Vintage Items I once owned and loved.
(And wish I still had... some of these suckers are worth real money.)
I plan on updating this page from time to time, as things percolate up to the surface of my memory.
Mr. Machine
This was the grand-daddy of cool toys - for its era. You really could take him apart and put him together, and lo and behold, he still worked!
The Great Garloo (1961)
Garloo was awesome to a 10-year-old. He would bend over and pick stuff up, and you could steer him around with the wheel. Of course, the commercials made stuff like this look a lot neater than they were, but I remember this toy well, and he lasted quite a long time.
Gotta get me some of that!
Remco's Fighting Lady
The Fighting Lady was one awesome toy. To a kid my age, it was big. It had a plane launcher, a runabout, primary gun, depth charge launchers, and other stuff. I loved this one. More pictures here.
The Petal Camera
This one breaks my heart. If I had only known... this is exactly how mine looked, I think I paid $25.00 for it, and now they can be worth up to $5,000. *sob*
Wff 'n Proof
This game of symbolic logic was first produced in 1961, I think - I acquired my copy at the NYC World's Fair in 1964. I had it until the foam packaging that held the cubes crumbled into dust. I'm working on acquiring another copy one way or another.
The Digicomp I
This binary flip-flop computer kit was popular enough that one enterprising engineer has replicated it. It's on my list of things to get. Again.
The Chemistry Set
This is not the exact set I had, but darn close. I don't think mine had a radiation detector, but I know it contained a small glass jar of powdered uranium ore. It had glassware, small Erlenmeyer flasks, boiling flasks, beakers, the test tube rack, the alcohol lamp, measuring spoons, a scales, pipettes that you had to heat and draw yourself, and yes, I burned the living piss out of my fingers on more than one occasion - and no one got sued. Today's chemistry sets have been castrated by lawyers until they barely have any chemicals worth sneezing at, in tubes of 1 ml or less. An interesting article here.