April 27, 2007

CHILDREN’S PICTURE-STORY DEPARTMENT (Oct, 1923)

Filed under: Other Animals, Toys and Games — @ 8:31 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Oct, 1923
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I would be more worried about someone stealing my cheetah than my car. Of course I’d be much more worried about my cheetah stealing some some curious child’s arm.

CHILDREN’S PICTURE-STORY DEPARTMENT

A Modern Lilliput That Has No Lilliputians, Being an Uninhabited Miniature Village Constructed by the Children of a Denver Man near His Summer Home in the Rocky Mountains: The Church Has Spires Three Feet High. To the Right Is an Electrically Lighted Brick Block in the Village

South Pasadena, California, Is Proud of Possessing What Is Doubtless the Youngest Band in the World. Including the Bandmaster, Seen in the Foreground, Each of the 60 Members of the Band Is Seven Years Young or Younger. All Are First and Second-Grade Pupils of the Local Public Schools, Where They were Trained. Left: Close-Up of Three of the Musicians

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April 25, 2007

METAL TOYS are here again (Apr, 1946)

Filed under: Toys and Games — @ 6:55 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Apr, 1946
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METAL TOYS are here again

PARENTS of toy-age children will welcome back the sturdy metal playthings for which wartime toys were a poor substitute. Boy-proof tricycles, of new design and material, are coming; and improved models of play sewing machines and steam engines. Toy-makers figure on a 30-percent higher output this year to stop the cries of the 5,000,000 more children in the market for the latest thing in bomb-scooters.

April 24, 2007

It’s Fun to Play This Indoor Football Game (Feb, 1941)

Filed under: DIY, Toys and Games — @ 8:10 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1941
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Well they certainly look like they’re having the time of their lives.

It’s Fun to Play This Indoor Football Game

Played by two to six persons, this game provides endless fun for members of your family or your party guests. The object of the game is to drive a table-tennis ball into one of the two goal baskets at opposite ends of the box. This is done by hitting the ball with wooden paddles attached to dowel rods, which are turned and pushed back and forth by hand. There are eight rods; the two center ones have four paddles each, the next two toward each goal have three each, while the next pair have two paddles each and the last two next to the goals have only one paddle each.

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April 19, 2007

Youngster Gets “Wings” at Age of Four (Mar, 1938)

Filed under: Toys and Games — @ 12:09 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Mar, 1938
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If my father had really loved me, he would have made me one of these.

Youngster Gets “Wings” at Age of Four

Valid until December 31, 2000, a novel airplane license recently issued by Australian air authorities entitles four-year-old Eric Morris to operate his homemade “flying flea,” shown in the photograph below. The diminutive craft, modeled after a French plane, is fitted with a gasoline engine of one and a half horsepower that allows the young pilot to taxi it along the ground as fast as twelve miles an hour.

Pinocchio the Puppet (Feb, 1940)

Filed under: Cool, DIY, Toys and Games — @ 12:04 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Feb, 1940
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This would be even cooler if there was a string to make his nose grow.

Pinocchio the Puppet

HOW TO DUPLICATE THE AMUSING LITTLE MODEL WALT DISNEY’S ANIMATORS USED

By HI SIBLEY

PINOCCHIO, the wistful puppet created by Geppetto, the wood carver, in Walt Disney’s second full-length production, is an inviting subject for either a homemade puppet or an amusing and companionable little doll. The accompanying illustrations show how to go about making one patterned after the original, which was created by the Disney model department as an inspiration to the animators drawing Pinocchio.

If you are an expert wood carver yourself, the head might be fashioned from a solid block of soft white pine and the nose inserted (Fig. 1), but a surer way to achieve a fair likeness is first to make a clay model. From this a plaster-of-Paris mold is taken, and the head is cast in plastic composition wood (Figs. 2, 3, and 4). The hat is made in the same way as the head and glued on.

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April 18, 2007

Something New in Midget Autos (Jul, 1933)

Filed under: Toys and Games — @ 7:41 am
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1933
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Something New in Midget Autos
MIDGET car builders will take keen interest in the Lilliputian motor car shown below. Powered by a storage battery, the vehicle dashes about the streets of Berlin to the amazement of spectators. The car was designed by a German engineer for his son, who is seen taking his girl friend for a ride. No plans on the machine are available.

