Hello,
Here are pictures of metal recasts from 1930's moulds. The moulds were sold for home casting which was popular back then. BUCK ROGERS OF THE 25TH CENTURY
They are 2-3" high and being sold on eBay.
The US home castings are always large items, even the 54mm stuff is chunky and basic whereas UK casting sets were almost as fine and detailed as Britain's. The US one's seem to be mostly in scale with large electric train sets.
Interesting that on your last radio broadcast you discussed toys. Will modern kids play with toys or just electronics?
Well my 34 year old daughter firmly has the tactile need to hold and read a book. She is not sold on electronic books other than the convenience of when traveling being able to have a library on an i-pad. Even then she will buy and discard a trail of paperbacks.
We will continue this with our grandson who will inherit books, comics and toys from his mother and me.
It is a given fact that toy soldiers for example are not played with the way earlier generations did, but by the same token the annoying modern LEGO figures are selling like hot cakes so styles change and with guidance, imagination will be triggered in modern kids if the parents stay engaged.
My parents generation were upset at the omnipresence of television, I think rather than being passive entertainment it opened knowledge to a wider audience it wasn't just westerns, detective stories and spy stories. Again it depended on parental involvement.
So I believe there will always be toys of some form to develop hand eye co-ordination other than video games and computers.
Capt Scarlett, Thunderbirds, Stingray will continue to exist in some form of imaginative entertainment. Not everything will be computer generated. animation, even puppets will be new again one day.
Regards,
Terranova47
NYC
