Where did you buy your toys?

[LadyZod]

Let's see... I split my childhood between Queens, NY and Miami, FL, so places vary.

Up north:
-Odd Lots
-Service Merchandise
-Alexander's
-Times Square (department store on Linden Blvd not in actual Times Square in Manhatten)
-The hardware store my dad would go to on Sunday (mego Dukes)
-tiny asian stores carrying KO's and Transformers, years before Transformers hit the US in Jackson Heights and Jamaica
-tiny toystore on Liberty Ave

Down South:
-Villa clara
-Woolsworth (on Miami Beach)
-Zayre/Ames (various)

Interesting aside, the first time I ever set foot in a Toys R Us or Lionel's Playworld was when I was 15 years old; and even then it was with friends. My parents never took me to one.

[EmergencyIan]

The hot spot in Louisville back in the 70's was Thornbury's toys (must of been more of a local chain). They had one in a mall and one free standing. I can picture walking into each store even to this day. I got everything there from my first Torch to the infamous KISS figures. Another name I haven't seen mentioned is Roses. I got my first Spider-man figure there. It was the only time my dad ever actually went out and bought one for me (it was always my mother when it came to toys - my dad pretty much resented the idea of me playing with action figures but I loved them anyway). I got alot of GI Joe stuff from Ayr-way. Still have my talking commander from 1972 with the Ayrway tag on the box! That was a Santa Claus gift though (I guess Santa had to make a quick stop that night...). Of course the Sears wish book also produced a number of Joe items as well. I think that was the kid-standard in the early to mid '70s for Christmas shopping.

Kmart is where I saw my first ever RC Batman. I'll never forget that day because it was mostly him and Robin on this circular display rack. I remember the clothes being really loose fitting on them initially and the masks were on every way but the right way (but I loved them anyway- have five right now). Toy's R US and Children's Palace moved in during the late 70's and that eventually ran Thornbury's out of business. Interesting enough I saw Megos in Children's Palace as late as the mid-80's before they were phased out. They were imports but it was pretty easy in those days to walk in and get a Batman, Robin or Hulk figure for about four dollars and change. They also had the 12 inch figures in abundance (Batman, and Captain America were the most common). Great memories!

If you were in our part of the country (Indiana/Kentucky) and a kid in the 70s, you had to love Ayr-Way! MIB41, do you happen to remember the big bags of cotton candy on the ceiling?

- Ian

[Captain]

The lions-share of my toys came from Woolco and K-mart, but I got lots of stuff at Tops in Toys (who died almost overnight when toysRus and Walmart hit Western Canada), Consumers Distributing (ditto), Zellers, and dear old Mom seemed to help Santa out with items from the Sears Canada Wishbook.
For a very brief time, we had a British based store--Marks and Spencers that carried (some Palitoy carded) Megos too, but they were way more expensive there than anywhere else, and I can only recall being lucky enough to snag a Spock (regular Mego card) there. alas, Marks and Spencers didnt last very long.

Nowadays, the pickins' are pretty slim. Toys R Us is the main place. Wal-Mart --who always has the messiest toy departments I've ever seen in my life, and never seem to restock until September? ...and Zellers, who always seem to have three or four year old toy lines on the shelf, and it's always the stuff nobody wanted when new!? I guess there is still Sears too, but they only have full toy departments at Christmas now.

[MIB41]

If you were in our part of the country (Indiana/Kentucky) and a kid in the 70s, you had to love Ayr-Way! MIB41, do you happen to remember the big bags of cotton candy on the ceiling?

- Ian

OMIGOD...Now that you mention it Ian...YES! I had forgotten all about that. I checked the price tag this morning on my talking Joe (my parents sometimes forgot to take the tags off Santa items) and the 1972 price was $6.67 (go figure). Only in the 70's could a retailer come up with a price like that! I guess when you think about it that was pretty pricey for 1972. All things considered, prices have been pretty good for most figure lines since then. Here we are 35 years later () and a retro AT GI Joe is only ten dollars...That's really not bad! Thanks for the flashback Ian. That was great!

[txteach]

Caldors, 2 guys, Kresges, Bradlees, Childworld. It's really interesting that all of these stores do not exist any more.

[The Bat]

Kmart, Child World, Woolworth, & Zare.

[EmergencyIan]

OMIGOD...Now that you mention it Ian...YES! I had forgotten all about that. I checked the price tag this morning on my talking Joe (my parents sometimes forgot to take the tags off Santa items) and the 1972 price was $6.67 (go figure). Only in the 70's could a retailer come up with a price like that! I guess when you think about it that was pretty pricey for 1972. All things considered, prices have been pretty good for most figure lines since then. Here we are 35 years later () and a retro AT GI Joe is only ten dollars...That's really not bad! Thanks for the flashback Ian. That was great!

You're welcome! I'm glad someone else remembers Ary-Way, like I do.


