I’ve looked for a specific toy that a childhood friend had… with no success. But I’ve managed to find several well-loved books that I had as a child, in the same editions. I find it funny that I should want to get them back after so long – but I like having them.

Not for myself, but a few years ago I went online and bought a replica ‘Chatty Cathy’ doll as one of my wife’s Christmas presents.

Growing up, her family was very poor, and she always loved talking about being 8 years old and shocked when she received ‘Chatty Cathy’, the doll of her dreams, for Christmas, knowing that her parents clearly could not afford it.

She described it as having blonde hair and wearing a light blue dress, so I made sure that her gift looked the same….

My mom recently unearthed my collection of Garbage Pail Kids trading cards.

Double whammy…I’m an inveterate collector (pack rat) AND I co-own an auction house.

Actually, I only have a few small toys that I loved as a kid. Because I’m a baby-boomer AND co-own an auction house, it squelches my urge to snag onto the random (loved!) Cooties game, because I see them sell about once a month. The market is flooded with the games of my youth.

I DO have a huge collection of toys, but mostly from the 1930’s-50’s.

@glacial What’s the toy you looked for?

@OneBadApple That’s SO sweet!

@Katniss I loved the Garbage Pail Kids! If they haven’t come to be collected, they will.

I have searched for a set of books called Scary Stories to tell the Dark. There are three of them and they were awesome. The illustrations were creepy as hell. Stephen Gammell was the original illustrator.

The Gammell versions are hard to find now because the publisher stupidly decided to put out a different version with terrible illustrations by Brett Helquist.

Here is a slideshow of the Gammell illustrations.

When I was newly on my own and my nephew was of an age I bought him where’s waldo. It wasn’t the same and I gave up on the rest of my ideas. I mostly had my books and bike as a child. Nancy drew the bobsy twins and hardy boys baby sitters club were just a few that I read til the formula got boring, and then later would pick up again when it felt right.

^ LOVE the Scary Stories series.

For my son (cough, cough) I’ve purchased Pokemon cards, Pokemon VHS and DVD, Ninja Turtles VHS tapes, The Super Mario Brothers cartoon series on DVD, a Nintendo 64 with Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and 007: Goldeneye, a few old computer programs (Oregon Trail, for example) that he’ll play when he can read a bit better…

There will be more. Oh, yes, there will be more.

@Seek_Kolinahr That’s a softer side of you that I’ve not seen.

Do you find that you have to pay much for the vintage items? We had a huge bunch of Pokemon cards in the auction a while back, and could hardly give them away. I was surprised – I thought they were vintage enough to be back in vogue.

I’m, (How shall we say it?) bargain-conscious.

OK, I’m broke pretty much all the time and I hate spending money if I can help it.

The Pokemon and Ninja Turtles VHS tapes – Quarter a piece off a guy closing down his flea market shop. I also have every Disney movie VHS tape, and a bunch of others, from him.

The Pokemon cards I bought were newer, and I think they were knockoffs. Got them for $1 at the flea market, too. I want to build a couple of vintage decks, so I can teach little man how to play without having to learn 600 new Pokemon first.

You could probably sell the set online, if they’re in mint condition. Main thing is that there were so many of them printed back then, and collector card gaming hasn’t really made much of a comeback. You’ll still see people playing the odd game of Magic: The Gathering, but those are mostly dudes my age reliving high school. The young kids don’t care about it right now.

Well, you see, the VALUE of vintage stuff is determined by you the former user more than by new users. Knock-offs or re-issues would kill even that market. 70’s and newer stuff is hotter right than older, because those are the people with disposable income revisiting their childhoods.

I know some of the vintage Turtle figures and other action figures of the era are bringing bucks.

Yeah. We 80’s-90’s kids are dealing with lower salaries than the 70s kids, with higher inflation and cost of living. We all broke, yo.

Absolutely! I LOVE blowing bubbles and have taken sculpting classes, and I adore modeling clay. I make the funniest wacky faces and busts. I had a whole “series” of clay faces lined up in my kitchen window for years at one time. haha

I’ve searched eBay for specific dolls I used to have, like the Peaches and Cream Barbie and Dream Glow Barbie, and a few others, but I haven’t purchased any of them. Mainly because they weren’t in good condition or the seller wanted way too much money. :)

I have purchased toys from the store for my kids that I had similar versions of, like Gloworms, Legos, and Cabbage Patch Kids.

