I had a love affair with Tinker Toys when I was a kid. Well,
I guess you could say I still do. I loved creating cityscapes with those toys.
When I talk about Tinker Toys, I’m taking about the old wooden ones, not the
supersized plastic pieces of crap being sold today.
Our Tinker Toys came from a garage sale. Back in my day,
garage sales were the best places to get the best toys. It’s where we found a
model train set, a suitcase organ, countless books, and Tinker Toys. These were
the days when garage sales were still popular spots for getting great bargains,
before eBay ruined it all. Today people think they’re going to make a mint on
the junk in their attics or basements. I miss real garage sales.
But this isn’t about garage sales. At least for today it’s
not about garage sales. Today is about those really cool, wooden toys. I can’t
even start to calculate how many hours I spent building with them. I had
skyscrapers, houses, cars, planes, and even people. I built rocket ships and
used the upstairs as outer space. I can remember one time that I built a
high-rise all the way to the ceiling in grandma’s house, which was one of those
tall ceilings like you find in old houses. There’s a picture of it somewhere in
the mess of pictures I have in my library.
The best part of Tinker Toys? You were only limited by your
imagination. They were like Legos, but just a little bit better. The box we had
was full of the wooden rods and spools. My sister and brother also played with
them, but I was definitely the most adept and making huge creations.
Some time after we became adults, my grandmother gave the
box of Tinker Toys away to a friend’s grandchildren. It was definitely an
unpopular decision. We still loved them, and I wanted to show Wendy how awesome
these toys were. Although those toys are long gone from our homes, I hope they
are still being enjoyed after years of being infused with our memories.
Tinker Toys were invented by Charles H. Pajeau, Robert
Pettit, and Gordon Tinker in 1913 or 1914 in Evanston, Illinois. For all you math-letes out there, the
differing length sticks were meant to be based upon the Pythagorean progressive
right triangle. Hopefully one of my math friends can explain that fully. In
order of length, the sticks were orange (1.25 inches), yellow (2.15),
blue(3.35), red(5.05) green(7.40), and purple(10.35).
According to their website, Each successively longer rod is
(with allowances for the size of the spools) next smaller size times the square
root of two; thus any two of the same size will combine with one of the next
size up, and three spools, to form an isosceles right triangle (45°–45°–90°).
In 1992, they changed from wooden sticks to plastic ones and
also increased the diameter of the sticks. I own some of the new style Tinker
Toys, but still prefer the old wooden sets. I have a couple of small sets in their
cardboard containers that I found here and there. I’m always on the lookout for
a set of the 1960s version. If you happen to see any around, let me know.
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