1966 John Deere toys for Christmas

1968 DAISY AIR RIFLE

1954 WESTERN AUTO AD DETAIL (4)

1954 WESTERN AUTO AD DETAIL (3)

1964 get a mini-mustang for Christmas

1955 TOY MANUFACTURING ADVERTISEMENT PAGE ONE

1922 Erector set bridge builders

1960 MODEL TEXACO STATION

1974 PLAY DOH AD

19th century British ad for doll house

1960's TIN DOLL HOUSE

I admit I had one of these when I was a child. It was made of metal, I think it was tin, and it was printed inside and out with lots of detail. The furniture however, was pretty crude and made of flimsy plastic.

Overall, though I had a lot of fun with my first dollhouse. My next one was a huge Barbie dream house, which I liked better, but I do had happy memories of my little tin doll house.

1965 MATTEL DOLLS THAT WALK AND TALK

1951 CHRISTMAS TOY AD

PAINT BY NUMBER KITS

I have fond memories of paint by number kits from when I was growing up. The images were usually landscapes and used lots of different colors. The paints were actually pretty smelly but that just made the kits seem less like toys and more like real art supplies.

The first paint by number kits were sold by Palmer Paint in 1951 under their Craft Master brand. This was just 1 of the many fads of the 1950’s and the kits are less popular now but still fairly easy to find.

1950's CHRISTMAS TOY ADVERTISEMENTS

CLASSIC LIONEL TRAIN ADS

1949 ADVERTISEMENT



1950 ADVERTISEMENT



1952 ADVERTISEMENT

INVENTION OF LIONEL TRAINS

ADVERTISING GIMMICK

The invention of the electric trains was a lucky accident. Toy trains arrived soon after the advent of the railroad. Wind-up mechanical trains were available in the 1850’s. But it wasn’t until 1902 that an electric train became popular with children. Joshua Lionel Cowan was trying to create an exciting display in a New York store window. Just to catch the customer’s eye, Cowan made a crude electric train with a cheese box on wheels hooked up to an electric motor. The train ran on some tracks hauling around some of the sale goods. He named the train the Electric Express, and it was just an advertising gimmick.



COWAN ENGINEERS A NEW TRAIN

But customers paid more attention to the little wooden train than they did to its cargo. Soon a customer bought the exhibit train and Cowan realized he had a hit. Cowan soon founded the Lionel Manufacturing Company to make his electric Lionel trains. There were electric trains already on the market, but they ran on limited life batteries and were not under the child’s control. They just turned it on and it went on its own. Cowan was an electrical engineer and he figured out how to run the train on current. He invented a multivolt transformer that reduced house current down to a safer 20 volts. He also invented a controller so children could control the speed and stop and start the train on their own. In later years, the train could reverse and the whistle would blow.

The company quickly became successful, despite the competition from German electric train manufacturers. Germans were renowned for making the best toys, but the WWI changed that. Now Lionel had a chance to not just be one of many manufacturers, but the dominant company in toy trains. By 1921, sales were well over 800,000 a year.

But the Depression hurt his business, his trains were fairly expensive. He was able to continue the business, but the sales were less than the prosperous 1920’s. The company made no trains during WWII, due to wartime shortages of metal.

1950’S SUCCESS

In 1946 Lionel trains were back on the market. Sales of the train topped 10 million dollars that year and they kept rising each year. By 1953, every little boy wanted a Lionel train and most fathers bought them. Sales were 33 million per year by 1953. The train was successful partially because of advertising. The theme in most of the ads was father and son working together to run the railroad. Lionel Train can “make a Boy feel like a Man and a Man feel like a Boy.”

Undoubtedly many girls played with the trains but this was a boys toy. Lionel did put out a train for girls in the 1950’s called the Lady Lionel, with a pink engine and pastel boxcars. It was not a success. If a girl wanted a train, she wanted the classic Lionel, not a cut little pink one.

After the train was bought, fathers could still buy many accessories including more track, new cars, and stations. For a number of years Lionel was the king of trains, but new companies started offering smaller, cheaper trains and boys fell in love with new toys, such as toy cars. The company changed ownership and was never a dominant part of the toy market after the 1950’s. But Lionel Trains still exist, now they are less of a children’s toy and more of a collectable for adults.

Invention of the Slinky

Richard James, a marine engineer, was trying to come up with a new type of spring. The spring would, hopefully, shield sensitive ship instruments from wave action so the instruments could give accurate readings. James even experimented at home and one day he knocked a spring off a shelf, but it didn’t fall, it crawled in the distinctive Slinky way down to the floor. James soon discovered the fascination of watching the spring descend stairs.

