Favourite Childhood Toys

[Josephus]

Split from TV thread.

So what were yours? I'm a child of the 70s mostly. Grew up on a healthy dose of Fisher Price stuff....the television that played Row Row Row Your Boat and the record player that hid five different coloured discs.
As I got older Action Men (G.I. Joes) were huge with my peers.
I was always a board game fan. For Xmas we used to play Monopoly a lot and a game called Wide World, where you flew a plane across the world. I'm sure there were others.
As I mentioned earlier we used to spend a lot of time with Meccano sets.
I had a Spirograph set.

And this (only Brits and other Euros would get this). We spent a lot of time playing Subbuteo.

[Agelastus]

Lego.

Other things came and went, but always Lego.

For this "big kid" even today; bought a set this year. One aimed at the "16+" market, but still...

[mongers]

Good thread idea.

I had quite a bit of meccano, some of it inherited, but never did a great deal with it. 

The toy set that got most used was some ancient set of stone building bricks, which came with small rubber flat sheets that could be used for the floors in buildings. I think this set might even have been pre-war, well they seemed ancient to us kids.

I had a lot of rather nice dinky die-casts, that I didn't look after well. 

Oh, I distinctly remember the orange bouncy ball things when they become popular first time round, had lots of races up and down the garden with those. 

[Eddie Teach]

Hot Wheels cars. Especially the '37 Bugatti and the Shelby Cobra.

[mongers]

Toys you brought too school with you ?

I remember playing  poker dice a lot in junior school.

Top Trumps cards were a stable for some time at senior school. 

[Admiral Yi]

Played a hell of a lot of Risk every summer at the cottage.*

Name brand little kid toys I didn't experience so much, growing up as i did in a war ravaged 3rd world country with import restrictions.

*In Canada it's called a camp.

[Josephus]

Toys you brought too school with you ?

I remember playing  poker dice a lot in junior school.

Top Trumps cards were a stable for some time at senior school. 

Oh my God! Yes forgot about Top Trumps cards. Sometime around 77-78 those things were huge. We were all playing them. I think I had a Battleship set (Ark Royal/ Enterprise) ruled.

[mongers]

Toys you brought too school with you ?

I remember playing  poker dice a lot in junior school.

Top Trumps cards were a stable for some time at senior school. 

Oh my God! Yes forgot about Top Trumps cards. Sometime around 77-78 those things were huge. We were all playing them. I think I had a Battleship set (Ark Royal/ Enterprise) ruled.

We played battleship, tanks and aircraft mainly, no surprise there for young teenage boys.

[Ed Anger]

[Admiral Yi]

 

[Jacob]

Playmobil was probably the biggest for me, with Lego coming second. We got a lot of mileage out Airfix soldiers and Top Trump cards as well. Toy guns were used a fair bit too, and there definitely were big Action Man and Star Wars phase as well. Though markers and paper for drawing, and various balls used for soccer probably saw the most use if I look at my entire childhood.

[mongers]

Anyone ever caught up in those fad games you used to get and that are now regularly professionally hyped to children ?


I remember a toy called Clackers, which consisted two large hard plastic balls on strings that children would bash up and down from their hands. This resulted in a number of stories in the papers about fractured wrists, so they were banned/withdrawn.

The funny thing was they were the same size as testicles, but at the time I don't recall anyone commenting on this, innocent times indeed.

[Jacob]

Right... I had a bunch of Matchbox Cars and Hotwheels too.

[Josephus]

Yeah Matchbox Cars, Superfast etc. Goes without saying I guess. Yes, Mongers, remember those Clankers very well.

None of you were Subbuteo players?

[Ed Anger]

Slot car sets. I always went too fast into the corners.