problem always is,as with the trains, that while these bring a smile to your face when you display them, the WAF is not always on the high side since they tend to take over prime real estate in a home.

I am as much a collector of Star Wars Vintage toys as I am trains. I have a whole room full of Star Wars Figures, ships and playsets from the late 70's early 80's.

My prize retrieval of a childhood toy is a Keystone Gas Station which is unusual in that it has cars with gas tanks that can be filled by the gas pumps along with a car wash..Of course it's water that it uses. It has an elevator and car lift.  It's construction differs from tin in that it is what used to be called Masonite covered with what could best be described as a printed facade resembling wallpaper type material. It took about two years to restore it.

I received Mr Machine, a fairly large clockwork ( yet plastic) fairly large robot from my brother and sister when I turned 60. I also collect old and new clockwork tin toys. On my list is my lost Barracuda submarine and the Great Garloo ( a giant robot made by Marx. I had a Robby The Robot that scared my sister so much that my mother determined I had to play with it in the basement! 

 

A blast from the past..I want the Ideal "Blast -Off"..way cool missile launcher.

 

Here's some tractor's that I had they have a shelf in my train room .

 

Guy

matchbox from the 60s.

little yellow box and only

25 cents each at our local

Westons Store.

 

I am only 36, but I am still collecting my Tyco Slot Cars from 70's and 80's. Some Fisher Price Adventure People Toys, MASK, A-Team, and Voltron Action Figures, and Matchbox and Corgi Die Casts :-)

Sure do....here are a couple of pictures of one of my display cabinets...

 

Alan

Not really, but I do have a couple of favorite board games and construction toys that were originally my father's in the 1930's. The board games are Boake Carter's Star Reporter and H.V. Kaltenborn's Diplomacy. I also have a set of Stanlo, which was made by the Stanley Tool Company. It has plates based on door hinges that are held together with hinge pins to make things. You can make houses, boats, etc. 

No.

well....maybe a few. Marx, Wyandotte, Tonka, Smith-Miller, Nylint,Hubley, American Toy, Structo, and several other brands of tractor trailers, fire trucks, construction equipment, garbage trucks.....and more. 

 

Toy cap guns....Mattell, Hubley, Nichols.....etc.

 

baseball gear including my original Wilson Model A 2115 Ted Williams 3 finger fielder's glove

I don't necessarily collect them. I just carefully saved a good portion of the ones that were important to me.  Currently a few items of my collection have served as decoration in my son's bedroom for the las couple of years.....

 

 

 

As far as collecting...I'm focused on O scale trains like these! More pics in the Photo Album forum....

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reminding me!

 

 

Jerry

Oh, boy...a lot of names I recognize and had...dunno what happened to our Keystone

gas station described above.  My mother gave many of my brother and I's old toys,

including Marx playsets...he did those, I did trains, he had just three, a ranch set,

a western town set, and an army base set...to his kids.  I have picked up some of

the western towns and ranches, but these are collectible and not cheap so have not

gotten deep into those.  The one toy, or set of toys we owned and USED with trains

and playsets was the Gilbert Erectorbrik sets....they are not common...I have found

a few, but none of the large #5 (I think) sets we had about three of.  We had one

Erector set, and one chemistry set,  but never got interested in those, but the Erectorbrik...it fit right in.  Used to build brik houses outdoors around the 4th and blow them up with firecrackers. Did the same with the one American (square) log set we had, and with model airplanes.  I built then many Highway Pioneers and Hudson Miniatures (large wooden) antique car model kits, and have picked those kits up when blundered on.  My aunt, who hunted antiques all over eastern Ky., and who lived into

her '90's, gave us a 1920's Sturditoy pressed steel dump truck she found.  It disappeared in a move, but I found its twin, in the same town we lived in then, oddly, off eBay, but it was a different truck that had been found in Tenn. by the seller.  I have not gotten into cap pistols, but we had dozens, that we broke.  They, too, are pricey, which keeps me from going off on that tangent.

I remember playing with the plastic mazes with the mercury inside.  You just can't find toys like that anymore.  There is a nice antique store in Havre de Grace that has a lot of old toys in it.  They even have some Hop along Cassidy stuff still in the box from an old store.

 

I started collecting European military Dinky Toys way back in the mid 50's and still buy select pieces whenever I see them.  Big difference is that in the 50's the prices were under $2.00.  Now I'm lucky to find one under $200.00.

 

No pics,

 

I am slowly collecting  UFO and Space 1999 vehicles

 

My kids have my Legos X 100 and are going to get the erectors in the next few months.

Marx Super Circus.

I have been buying tons of Lego recently.  My kids love the stuff, and now they make these huge modulas for adults.  It is so cool.  Plus the trains are awesome and very detailed.  If you have not seen any of these check out the Horizon express or emerald night.  Fantastic but beware these are crazy addicting to build and display. 

I see some on here that I do collect. Star Wars, FP Adventure People, Transformers are some. But I also collect other more obscure 1980s action figs. MUSCLE, micronauts, Battlestar Galactica, Tron,Crystarr,AD&D,Powerlords, Inhumanoids,Blackstar, And Godiakin to name a few. I definitely go through phases but I'm always on the hunt.

Aurora Thunderjet 500 Slot Cars.

 

 

 

Gandy

Wild Mary-that is an excellent collection!

 

--Greg

I collect a few Hess trucks which have been favorites of my youth. Though, aside from last year's one, they've been getting a bit more ridiculous with every year.

 

I also have a few model cars (1/18th scale), as well as Hot Wheels sets.

Dave Nissen's photograph of his Marx Super Circus time-warped me back to the 1950s when I had that set as well as the factory.

As Bob Hope would say, "Thanks for the memories".

PaPaT

I have been tempted to buy some of the old schuco windup cars I had as a kid like the old yellow Mercer racer I once had and a few other Schuco cars. However I resisted and stuck with trains that were always my favorite toys.

 

Took another approach.  Created a mother lode time capsule of the 1980's.  Instead of discarding my children's toys, I carefully packed them away in the attic to be retrieved at will or after my demise, whichever comes first.  So far, the grandchildren are more appreciative of the effort, asking to retrieve toys from the attic during their visits.  Parents won't let them take the toys home, though, so I have to pack them away again.  Hint if you're inclined to do this:  although I clearly labeled what is in the sealed boxes, I should have numbered the boxes and created an inventory mapping where the boxes were placed in the attic to save searching for particular items.  I never will be guilty of discarding treasures from somebody's childhood and even tucked love notes in the boxes so I can speak to my children from the other side.

-I rehabbed Tonka trucks, 1st for fun, then for my son to play with...then I can rehab them all over again when he's outgrown them.

-Still have my big GI Joe jeep and trailer...none of the other stuff though.

-I figure I have roughly 400 models..my 1st midlife crisis...air/armor/sci-fi/cars/semis/boats...I had built alot of models when I was young.

-Hot Wheels and Jonny Lightning cars..now just the ones I like

 

...I have two kids, my son and my daughter - my wife says she has three{adding me!...I don't get it...} 

I'm not out looking for the old Star Wars items, but I have all my Star Wars figures & ships from the 70's & 80's.  I get my kids the new items, but they want my old stuff.

Besides my trains, I still have two toys from my childhood. The Ideal Electronic Fighter Jet and the Steve Canyon Jet Helmet. These were my two favorite non train toys.