Mrs. Betty James was the one who suggested it could be a popular toy, she even named it the Slinky, which is how she described the toy’s style of moving. Betty James and her husband founded a company in 1946 to market Richard James’s invention, which was an immediate success.

James developed new machinery to make slinkys very fast and he started an extensive advertising campaign. Besides the original slinky, he developed a Slinky Dog, Slinky Train called Loco and a Slinky Worm called Suzie. After a time James left to become a missionary and Betty started running to company. Well over 300 million slinkys have been sold worldwide.

CRAYOLA CRAYONS

Crayons have existed since Egyptian times, where they combined pigment with beeswax. This was mixed on the painting however and not in the form of a drawing implement. Later, pastels were developed, which are a mixture of chalk and pigment. These were in the form of sticks of chalk. But anyone that has taken an art class knows how messy pastels can be, the color gets everywhere.

It wasn't until liquid paraffin was combined with pigment that you got something easy to hold and work with, and not messy. Various companies made crayons before Binney and Smith started their American factory. But their product was the one that took off.

BINNEY AND SMITH

Edward Binney devoloped Crayola (a combination of the French words for chalk and oil) crayons about the turn of the 20th century. They were in stores by 1903 and sold for a nickel a box.Binney and Smith was already a well established company at this time, their signature product was lampblack, which is a long-lasting black paint, which can be used on many different surfaces.

At first the company made crayons just for artist's use, but after the company won a gold medal at the 1904 St Louis World's Fair, they decided to use this medal to launch a new product. The medal was for their dustless chalk, but in those days, the award was considered a great achievement. If you look at a Crayola package, you will notice that they still show the award. Crayola was repackaged as a children's product.

1905 the 8 color box is introduced in regular and large sizes.

1939 a 52 color box was introduced, only to be discontinued within a few years.

1949 the 48 color box was created.

1958 the 64 color box, with sharpener, was introduced and was immediately very popular.

COLORS

There are 120 different Crayola colors . Today they come in packs as small as 8 up to all 120 colors. Crayola also offers colored pencils and washable markers. Crayola also now owns Silly Putty, another classic toy.

You can get a 200 pack of Crayola crayons, but these include colors besides the standard 120,including glitter, metallic, etc

SILLY PUTTY

This classic children’s toy grew out of a war time necessity. WWII cut of the United States from their supply of rubber, which was imported from the South Pacific, mostly from Malaya and Ceylon. Japan now controlled those areas and there was a great need for rubber to make jeep, truck and airplane tires and many other pieces of military hardware.

The rubber shortage led to gas rationing, just to save tires. There were also rubber drives, starting in 1942, where citizens were urged to turn in any available rubber, in the form of rain coats, garden hoses and other items. This recycled rubber went to the military, but it just wasn’t enough. So there was a military and civilian need for a rubber substitute.

The U. S. War Production Board went to General Electric, which were making many items to the military, and asked them to come up with an effective, inexpensive replacement for rubber. Synthetic rubber had already been invented in the 1920’s but it was expensive. The government wanted a cheaper substitute, made from readily available ingredients.

USELESS INVENTION

In 1943 a GE scientist, named James Wright, went to work on the problem. He mixed boric acid and silicone oil. This produced a putty-like substance. It was somewhat like rubber; when made into a ball it bounced better than a rubber ball. But it really didn’t work as a rubber substitute. It was too stretchy and could not be made into a solid object, it was just not suitable. The product was kept around the lab, just for fun, and was called “nutty putty”. In 1945, GE challenged engineers to find a use for the product, but none could. It was just an interesting substance, nothing more.

BECOMING A TOY

But a toy store salesman, Paul Hodgson, realized it’s potential. He lived in New Haven, where the GE lab was located, and he was introduced to nutty putty at a party, in 1949. Hodgson saw the potential immediately and bought a large piece of nutty putty from GE. He had the substance broken up into one ounce balls and offered it for sale.

He renamed the product “Silly Putty” and it quickly became the most popular item in his toy store. In 1950, Hodgson and store owner, Ruth Falgatter, needed a product for the upcoming Easter season. A small toy that fit inside a plastic egg would be perfect for an Easter basket present. So the product was placed in the small eggs and offered for sale.

The product did not sell that well, but favorable word of mouth and a mention in the New Yorker lead to hundreds of thousands of orders. In 1952 supplies of silicone oil were low due to military needs, so Silly Putty was rather scarce.

But by the late 1950’s, the product was a popular children’s toy and was extensively advertised on television. Silly Putty had made the transition from adult novelty to classic children’s toy. Nowadays, it is available in more colors, but it is still an inexpensive, fun toy. The best use for the toy, for me, is to lift off pictures from the Sunday funnies and stretch them out. Some people have found practical uses for the toy, such as cleaning off lint or dirt, but really this is just a fun, impractical toy.