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Top holiday toys from the year you were born
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1920: Raggedy Ann doll
Original estimated retail price: $1
Originally a book character, Raggedy Ann was created by a prolific political cartoonist named Johnny Gruelle. By 1920, two signature handmade dolls—Raggedy Ann and her brother, Raggedy Andy—were sold alongside the book. The result was a meteoric success on all fronts. Many myths surround the conception of Raggedy Ann, which is quite fitting given the character’s storybook origins.
1923: A. C. Gilbert chemistry sets
Original estimated retail price: $1.50 to $10
In a rather stunning example of how times have changed, magician A. C. Gilbert’s wildly popular chemistry sets that were introduced this year included flammables and explosives, among their components. The 1923 version exclusively targeted young boys, and decades would pass before unisex sets were introduced to the market.
1929: Pop-up book
Original estimated retail price: not available
Believe it or not, the first pop-up book dates back to a 14th-century Catalan mystic who employed a series of moving discs to visually demonstrate his philosophical treatises. Today’s pop-up books are more directly tied to 1929’s “Daily Express Children’s Annual No. 1,” published by Louis Giraud and Theodore Brown. Known at the time as a “movable,” Giraud and Brown’s book introduced a handy flap that, when pulled, prompted cardboard models to spring up.
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1934: Buck Rogers Disintegrator Pistol
Original estimated retail price: 50 cents
Straight out of an Amazing Stories comic book, the Buck Rogers Disintegrator Pistol was the first toy ray gun ever made. Touted as the 25th-century weapon of choice for Rogers himself, the gun made an unmistakable zapping sound when you pulled the trigger.
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1938: Microscope Set
Original estimated retail price: Not available
As a toy company that had already mastered the home kit experience, A. C. Gilbert started selling its Microscope Set for kids in the 1930s. Each surprisingly functional microscope offered three levels of magnification, while the set itself came with bees and flies for kids to inspect up close.
1944: Soap bubbles and bubble blowers
Original estimated retail price: 10 cents
Nowadays, we might be wary of a company named Chemtoy. But parents in the early 1940s had no problem purchasing bottles of the company’s soapy solution to give children a new favorite pastime: blowing bubbles. Just like today, most of the kids back then used bubble wands for the activity.
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1980: Rubik’s Cube hits the shelves
Original estimated retail price: $1.99
Hungarian designer Erno Rubik designed a 3D geometric puzzle in 1974 called Magic Cube. By 1980, Rubik’s nifty contraption was in the hands of Ideal Toy & Novelty Company, which renamed it Rubik’s Cube. The puzzle was an instant success, selling 100 million units within the first two years alone. In the time since, a peripheral sphere of competitions, books, and imitators has emerged.
1983: Cabbage Patch Kids
Defined by their doughy bodies and large, round heads, Cabbage Patch Kids took the world by storm after appearing on a TV show called “Real People” in 1980.
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The article What to Buy (and Skip) in December 2021 originally appeared on NerdWallet.