I have recorded many hours of vintage programming to share with my daughter and to view occasionally myself. I’ve purchased numerous books for my daughter I’d enjoyed as a child. I happened across some vintage small items; Hot Wheels, model train scenery, etc I thought would be fun for her to include in her doll playing time.
We have Monopoly regular and M&M, Battleship ( @ibstubro my daughter sometimes cheats on that game too, but the funny thing is, she does it backwards. She gets it out when I feel poorly. After I make a miss or two she starts moving her ships to the spot I call out so I’ll get a quick kill.), Scrabble, Life, Chutes And Ladders, etc.
My daughter is a retro nut. I’ve purchased a few things on ebay for her which include toys, comics and clothes, but none with a big resale value. I want her to enjoy them, not market them. I would like to get her a good working version of Spirograph, but individual wheels sell for more than what my old origonal set cost.

I bought my husband a Mahmod steam engine truck for a wedding gift because he was poor growing up and had always wanted one.

Oh yeah, one of those minibake ovens or whatever they’re called. I was too poor as a child to have one but i bought one for a child in my care for awhile and we had great fun with it.

I ordered a Furby off of Amazon yesterday.

@Headhurts I named my imaginary friend Furby, cool sista!

I bought something I wanted as a kid. I longed for a number of toys as a child that were forbidden because they were boys’ toys. Really. One of them was a little red wagon. I wanted one so badly. There was a nested pyramid of them outside the hardware store, about six from large to very small, and I couldn’t even have the tiny one. They weren’t for girls, so said my father.

I just couldn’t get into dolls. The interesting toys were for boys. Like electric trains and little cars and slingshots.

So at the earliest opportunity I bought my young sons a handsome Radio Flyer, large enough to pull two kids in. I tried to show them how the boys used to use them as a kind of scooter by kneeling in them on one leg and pumping with the other while steering with the handle. Wow, I can’t even find a picture of a kid driving a wagon that way. Doesn’t anyone do that any more?

They weren’t interested.

I would love to find a vintage Rock ‘em Sock’em Robot set.

I have a grown up drinking game I’d like to play with them.

I couldn’t find you a picture, either, @Jeruba, and I REALLY looked. Odd, because I know exactly what you’re talking about.

@Blondesjon I’ve seen some really awesome, like new, Rock Em sets. Even with the box occasionally. They don’t seem to bring a lot.

Duuuude. Rock Em Sock Em Shots? I’m in!

@ibstubro . . . I want the set I had as a kid. I also wouldn’t mind finding an old Gabriel Monster Machine like I had when I was in fourth grade.

@Blondesjon Don’t know Gabriel, but every time I see an Incredible Edible, Fun Flowers or Creepy Crawlers set I wonder what could be used for Goop.

They’re slimy, they’re grimy, they’re purple and green…

@Jeruba & @ibstubro Here you go.

Nice, @glacial The best I could do was a B&W of a boy and his dog in the wagon with the boy holding the handle.

@ibstubro I’m noticing a lot of pictures of seatbelts in RF wagons these days… maybe the manufacturer has been discouraging this particular mode of propulsion!

I have. Would have loved to have given them the original, but my brother sold or gave away a lot of my childhood toys and books (without anyone’s permission).

@OneBadApple That’s really sweet.

Yes I have. Specifically, a Spirograph set, a Gyroscope, a Slinky, and a Yo Yo

@glacial, that’s it exactly! How did you find that? Whatever the manufacturer might want to encourage (seatbelts! in a wagon??), they can’t rewrite history. I thought for sure I’d find some old photos of kids driving wagons.

$8.98. Well, that was a lot of money in those days. But maybe I could have saved up my allowance for 59.8666666667 weeks…

Seat belts? So the kids get good and crushed if the thing topples over?

@Jeruba $8.98 must have been a lot of money in those days! I tried image searching with successively older decades, and it turned up from the keywords “1940s photo radio flyer”, or some such. And the URL indicates that the ad is from 1949.