Remind me...

[gerisullivan]

...to never, ever go to a toy auction in person. It's hard enough to resist pushing the "bid now" button on my computer screen while watching and waiting for the single item I'm there for to come up to bid.

I do love living in the future, though -- living in the future and having friends and loved ones who turn bad ideas into good ones.

I'll explain more in another 283 items. In the meanwhile, what were your favorite childhood toys? I never had a Barbie doll, not a single one, and I don't remember ever wanting one. But Pepper? Pepper was a great doll. I so envied her hair -- you could curl it up over your finger, or under around it -- every curl always held in place the way they never, ever did with my own hair. There are several genuine Pepper dolls out there. Ideal apparently kept changing her hair -- blonde, brunette, redhead, short, then shoulder-length. All in the pursuit of more sales, no doubt.

Pepper was Tammy's little sister, but I neither my older sister or I had a Tammy doll and I was never interested in Tammy. One doll was enough. You got one doll, then expanded out with clothes and accessories for her. That was the norm for the late 1950s and early '60s neighborhood that I grew up in.

Sue's doll was "Jill" doll, of Jan, Jill, and Jeff fame. I mostly remember the Jill and Jan wardrobe shown in the top image here. (Jan's name was on the other door.)

This palomino horse was quite likely the toy I played with the most. I had it for years and never tired of putting the bridle on, taking it off, attaching the stirrups, adjusting the cinch strap, and more. Whatever vinyl they used for all those little bits certainly had endurance. One of the connection points on the bridle eventually broke, but not until years after I'd stopped playing with it regularly.

Edited to add: My palomino couldn't have been Dallas, since he wasn't introduced until 15+ years after I played with mine. And further reflection recalls that my horse's main and tail were hard plastic, not hair. But the one-leg-raised pose is the same, and all the fiddly bits, too. I suspect a reworking of an earlier toy horse and accessories lead to the creation of Dallas. Darned if I can remember my horse's brand name, certain though I am that it had one.

What were your faves?

Comments

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

I never had Jan, Jill, or Jeff, but I had their little sisters Ginny and Ginnette. (In fact, I still have Ginnette.) I also had a Littlest Angel and a Little Miss Revlon. I think that's it for name brands, though I have a number of other dolls.

[galtine1.livejournal.com]

My faves? The Breyer horses from the Black Beauty 4-pack: Beauty, Duchess, Ginger and Merrylegs. Still have. In a box, with their original box, and I think the paperback book it came with. And then there was the running Black Beauty which was sold as a "black stallion" -- had a white star-blaze and sock on one foot. Still have. I only had Brenda Breyer to ride the horses...never really played with dolls. I just channelled into her size so I could ride all day. ;-)

And I have my jointed Lone Ranger and Silver. And my Tonka Truck and Horse Trailer with matching pair of black horses.

Sigh, to be a kid again and to collect them all....oh, wait, I did grab two Argos a few years ago when Breyer released Xena's horse as a model. ;-)

[davidlevine]

Major Matt Mason. He totally rocked.

[snippy]

My favorite toy was a Revell model kit horse, with a mane and tail out of something (real hair?) you could braid. The model was essentially two hollow horse halves, with hair; you inserted the hair in the right places and snapped the two halves together, then braided the mane and tail.

[carbonel]

I had several Barbie dolls, but the one I liked the most was my Tressie doll, with the hair that grew longer and shorter.

As for my favorite toy, it was probably either the Spirograph or our Monopoly game. I found a brand-new Spirograph at a garage sale a couple of years back, and even if I never do anything with it, it makes me very happy to own it.

I also really liked paint-by-number sets and those pencil color-by-number sets, but those got used up.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

The only dolls (if such count as dolls) I remember were a teddy-bear and a floppy-eared rabbit (and yes, I've been getting Nancy Atherton's books as they come out in hardcover), though neither had names. For toys... several trucks ("I don't see it as A Boy Thing, I see it as A Truck Thing"), a Meccano set, and an electric train (with not much track). (That was, mostly, during The Depression, when parents had a real choice between buying toys, or buying food & clothes, for their kids, and I think most of these toys were passed-on, like cousin George's bike, from other branches of the family.)

[pameladean]

I had Madame Alexander's Ginnie dolls. Their great appeal was that their knees bent. You could see the joints if they wore short skirts or shorts, but it was still much cooler than a doll with stiff legs. I had five or six of them so that they could have proper adventures. I really wanted a Barbie doll to be the grownup who went away (really -- all the children's books of my childhood required it), but had to make do with a Tammy, who looked plenty grown-up to my 8-year-old self. She went, with all the Steiff animals, to Africa to study science while her large and apparently fatherless (I hated Ken, for some reason, and in any case my mother would not allow either one of them in the house) brood went to fantasy universes and talked to fantasy animals.

