Toy Detective

While scanning some old family Christmas photos from the 1950s and 60s in preparation for a post about Christmas trees, I was sidetracked when I got to the photo above. It's my sister at Christmas 1955 (back in her only child days) in my parents' first house on W. 30th Street near Broadway – the house that Dad's Grandpa gave to them.  

My first thought while looking at the 1955 photo was, "Wow, that is one odd-shaped tree, with several extra-long branches jutting out." The tinsel seems to be concentrated on the upper part of the tree as well, contrary to Mom's usual quest for tinsel placement perfection.

But then I started looking at a few of my sister's toys strewn around here and was intrigued. What were some of those things? Did any of them manage to avoid the landfill?

I started my usual detective work on eBay, hoping to identify some of them, just as I did with Lanky Long, as well as the Soda Pop Fountain. It took a while, experimenting with different ways of describing things. But eBay (and various hoarders) didn't let me down.

First up was the Jack in the Box. 

It was pretty easy to find, as there were a few on eBay.

That's one disturbing clown. I'm not sure what is worse, his grooming habits or his fashion sense. Fortunately, this nightmare-inducing toy was gone by the time I came around four years later.

Now for the real detective work. What was the green thing next to my sister? The head-on angle made it hard to see just what it was supposed to be.

I figured it was a caterpillar but couldn't find it using the eBay search engine. I finally found it on eBay via Google. The seller wasn't sure either if it was a caterpillar or an inch worm.

He's potential nightmare fodder as well.

I couldn't find the rocking horse toy, which I remember well. 

The horse was in our basement at 1604 W. 30th. (When I was a year old, Mom wanted to take a picture of me sitting on it while wearing a cowboy outfit. She said I furious and refused to stay on it. She eventually had to photograph me on a smaller wooden horse with wheels.)

But getting back to the 1955 photo.

I was able to identify the last "mystery toy."

I thought it was a dog, because of that brown thing that looks like a floppy ear. But the body of the thing seemed to be green with spots – like a frog.

As it turned out it was a frog: a Jolly Jumper by Fisher Price.

I have no idea what that brown thing was in the photo,