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VINTAGRAPH • WPA • WWII • YOU MEAN A WOMAN CAN OPEN IT?

Mom, Me, and my Tinkertoys

I haven't posted here for a few years. I don't have too many pictures left, but I thought I would try a few. My mother is still going, well, kinda strong; she will be 87 next month. Such memories. View full size.

I haven't posted here for a few years. I don't have too many pictures left, but I thought I would try a few. My mother is still going, well, kinda strong; she will be 87 next month. Such memories. View full size.

On Shorpy:
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I had that set

The thing I remember about that Tinker Toy set was the not unpleasant and distinctive smell of the pieces and the green plastic windmill pieces that I liked to chew on.

I haven't seen one of those or even thought about them for decades.

I remember the Dinky Toys!

In response to Islander800. When I was full on in my car obsession, I had Dinky, Matchbox and Corgi. Strange, I think all three of these firms were U.K. based, but fortunately for me, sold in the States. I loved them all. Thanks for responding.

Re: Knees

I am 71 years old and I still sit like the little boy. All my chair seats have a dip on one side- my heavier side!

A friend recently made me some wooden "Lincoln Logs" that become a log cabin. I use it at Christmas with large pine cone trees. I loved my colorless Tinker Toys as a child. I think I had about three cans full.

Re: Little Yellow Box

The film can is directly in front of the boy's right knee!

Little Yellow Box

Is the yellow box on the couch an empty box of Kodachrome? It's open, so maybe the film this picture was taken with came from that box only minutes before the shutter was snapped.

@Vintagetvs: I think the shiny circular object you are referring to at the boy's knee is the cover-lid for the Tinker Toy set. Besides, that object's "form factor" would be appropriate for movie film, not still film (afaik).

Favorite expression

I remember playing with the plain Tinkertoys--no color to them at all--but enjoying the Lincoln Logs and Erector sets much more. However, my dad liked to say "I'm not going to let you play with my Tinkertoys," at any opportunity throughout his life. The way he said it was always funny to me and my brother.

Monochrome & structural integrity

Using your mother's age as a reference, my Tinker Toys were somewhat older than yours, probably by 10 to 15 years. They were all the plain wood color. No colored dowels for me.

For OTY's comment below about tight fitting pieces...
My set had a mixture. Some were too tight as you described and others were too loose. My projects always seemed to have critical support pieces that were located at the "too loose" points in the project.

Knees of the young

Can you still sit like that with your knees doubled outward? I only see this position done by the very young and flexible, including my grandkids, but I don't recall any adults sitting this way. As for the Tinker toys, the ones I had always seemed to have dowels that were cut too large to fit in the holes of the other pieces so that if I did manage to forcefully get two pieces attached, they would stay that way forever since they would be permanently imbedded. I always found the ones I got to be 'misfits' which turned me against them and thus I never had fun with Tinker toys and usually avoided them. That may have been an omen of my coming destiny of usually ending up with the lemons or the defective merchandise. On the bright side though, I have always been surrounded by caring, loving people (which is much more important). As for your red two-piece, metallic-threaded couch, we had the same one in brown in the early 1950's but I like the red better.

Tinker toys and Mini-bricks

When I was your age in this shot, we had Minibricks (about 1/2"x1/2"x1"), made of pure rubber coloured deep red, with which we made little houses, forts, etc. They came from Britain, and in the 1950s, Canada had preferred trading status with Britain, so we had these, Mechano sets and Dinky Toys.

The thing about Minibricks was that you had to lick the two studs on the bottom of one brick to push it into the holes on the top of two adjoining bricks to create an overlapping pattern. Great for hygiene (!), but maybe it actually helped our immune systems...

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