Interesting stuff you had as a kid

[Rick in PA]

Trip down "Memmory Lane" time.

What interesting stuff did you have as a kid?
My time frame was the 1960s. We weren't rich and I had an appetite for technical equipment even at an early age. Consequently I often found myself in the possession of some interesting stuff, things that today (and probably even back then) would be considered "antiques".

A 78 RPM record player. The one record I remember was of the song "I'm My Own Grandpa", a silly little novelty song. (That's the thought that got this thread started.)

A shortwave radio. It was a tube type, in a wooden case and had the coolest "tuning eye" on the front (you were actually looking at a phosphorescent disk in the top end of a tube). I remember the time I got a QSL (?) card from Radio Prague in Czechoslovakia. My mother was a little upset. There was a cold war on. She thought the FBI would come knocking at our door. I thought it was neat to be receiving radio broadcasts from the other side of the world. Darn, I often wish I still had that radio.

A box camera. You had to load it with size 120 film, in the dark. It had the goofiest pair of viewfinders, you held the camera at chest level to snap your shot.

A spring wound 8mm movie camera. You could take something like 30 to 45 seconds of flickering motion picture, no sound, before the spring wound down. Woo, hoo, I was in heaven with that gizmo!

There was a bunch of other stuff, but those were the more memorable items.

 

[Donald]

Flavor straws. As the milk came through the straw it dissolved a little chocolate and provided chocolate milk.

Fizzies.

Record changers.

Crystal radios to listen to AM radio. Cousin Brucie on WABC.

Cars with windshield in 2 halves. I broke one half sitting on my mothers lap when the car stopped suddenly.

Dad's installed seat belts.

Dads'd installed windshield washer, (probably a kit) a bag like container of water under the hood, with nozzles, and a foot operated "bulb" pump.

Dad's installed RH mirror.

My Hurst T handle shifter that looked cool, but was too hot to touch in the summer.

Two speed AT in a Pontiac.

One could get some gas for $1.00.

High beams was a foot button.

 

[Boomer]

Gas ...six gallons for $1.00 in Tennesee 1970

Walking one mile to grade school or riding my bike.

Bike shed at grade school to park bikes. Usually had over 100 bikes.

TV in 1952 with a 12" round screen.

Cable brakes on some cars that were still roaming the streets.

Riding the local buses in the early 60's for a dime.

45 rpm records in the juke box.

Viable downtown shopping areas that were jammed at Christmas with shoppers and kids.

Elevator operators in department stores.

Blue laws..everything closed on Sundays.

Leaded gasoline. Amoco high test was the only "white" (unleaded gas) you could buy.

Steam locomotives still operating in places in the 1950's.

MANY manufacturing jobs.

Home milk and bread delivery.

 

[Turk]

Hot Wheels!

I still have my Stereo Batman Albun from 1965.

Still have the big "Bat Wing" too.

 

[dwcopple]

He-Man, G.I. joe's, Thunder Cats, wiffle ball, nerf football/basketball hoop, spandex, walkman, knee high striped athletic socks, push button channel TV, BMX bike, super soakers, silly string, cassette singles (Fresh Prince, Humpty Dance, etc.), Sports trading cards, Starting Lineup figures...and not a frickin' care in the world. And I think gas was around $.89 a gallon.

 

[ethangsmith]

I was born in 1983, so my childhood spanned the late 80's and early 90's. It's weird to think that my generation was truly the last where we could remember a time when the personal computer was a true luxury for only the rich, there was no internet, and record stores still sold records (cassette tapes were at their peak and "compact discs" were the *expensive* wave of the future). My toys? Baseball cards, pogs, a Playskool train set that was later replaced by some HO trains, board games, a huffy bike, lots of books, cap guns, Super Soakers, Legos, building blocks, and lots of pencils and paper for doodling. No computers, no cell phones, no electronic toys, no cable television. Yep, I'd say my generation is the last that had "traditional" toys and when it was sunny, would play outside in the dirt.

 

[matrass]

for me it would be GI Joe, slingshot, BB gun , my bike and most important my fishing pole and gear. in the summer my friends and I use to walk to the river and fish all day, come home to eat dinner then go night fishing.