- Ian

[Goblin19]

Children's Palace was number one, followed by Kiddie City, Uncle Bill's, Gold Circle, and K-Mart.

[mego boy CA]

True Value, K-Mart, Thrifty, and local Pharmacy.

[toys2cool]

Let's see... I split my childhood between Queens, NY and Miami, FL, so places vary.

Up north:
-Odd Lots
-Service Merchandise
-Alexander's
-Times Square (department store on Linden Blvd not in actual Times Square in Manhatten)
-The hardware store my dad would go to on Sunday (mego Dukes)
-tiny asian stores carrying KO's and Transformers, years before Transformers hit the US in Jackson Heights and Jamaica
-tiny toystore on Liberty Ave

Down South:
-Villa clara
-Woolsworth (on Miami Beach)
-Zayre/Ames (various)

Interesting aside, the first time I ever set foot in a Toys R Us or Lionel's Playworld was when I was 15 years old; and even then it was with friends. My parents never took me to one.

Dude how cool is that,you went to the same Villa Clara i went to,do you know they list items on ebay?

[LadyZod]

Did not know about ebay. Weird.

[brannon86]

Toys

Oh yeah, sometimes Sears, Ace Hardware, and JC Pennys. And also a place I remember, which is actually still in business, which I cant believe. A place called the PLAYPEN, which had an awesome toy selection. One of the best Star Wars displays I ever saw back then....

[kingdom warrior]

I had a lot of local merchants who carried Megos in the 70's it was a popular toy and many stores had them in my old neighborhood to my Mother's dismay...Thank goodness she knew this would sedate me and so she would buy me them to keep me out of her hair.
But there were stores that had the most and I would look forward to going to.

Rico's Toy store-...now a 99 cent store it was abandoned since the mid eighties someone in the past year bought the property and reopened the store I've been planning to go back just to see the inside of the store.

Buy Rite Department store-.....This was the other big store in my old neighborhood....tons of mego's they had their Mego's behind an elevated glass shelf. A worker would be on a ladder during the christmas season and he would bring down whatever figure you were going to buy. This was done during The Box era to avoid people from stealing them.

WoolWorths-I got many Megos here and many DC treasury editions
Toys r us
JcPenny
Korvettes

[toysrus]

Stores

For me it was mainly toys r us - look at my name. When I was 18 I found out that many toys had value $$$, and I heard a rumor that the toys r us in my neighborhood had a huge warehouse that had old toys just sitting there. To make a long story short back in 1988 I got a part time job at that toys r us, it took me like 4 months to be moved from the floor to the warehouse, anyway the old toy in the warehouse rumor was true, to an extent. I found 2 micronauts, but not on the micronaut card, some other name, it was a time traveler. I also found some old GI-joes from 1984 or so, and some baseball cards dated back 8 years, now since they were not new merchandise the store had to put them in clearance, I knew the lady who took care of that, she priced them at 99 cents each, I bought all of them plus the baseball cards. I sold most of that stuff on ebay. The micronauts sold for 100 bucks each.

I ended up working there another 7 months or so, hiding toys that I thought might someday hold value, when they didn't I left them there, I did have first picks though when the cases of new toys came in. Eventually I got tired of my boss, and went to lunch at burger king and never returned to that job until it was pay day to get my check. I can still remember eating dinner that night , the phone rang, it was toys r us, my Dad said oh he quit- bye and hung up!!

Enough of my toys r us life story, I also found many toys at Korvettes, consumers, sears & TSS.

[toys2cool]

For me it was mainly toys r us - look at my name. When I was 18 I found out that many toys had value $$$, and I heard a rumor that the toys r us in my neighborhood had a huge warehouse that had old toys just sitting there. To make a long story short back in 1988 I got a part time job at that toys r us, it took me like 4 months to be moved from the floor to the warehouse, anyway the old toy in the warehouse rumor was true, to an extent. I found 2 micronauts, but not on the micronaut card, some other name, it was a time traveler. I also found some old GI-joes from 1984 or so, and some baseball cards dated back 8 years, now since they were not new merchandise the store had to put them in clearance, I knew the lady who took care of that, she priced them at 99 cents each, I bought all of them plus the baseball cards. I sold most of that stuff on ebay. The micronauts sold for 100 bucks each.

I ended up working there another 7 months or so, hiding toys that I thought might someday hold value, when they didn't I left them there, I did have first picks though when the cases of new toys came in. Eventually I got tired of my boss, and went to lunch at burger king and never returned to that job until it was pay day to get my check. I can still remember eating dinner that night , the phone rang, it was toys r us, my Dad said oh he quit- bye and hung up!!

Enough of my toys r us life story, I also found many toys at Korvettes, consumers, sears & TSS.

Good story,so you bought the toys in 88 and sold them on ebay? So how long did you save them for? and what Joes were they? I also worked in toys r us stocking the toys and in the back stockroom in 2000,I use to be able to open the cases and take the good ones back then SLU were worth money and Star Wars figures,those were good times