Thinking Toy – Erector Sets
The holidays will be on us before you know it and a great toy for all ages is a thinking toy – Erector Sets. Take a toy that is timeless fun and requires a child or adult to put some thought into planning and construction. The doing is as important as the set but instead of a video that disappears upon completion, you end up with a cool construction piece of art!
Alfred Carlton Gilbert, born in 1884, entered Yale University Medical School at age 20 and earned some money by performing magic shows. In 1908, he was a graduate of Yale University, a doctor, won the gold medal for the pole vault at the 1908 Olympics and established the Mysto Magic Company together with John Petrie, a machinist who manufactured magic props and had a mutual interest in magic. Busy guy!
His first Erector set in 1913 was one-upping the contemporary Meccano building toy by allowing kids to build square girders. With a pulley, gears and strips of metal, kids could build stable structures, and the larger sets added a DC motor (or several) to power your working models.
Erector Sets became an instant success, after introduction at the toy fairs of 1913, thanks to Gilbert’s marketing savvy. He immediately started a media blitz with a series of advertisements in local & national papers and magazines.
The success was also due to the public’s interest in construction during a big building boom in America. Originally priced from $1.00 to $525.00, Gilbert’s new line of toys was awarded a gold medal at the Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915 and went on to sell more than 30 million units over the next 50 years.
As the Erector set gained popularity, it also grew more elaborate. The numbered model sets could build anything from a truck to a steam shovel to a power plant to a complete amusement park (ferris wheel, parachute drops, carousel, airplane ride, all working). For the more adventurous, virtually anything could be built with the right Erector pieces and a little ingenuity. Pistons, wheels, gears, levers…the basic building blocks of machinery were included in every Erector set, and the possibilities were endless.
Erector sets have maintained their popularity down through the decades, offering sets and plans as advanced as the kids could handle. And although old rival Meccano seemed to get the last laugh by buying the Erector line, it’s still the Erector name that’s synonymous with “toy for genius kids, everybody else surrender to the superior intellect.” The sets are making a comeback at Art Of Toys.
O’Brien’s Collecting Toys by Karen O’Brien has a good pricing guide to research your old sets!