 

[Chris Meutsch]

We played outside, with neighbor kids, without appointments.

I played street hockey on the 4th of July (what, I'm from Buffalo!)

 

[Pablo]

We didn't have a lot of money either, but my grandparents owned an old fashioned one store appliance shop. Always had old radios, TV's, toasters etc to mess with starting in around 1966.

I had in no particular order:

Creepy Crawler set (remember those with the molds?)

mini steam engine (long before the mod steam punk stuff)

a record cutter

78 player

at any given moment, some kind of odd radio

a friend down the street with a full machine shop in the garage and he knew how to use it all by 10 or so

lots of model rockets and rocket engines

 

[Pop_Rivit]

We never had much in the way of toys-growing up on a farm there wasn't a lot of time for play.

When I was 6 or 7 (about 1952 or '53) I received a used 1933 Philco Model 19 cathedral radio and listened to it almost nightly before going to bed. When I left the farm for college the radio was put onto a shelf in a bedroom, and it sat there until about 10 years ago when I spotted it. I brought it home, and restoring it became a winter project.

It now sits in our dining room on the buffet, and still gets used once or twice a week.

 

[eljefino]

When I was 10, 11, 12, 13 I was given a choice.

Go to church with Mom, or go to a ham radio flea market with Dad.

These flea markets were basically rolling museums of electronic junk. But they are where I saw my first blue LED, so there's some technical innovation there.

I had a paper route and saw the neighbors/ my customers' yard sales setting up early on the weekend mornings. I was on good relations with them and had pick of the litter. Was into photography and got an enlarger and some other stuff. I didn't know how to bargain yet, and had $15 on me, so I offered $15, they accepted, and I brought the thing home on my bicycle. Put tinfoil on my windows to keep the street light out and developed film and prints on my dusty carpeted floor!

I also had a 1970s 4-in-1 integrated stereo with chrome knobs, fake wood grain. I got it for the cassette deck, which had level controls, so I could "master" mix tapes with exactly the right level without clipping. Thing had RCA ins that I hooked up to a Sansui portable CD player, first on my block. It took about eight AA batteries and skipped if you breathed on it wrong. Was worth going to New Hampshire to skip the sales tax. (The novelty was still there without amazon.com) My first CD was C&C music factory. Everybody dance now!!!!

Computers were getting kinda cheaper in the mid 1990s and it was WAY cheaper to home brew your own. I had a friend gleefully pull a VGA monitor out of a dumpster and after straightening the pins on its connector he had a working ($300) monitor!!!

 

[TooManyWheels]

My world revolved around slot cars. When I was in fourth grade the YMCA eight miles away built a track, so I bought a slot car and started riding my bike over. Later on, a track opened in a nearby mall and I spent hundreds of hours scratch building cars and racing.

Had a Schwinn Sting Ray bicycle, one of the originals. Probably my favorite possession ever. Except for my Ludwig Super Classic drum set. Oh, and my Rupp 5-horse, 2 speed, "Roadster" mini-bike.

Prior to any of that was the transistor radio my Dad bought me when I was in the first grade (1961). Fit in my shirt pocket - revolutionary for the times!

I remember the department store elevator operators and appreciate the previous mention of that.

 

[95busa]

-Black and white TV with rabit ears covered in tinfoil. 3 channels. Us kids making every volume adjustment and channel change.
-1976 Dodge Dart with red white and blue stripes.
-Red Ryder BB gun
-Playing fetch with a tennis ball and my dog for HOURS
- push mowers without the spring loaded handle.
- Dad being issued a "steel pot" helmet
- A VCR with a "wired" remote being the coolest thing ever.
- Listening to Bill Cosby stand-up comedy records.
- Running everywhere I went in the neighborhood....seemed like kids ran everywhere back then.
- Playing in the woods
- Marriage was forever
- Didn't worry about Haj blowing up your airplane
- Cans of motor oil
- Watches were mostly not digital
- Dialing on the phone
- 8-track players
shoot- I know there is more

 

[Spazdog]

Had a Schwinn Lime Krate bicycle with a huge automotive style 5 speed gear selector on the top frame tube.

