I've mentioned this before but hammers were a big part of my childhood.
No doubt they were for many kids.
My older Sisters tell me I even drew hammers on the wallpaper at our house, which must have been quite annoying for our parents!
In fact I was just like the Soulet hammer boy that hung at the bottom of our stairs back in the Sixties!
My first proper hammering came from that now classic toy called pound-a-peg or similar. So simple yet so satisfying. I imagine really old ones are collectable.
With finer motor skills I moved up to lighter tapping with again the now iconic Tap-A-Tile. Mine was probably by Spears. I seem to recall making star shapes that looked like the rattan plate mats we had back then.
I never graduated to the really detailed hammering that was needed for string-and-nail art sets like the owl or the ship but I'm pretty sure I had a tool set something like this. Alas it was only the hammer that made an impression [pun intended] as I've no affinity with any other tool.
Even though I never took to wood I did love plastic and my all-time fave Hong Kong hammer looked something like this, which came in a header carded bag along with its neat plasticy pals. Ah, now that's good bashing right there!
The pounding didn't stop even on holidays. Seaside kiosks always stocked candy canes and inevitably I was drawn to the candy hammers!
The treats didn't stop there either since all proper sweet shops back then offered chocolate tools! I'll have 2 ounces of spanners and hammers please Mister!
As a kid I wanted to be a paleontologist and discover dinosaurs. As I grew up [still a work in progress] I dreamed of a geologist's hammer and I think I got one in a fossil hunting set one Christmas circa 1972. Sadly I can't find any examples of the set. I just know it had a T.Rex fossil skeleton on the box lid and contained a black and white fossil ID guide, a magnifying glass and a small spiked hammer not unlike this modern adult basher.
I never became a paleontologist but have never forgotten my smashin' childhood.
Did you like hammers and do you still have a bash?
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