The land of lost toys (OT)

[JimRob]

Hypothetical nostalgia-inducing question: are there any objects (of any description) you no longer have which you'd like to see again?

(For example, I'd like to find again the small postcard emblazoned with the slogan 'KARLUV NON STOP MOST' [translation: Charles Non-Stop Bridge], just for the roundness of the phrase. Or the tiny Matchbox car which changed colour when placed under hot water.)

[ZOMBIE USER 5169]

Let me see... well, there were a couple of board-games. One was a haunted house, erected on the board with cardboard walls and with a chimney in the centre. You followed a path around the house, throwing dice to move, and if you landed on one of the "cursed spots" you were allowed to drop a marble down the chimney which would randomly set off one of several booby-traps and hopefully knock an opponent off their place. The other had a Heath-Robinson contraption which you got to set off if you reached the end of the board. If it worked then a series of bits and pieces knocked each other in a chain-reaction which eventually dropped a cage on a plastic rat. I can't remember how the scoring worked.

I'm not much for board-games, but I loved the machinery in those things.

[Hortmage]

When I was a kid, I had a rocket-shaped whistle from Ked's sneakers. It was a promotional thing. It looked a little like one of the Apollo capsules, superimposed over the moon. It had a little "secret" compartment on the underside. I recall having it in the late 60's, a couple of years before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon.

I think my mom got tired of me whistling on it, 'cause it just "disappeared" one day.

[Doc Nickel]

Tim, the game was called Mousetrap, and I think you're trying to say "Rube Goldberg" contraption. I, too, had that game, although I believe we actually played it as a game only once. The rest of the time we would just set it up and activate it.

Of course, we were big on Lincoln Logs, Tinker Toys, LEGOs and Erector Sets back then.

Which, of all our toys from the dimply-rembered past, most of which I miss to one degree or another, I recall rather fondly a set of "giant" Tinker Toys. All plastic rather than wood, where the rods were hollow tubes about an inch in diameter and one to four feet long. The spools were about eight inches in diameter, and the whole mess came in a huge cardboard crate that could hold three kids and was itself a fun toy.

Doc.

[Pengolodh_sc]

I personally had a fondness for the Brio trains, as well as diecast cars (and Matchbox is (was?) SO much better than Corgi or Majorette when it came to diecast toy-cars). Matchbox had a set of die-cast warships too, I recall - it was called SeaKings. Unfortunately Seakings never became very popular - otherwise we might have seen more models, including civilian ships (container-ships, tankers, etc.) come into production too. As it is the civilian SeaKings models are counted as true collectors' items, with prices around

[ZOMBIE USER 5169]

Tim, the game was called Mousetrap, and I think you're trying to say "Rube Goldberg" contraption.

In Britain we spell it "Heath Robinson". This is why.

[ZOMBIE USER 5169]

Something I never actually had, but very much wanted as a kid - a lava lamp! I would still rather like to have one - according to the wise this indicates my lack of taste and deep spiritual emptiness, but I think they're fascinating. (At least in shop windows - I'd probably get bored with one at home. But really, I think they're great.)

"The life of man is stronger than good taste" John Masefield, King Cole

[JimRob]

I have a lava lamp. It sits unplugged at home. (The porters here would have a fit if I used it here, as they are fire risks extraordinaires. Being metallic cases containing lightbulbs and filled with large quantities of oil.)

A cheap equivalent (well, provided you already have a fast computer) is to download Winamp with the AVS plugin. Swirly things indeed.