Vintage Items I once owned and loved.

(And wish I still had… some of these suckers are worth real money.)

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.

Ideal Astro Base

This one was tragic. What a cool toy… and I had one. But apparently mine was defective, and so back it went, to be exchanged for something else.

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, or none at all.

This kit causes us to lament the general state of affairs we have come to thanks to litigiousness, chemophobia, and flagging scientific literacy.”

How pathetic is that? Another interesting article here.