Had a little car that you charged with a can of R12. Ran on a string like the Estes Land Rocket cars except it was propelled by freon.

Had a Tecumseh powered two speed minibike that had two centrifugal clutches and two primary drive chains. No one could get parts for it and it got replaced with a used and underpowered but reliable Yamaha GT80

Timex-Sinclair computer 3.25MHz processor 1K RAM Memory, and if you wanted to save something it was via cassette player.

 

[Kestas]

In the early 60s I remember the ice man coming to deliver ice for the ice box at the summer cottage at Wasaga, Ontario.

 

[eljefino]

My mailman had a digital watch where the digits lit up when you hit a button.

I found a calculator with a similar premise. Used LEDs, not nixie tubes, and had little magnifying lenses as part of the display. Ran on a 9v battery. Pretty sure was a texas instruments, made in texas. Took it apart and it was full of expensive looking semiconductors, def not a "single chip solution".

Flaky tvs made you jump off the couch to adjust the V-hold.

You could open your own small business renting VHS tapes. Separate rewinders were SO COOL.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: dwcopple
He-Man, G.I. joe's, Thunder Cats, wiffle ball, nerf football/basketball hoop, spandex, walkman, knee high striped athletic socks, push button channel TV, BMX bike, super soakers, silly string, cassette singles (Fresh Prince, Humpty Dance, etc.), Sports trading cards, Starting Lineup figures...and not a frickin' care in the world. And I think gas was around $.89 a gallon.


We must be the same age!

 

[berniedd]

A 1955 2-door Bel Air chevy
3.5 MHz RCA oscilloscope with a round green screen, and it used vacuum tubes!
Swiss made Lenco turntable that could play 45 RPM and 33 1/3 RPM vinyl discs
Home-made AM radio that used hgh impedance dynamic headphones and a cat's whisker crystal
Black and white TV that used vacuum tubes
WW II - era Willys jeep
A Brownie box camera
Voigtlander rangefinder 35 mm fully manual camera that didn't use batteries
1966 AM-only Japanese made transistor radio
Weathercraft FM-only vacuum tube receiver
Aristo brand slide rule to perform math computations in high school. There were no electronic calculators then.
Manual adding machine. You slid some levers to select the numbers you wanted to add, and pulled a lever to do additions.
Underwood-brand manual typewriters
1935 Austin (British made) coupe
Slingshots we made ourselves from tree branches and wide rubber purchased from the corner dime store
Telephones with round dialers. No digital stuff yet back then.
Philips-type 5-tube AM radio receiver
Old-stype ref with rounded corners (Frigidaire brand if I recall correctly) my parents got in 1955 as a wedding gift
1969 Chevy Nova with 4 cylinder engine
Shortwave radio on which I'd practice decoding Morse Code. I'd listen in on back-and-forth Morse conversations between ham radio enthusiasts then.
Reading my dad's 1950's era Hollywood Company correspondence course material on radio electronics and television.
Bringing our own 1/4-inch magnetic tape in 5-inch reels to record our English and play back to listen to our own voice back in High School Speech class.

 

[ohforester]

Chemistry set w/ microscope.It had real chemicals like sodium ferrocyanide. The drugstores had sulphur and potassium nitrate on the shelves that we used to make gunpowder. The set also had a device I believe was called a spintharscope. It was a sealed plastic tube with a radiation source on one end and a flourescent screen at the other and you would see flashes of light as the radiation hit the screen.

I talked my dad into shopping Goodwill for a shortwave radio. Eventually found a 1940's console RCA radio w/ shortwave and an 8 inch speaker.

 

[Bluestream]

I had one on these Clairtone Mini Hi-Fi during the 60's. Smallest radio made before the Japanese bagan to export their products.

Wilesco steam engines from Germany, and as Pablo mentioned the Creepy-Crawler sets; got many burns from that thing! I like the glow in the dark liquid...

Daisy pellet guns and rifles. Kawasaki MT75 mini-bike in 1971. My first RCA VCR in 1980 cost $1200, I thought it was a steal since they were $2,000 a year earlier. Blank tapes were $20 each, they dropped to $12 the next year and I stocked up on them..