My other favorite toy was my mother's old dollhouse, which I populated with eraser animals from the St. Louis Zoo. And my other other favorite was a basic set of wooden blocks. Those were priceless.

P.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. What a great toy!

carnyjack's childhood toys included a crayon and stencil kit featuring Steve Scott, Space Scout (mention only, no pictures). Moshe Feder was appalled that I brought the kit to the LA Con III fan lounge and had it out where people could play with it -- it was too much a treasure for that, he thought. I'm big on toys being used, being played with. Mostly, people just had a good time looking through the various stencils --"Orders from Strato-Port" is my fave, if only for the caption.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

I remember Tressie. I never had one, but I thought the whole hair thing was an incredible neat idea.

I'm intrigued about the happiness both you and I feel at finding and buying toys like ones we enjoyed from our childhood. My Spirograph equivalent is American Bricks. The wooden ones only -- the later plastic models hold no appeal.

It's like the joy stays with us, easily tapped by having the toy again, even if we never play with it and even though the one we pick up wasn't the exact one we so enjoyed playing with.

Though I have played with the American Bricks I found at an antiques show at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Several times, even before I put them to use in displaying the PEZ choir.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

We had friends when I was 8-12 who had architectural wooden blocks and a train set. I loved those. At home we had boards/card games, but my family stopped playing with me when I was eight. Mostly I read, and was encouraged to play outdoors.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Eraser animals! I remember those!

Wooden blocks -- priceless and timeless. Then again, I also had a weakness for Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs, and even those big cardboard bricks we played with in kindergarten. I was never into metal or plastic building -- Erector sets, Legos, and their ilk such simply didn't appeal. But wood? I loved (and still love) playing with things made of wood.

Thank you for telling me about your Ginnie dolls. I love that Tammy and the Steiff animals went off to Africa to study science! It's almost as if the real animals had to be out of the way for the Ginnie kids to be able to talk to their fantasy counterparts.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

I credit and thank my sister for my addiction to reading. She was 4 years older than me; I was the pesky brat who always wanted to play. "Leave me alone. I'm reading a book." I heard it again and again and again. One day, I thought, "I'll show her. I'll read a book and I'll tell her to go away and leave me alone when she wants to play."

I don't remember if I ever had occasion to deliver those words, but I was soon hooked on the wonders of reading and I treasure remembering how it happened.

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Fun!

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Grin.

In Junior High, Pat Sonicksen (sp?) and I used tp play "horsie" on the unused tennis court during lunch breaks. We'd walk, trot, and attempt to canter around the court, nickering and neighing at each other, sometimes bumping into each other and giving an annoyed toss of our heads, baring our teeth to say "out of my way, clumsy!"

No wonder the other kids left us alone....

[pameladean]

You are probably right about why the real animals had to be bundled off with the adult.

I had thirty or forty eraser animals. Where did you get yours? They were so great.

P.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

Slight correction: Vogue made Ginny; Madame Alexander made Muffie. Both started with non-bending knees but later had bending knees. (As you know, Bob, I'm older than you.) There were also Ginger, Pam, Gigi, and a host of others. I loved that size doll but never had more than one at a time, as i recall.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

My favorites, no doubt about it, were paper dolls. These were inexpensive enough that sometimes I could get new ones even though it wasn't my birthday or Christmas--my ten cents a week allowance was enough for the thin-cover (not cardboard) books. I had a lot of them. I also have gone through a couple periods of collecting them as an adult, though recently I've been selling them on eBay.

[pameladean]

Oh, fascinating. My mother was convinced that they were made by Madame Alexander. I had a couple of other Madame Alexander dolls, too, or so I was told -- Marybelle, the Doll that Gets Well, is the only one I can remember. She came with an arm and a leg cast (removable) and stick-on spots for measles and chicken pox, and so on. She was much larger, though, and I liked smaller dolls better.

P.

[galtine1.livejournal.com]

Used to do that as well...and even in the front yard of the house in San Jose up to middle school. When in Idaho, while walking to/from the bus stop -- it was about 1/2 mile -- I'd have an imaginary pony walking with me.

Those were the days.

[galtine1.livejournal.com]

My mom is a "Ginnie" -- and still had a couple of her MA-Ginnie dolls until a couple of years ago. Came to terms that her two daughters were never going to want/love them like she did so eBayed them. And then bought herself a small weekend getaway. lol