Kids Could Buy Cheap Stuff Then - and became hooked on collecting

If you were a kid in the 50s or 60s, (and probably before) you could buy a ton of cool shit cheap.
If you could scrape together a buck by collecting bottles you were rich for a day. You could go to any corner store, pharmacy or supermarket and buy some comic books, penny toys, candy, a coke and some cigarettes. Nick the Greek used to sell us single cigarettes so we'd have lots of money left over to buy toys.

GUM BALL MACHINES

It didn't take long for a kid to get hooked on collecting lots of toys. Gum ball machines had tons of great items for a penny or 5 cents.
Or you could just buy a package of toys for almost nothing.

CEREAL PRIZES

Or! You could get stuff FREE! - even better!
We filled our closets with millions of cereal prizes.

And the weirder they were, the better.



Ramp walkers were totally collectible too. You had to have every one or you were dirt.

PUT 'EM TOGETHERS

For the mechanically minded, you could get toys that you had to put together yourself.


Kids love bizarre monster type character toys like Nutty Mads. These renaissance sculptures were only 29 cents!

WEIRD-OH MODELS

Not based on TV characters. Oh yeah....there were tons of toys that were created just to be toys and nothing else. We didn't care if they were on TV or not.

Kids just like to collect cool characters.
It's hard to imagine anything cooler than Weird -oh model kits.