Erector Sets - I Never Had One As A Child. Did You? I Do Now.

[BROBS]

As a child of the 80’s... I didn’t have the patience for an erector set. I needed more immediate results. Usually played with toy guns, army guys, GI joes, Super Power figures, etc etc. The erector set at this point was way too old school plus it has the word “erect” in it which can make you avoid it like the plague lol

 

[saintpeter]

...We used the punched steel struts to form the inner skeleton of the first V2 rocket me and my cousin built...

As we used to say, "Be the first kid on the block to be the last kid on the block."

 

[prndl]

I envy you guys. All I had was a "horse" made out of a wooden stick.

But, boy, that "horse" could scoot like hell up and down them red clay hills of north Georgia once them "Injuns" got after me.

Talk about the proverbial days.

 

[jpmcwjr]

<< Snipped bits out >>
The erector set at this point was way too old school plus it has the word “erect” in it which can make you avoid it like the plague lol

It's an Erector Set, not an erection set.....

 

[sablebrush52]

I loved building things with the Erector Set. Mine was the proper 1950’s all metal stamped version, with nuts and screws a little kid could properly ingest or inhale, metal lengths that could poke your eye out. Good stuff. None of that plastic junk.
Lincoln Logs made from real wood.
Most of the stuff I played with as a kid was to some small extent, life threatening, which is as it should be.

 

[jpmcwjr]

And bicycling without helmets and dodgy brakes. BB guns, airguns, rifles. All good stuff.

But Simon takes the cake for ingenuity and scope of project!

 

[briarbuck]

Erector sets as kids. Erection pills as an old guy. There's an antidote there somewhere...

I had a set but it wasn't my style. I liked Hot Wheel tracks and cars as a kid.

 

[kanaia]

I had one of the metal sets also. They should of included a box of band aids in the box.

 

[scloyd]

I loved building things with the Erector Set. Mine was the proper 1950’s all metal stamped version, with nuts and screws a little kid could properly ingest or inhale, metal lengths that could poke your eye out. Good stuff. None of that plastic junk.

This is a metal set with the tiny nuts and bolts...plastic wheels though. Some of the paperwork is dated 1964 and 1969. The box is dated 1974, so I'm guessing '70's maybe into the 80's.

Here's what's inside the box.

 

[condorlover1]

And bicycling without helmets and dodgy brakes. BB guns, airguns, rifles. All good stuff.

But Simon takes the cake for ingenuity and scope of project!

The local golf course acquired an unplanned 19th sand bunker because of me and my cousins attempt at rocketry!

 

[BROBS]

It's an Erector Set, not an erection set.....

Hahaha try telling that to a group of kids.

or don’t... we want to see you post on here again.

 

[shanez]

I had, well I don't know what I had. Aside from some hand made/knitted stuffed toys, most of my toys from my early childhood came in paper grocery bags or boxes and were bought at garage sales or Goodwill and came complete with missing pieces and no original packaging. ?

Things got better as I grew older and birthdays/Christmas saw name brand new stuff but occasional toys still came from garage sales. I can remember going "garage saleing" on Saturdays with my mom and grandmother until was 14 or 15 years old. Grandma loved going to garage sales right up until she passed.

 

[BROBS]

Yeah I got some killer Star Wars and He-Man gear with my grandma at garage sales. ?

 

[diamondback]

I remember Matchbox cars and a bunch of those plastic green army men. That’s mostly what I had.

 

[jpmcwjr]

And model airplanes, and that lovely glue! My favorite was the P-51. But more fun were the kind you could fly- on two wires, no fancy RC stuff for me.

 

[olkofri]

Nondescript plastic figures, some Hot Wheels, some GI Joes, DinoRiders... not too many of any given series and of course, never the complete collection of anything. The most I had of were Transformers.

 

[scloyd]

Estes Rockets were popular (when we were teenagers) in our neighborhood. We lived on a dead-end street, we would shoot off the rockets and every kid on the block would chase the rocket as it parachuted back to the ground.

 

[prndl]

Anybody remember Yard Darts?

Nowadays, a parent would be charged with child abuse if they gave their kids a set of these.

 

[cosmicfolklore]

I was more of a Lincoln Logs kinda kid. And, I had boxes and boxes of them, with Matchbox cars and electric trains.

 

[jpmcwjr]

Lionel trains, yes!

Rockets: We made some of our own, by drilling out a CO2 cartridge and stuffing it with match tips. The pipe of a set of stilts was the perfect launcher. How did we not end up burnt??

It was also fun to start fires remotely by gluing a BB onto a kitchen match, then firing that out an airgun.