April 14, 2007

Your Child’s Portrait in a Doll (Jan, 1938)

Filed under: Scary, Toys and Games — @ 9:09 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jan, 1938
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Your Child’s Portrait in a Doll

PORTRAIT DOLLS, modeled after children or adults by Dewees Cochran, New York painter and sculptress, reproduce all the details of features, hair, and complexion found in the original. Supplementing conventional sculptor’s tools with dental instruments for fine work, Miss Cochran models the amazingly lifelike figures from real life, or from written descriptions and photographs, one full face and one profile. The doll head is first shaped in a claylike material. From this a plaster mold is made in which the head is cast in a virtually unbreakable substance that simulates actual skin texture.

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April 12, 2007

Working Record Recorder for Kids (Sep, 1949)

Filed under: Communications, Television, Toys and Games — @ 8:06 am
Source: Popular Mechanics ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Sep, 1949
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That kid’s record recorder is pretty awesome. It works like a tape recorder. I wonder how well it worked.

“Playtalk” electronic toy for children uses a grooveless paper disk coated with “powdered” iron to record and reproduce magnetically music or voice. Records hold about two minutes of recording; can be “erased” and reused often

RADIO and ELECTRONICS TODAY
A — Twelve-pound self-powered tape recorder swings over the shoulder like a camera case. It is used by newsmen to cover news for the “Mutual Newsreel” programs; the small microphone may be held in the hand, or strapped on wrist

B — All-channel television and FM indoor antenna of unusual design employs parabolic-dipole arrangement on telescoping rods. Swivel joints make numerous adjustments possible

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April 11, 2007

HOBBYHORSE REALLY GETS SOMEWHERE (Nov, 1936)

Filed under: Toys and Games — @ 6:28 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Nov, 1936
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HOBBYHORSE REALLY GETS SOMEWHERE

When a child jumps up and down in the saddle of a hobbyhorse of new design, the mechanical steed carries him forward several feet with each bounce. The secret of the ingenious motion lies in a locking mechanism that enables the rubber-tired wheels to move frontward only. Each jounce compresses the spring frame, exerting a forward kick against the movable front wheels and a backward kick against the locked rear wheels, and thus propelling the whole vehicle ahead.

April 9, 2007

POCKET STEREOSCOPE (Jul, 1933)

Filed under: Origins, Photography, Toys and Games — @ 9:56 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jul, 1933
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This looks like an early Viewmaster.

POCKET STEREOSCOPE SHOWS VIEWS ON FILM

Gone is the old-fashioned parlor stereoscope of a generation ago, but its counterpart, in modern guise, has just made its appearance. The new pocket-sized form of the instrument, illustrated above, is as small as a pair of opera glasses and uses thirty-five-millimeter motion picture film instead of paper photographs. A shift lever causes the pictures to appear.

April 2, 2007

BILLIARDS by WIRE (Jun, 1938)

Filed under: Communications, Origins, Toys and Games — @ 9:40 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Jun, 1938
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This is a sort of early online gaming.

BILLIARDS by WIRE

College Teams Now Compete in Novel Telegraphic Tournaments

By ARTHUR GRAHAME

PLAYING separately in cities and towns scattered throughout the East and Middle West, teams representing many leading American colleges recently competed in the 1938 intercollegiate billiards tournament. During the entire competition, members of one team did not see their opponents on other teams. As the ivory balls rolled and spun on the green tables, clicking telegraph instruments carried the scores of individual teams to the director of the tournament. When all scores were in, the director wired the team standings back to the competing colleges.

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March 22, 2007

Piano Students Use Giant Keyboard (Aug, 1939)

Filed under: Music, Origins, Toys and Games — @ 9:20 am
Source: Popular Science ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Aug, 1939
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What movie does this remind you of?

Piano Students Use Giant Keyboard

WHEN Arthur Zahorik, a high-school music teacher in Milwaukee, Wis., tells a student to “run up the scales” he means it literally. For on the classroom floor stands a two-octave model of a giant piano keyboard, with white keys a foot wide, upon which students step to demonstrate their mastery of chords and scales. Each of the keys is actually a treadle which, when depressed, closes an electrical contact, causing a metal rod to strike a tuned metal plate and sound the correct note.

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