New York Times Story on Chemistry Sets including Lionel Portercraft and A.C. Gilbert sets

My Aunt bought me a chemistry set in 1953 and it sparked a lifelong career in chemistry.

          --Bob Di Stefano

My Gilbert chemistry set led to three-years of chemistry at Brooklyn Technical High School and two years of university chemistry.

Alas, calculus proved to be my bain, and I ended up as an English/Literature professor and teacher instead of a chemical engineer.

Why, oh why, do people still "quote" the post immediately before theirs?   If you are making a comment... just make it!

Sorry about that...I promise never to do it again.

I just finished reading the post.  Boy, that brought back memories of both my Erector set and Gilbert chemisty set! 

Loved the Gilbert chemistry set.  Not knowing what to expect I distilled chlorine gas from clorox™ and choked my grandfather!  Learned a lot with that set which had lead, mercury, and asbestos in it.  We all survived my childhood, nonetheless.

Me  too, that's an amazing parallel!

Richie, Class of '68

I also took the Chem course at Tech.. Qualitative,quantatative and organic chemistry courses...  Graduated in '65.. 

My career was in the computer field, but I still remember with fondness the Gilbert chemistry set I got for my (eighth) birthday in 1956.  I learned that copper sulfate crystals are a beautiful blue and paper soaked in cobalt chloride will turn pink in damp weather.  Life's great lessons are found in the most unexpected places.

Aaah,that little black vial with the green glowing isotope of some sorts inside!

About 15 years later I got my bio major and chem minor.  Thanks A.C.Gilbert!

Norm

I got a Chemistry set for Christmas in the 1990's might have been ChemCraft, the brand being used by a modern toy company.  Probably came from Sears.  However I recall a few of the parts in it had the Lionel logo on them.  Wish I still had it.

I fondly remember my and my friends' Gilbert chemistry sets. We would supplement chemicals in our sets from a chemical supply house in Manhattan (Winn??) Knew my periodic chart and the common valences before taking general chemistry at Brooklyn Tech (Class of January, 1960).  

When I took qual and quant courses, I purchased my KMnO4 titrating solutions from Fisher in Manhattan. I desired precision titrations, so I wanted the correct normal solution for my lab work!

I have a Porter chemistry set in a blue tin box which I received in the late 50s, but I havent done anything with it in the last 55 years or so.

Wish I still had mine!

I never received a chemistry set marketed by either Gilbert or Porter.  I grew up in northeast Philly in the late 1940s to the late 1950s and I badgered my mother to death because I wanted a chemistry set so badly.  Then fate intervened; in the space of about one month two of my schoolmates were badly burned, one terribly disfigured, by exploding chemicals from their sets.  That ended the debate.  I did eventually receive a Gilbert Microscope and later a more powerful Porter microscope.  Those microscopes got a lot of use and I enjoyed them thoroughly.  I got a real kick out of hatching shrimp eggs and watching the little babies swim around under the microscope.  It was great fun but I never parlayed into a career in science.  Like Putnam Division I wish I still had them.

I was always trying and failing to make rocket fuel, or something equally explosive with mine (Gilbert). Closest I could get was a mixture with sulfur and god knows what else I threw in there. The mixture, when heated with a candle, bubbled and burbled but nothing ever really happened. Being 11 or 12 years old, I had no idea what I was doing but I had the sense not to add anything that wasn't from the set, like gas for the lawnmower or Draino, and my parents assumed there was no possible way I could actually blow anything up. It was fun trying though. To this day I still don't know if there was any combination of supplied chemicals that would have been dangerous.