53-year-old mystery solved!

P

PoorOldSpike

Guest
My parents bought me this VIP Roadways electric slot car racing set (Set 'A', red MG and green Austin-Healey sports cars) for Christmas 1957, but it was a bit frustrating because the tail end of the cars used to swing like crazy during races and jump the cars out of their slots no matter how carefully we went into bends, which spoilt the enjoyment, and it was a mystery why that happened.

57SetA.jpg



I just decided to look up the set on the net for old time's sake, and to my surprise I see from the diagram below that the cars were supposed to have a 'rear guide pin' (H)..

58Cha.jpg


But my set never had any such pins! If it had, they'd have kept the rear ends firmly in the slot without any crazy tail-sliding!
The diagram says the pins were 'supplied loose', and had to be manually inserted underneath the cars, so I can only imagine that when we first opened the box and started rummaging through all the bits and pieces, the small pins somehow got lost (down the back of the settee maybe) sniffle..
As with all toys and stuff, I eventually got fed up with it and it ended up in the bin some years later..

VIP ROADWAYS SITE- http://www.madmalc.screaming.net/vipmodelroads.htm
 
Toys that old in their original box and never used may fetch a nice price from a collector.....
 
Yes old original boxed stuff is valuable nowadays..

Here's another Christmas present I had that flopped, a Cox PT-19 control-line model in 1961, I got these pics from the net-

pt192.jpg


pt19.jpg


http://www.airplanesandrockets.com/airplanes/pt-19.htm

It was 22" wingspan made of thick tough plastic held together by rubber bands and had a real petrol engine (wow how kool was that), but I had zilch experience of model engines or model flying.
Me, me dad and me mate Jimmy O'Grady took it down the local fields but not only did we have trouble starting the bleddy engine in the freezing cold, but we also set it on only half throttle because I wanted to get used to the feel of the machine in the air before trying it at (gulp) full throttle in the future..
As a result it could barely achieve flying speed and kept pranging soon after takeoff, fortunately without damage.
We decided to wait til summer before trying it again, I didn't mind because I was just happy to have the thing, it looked great hanging on string from my bedroom ceiling.
Me and Jimmy tried flying it again in the summer, and although it briefly got airborne, I stalled it and pranged hard, bending the engine needle valve.
I couldn't be bothered buying a new valve, and I was losing interest in control lines anyway and never tried flying it again.
It gathered dust under my bed for another year or two, then I binned it..

I think it's still on sale, this pilot is better than I was but he pranged in the end, ha ha-

 
PoorOldSpike said:
Yes old original boxed stuff is valuable nowadays..

Here's another Christmas present I had that flopped, a Cox PT-19 control-line model in 1961, I got these pics from the net-
Click to expand...

It is as old as me.....
 
Here's a Christmas present I had around 1955, a Davy Crockett suit complete with coonskin hat!
(This kid is not me, the pic is from the net)

davywebt.jpg


God how we lurved DC, he represented everything that was great such as adventures in the forests of the wild frontier, killing a bear when he was only 3 (how kool is that) and generally having a good time, totally unlike the sterile boring world we lived in where grown ups wore suits, gosh we hated our schoolteachers!
My mate Dave Theobald also had a DC suit for Christmas and we used to go out looking for Apaches but could never find any in our quiet english village.
I could hardly wait for the DC film to come to our local cinema, but somehow I missed it, "it's been and gone" said my mates, and I was sick as a parrott.
I had plenty of DC comic books though including a thick album, I lent it to David McGrath but when I went to collect it later he said he'd lost it (lying b*stard), and I never did get it back, sniffle..

 
Yes, the past is strange.
We never had a TV until i was about 8 years old, I had to listen to the radio and play with toys instead.
We never had a telephone til I was 34, I had to write letters to stay in touch with people.
And I never had a computer til I was 35, I had to play boardgames.
When I was 54 I went on the internet for the first time. Until then I had to buy books to find out about things.
 
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