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The earliest memory I have is a snapshot in my mind playing with a take apart Plane at a friend's apartment when I was 2 years old.
My mother said that I loved that thing and didn't want to leave it to go home. So she and dad tried to find to find one for me.
They could not find one, but did find a Play Skool Take Apart Truck. With much scrounging mom was able to get one for Christmas for me in 1958.
It cost them $18.00 back then. To give a sense of context, my dad was making $360 a month back then working for a rail road.
I was able to hang on to the truck and keep it complete for many years. When I left home it stayed at home with my baby adopted brother who played
with it. He was not as careful to not lose parts.
After he grew up, my parents had a house fire that burned absolutely everything, ...However, it turned out the toy chest was stored outside in a shed.
The truck was in the toy chest.
So, I reclaimed my truck. It was covered with 55 years of dirt and grime and it look like some chemical, maybe grey paint was splattered on it. It was missing a lot of parts.
Here are pics of the way it looked a few weeks ago.










I wanted to restore it so I started looking for a parts truck. This is what I found on ebay.







If you look at the details, you will see some things that are different, like a different number of bolts on the side. I was
hoping to use the lower side panels, but it turned out the bolt patterns was different. However it supplied some parts I needed.

I can't believe these wooden bolts would last for 55 years.



Here is my truck disassembled...



After scrubbing with a general purpose cleaner, it didn't cut the grime. So I started using rubbing compound. I was able to
remove the grime and grey paint and not mess up the original paint. It took a lot of elbow grease to clean things up. I didn't want to
do a full restoration. I wanted to leave the normal play wear on the truck, so I didn't sand it down and repaint it. Where I personalized it with
a "B" and inscribed "Bobby" on, are still there.

Here is what it looks like now.













A few years ago, I found on ebay, the take apsrt plane that started it all.









Shall I continue with more "Toys of my Childhood?

That's a great story. I love it when you can find things from your childhood. I have 2 (I had about 70 more but gave them to our mailman before I started collecting them) Matchbox's for my childhood, and if I can find it, a picture of me and my brother in probably 1970 or 1971 with a toy each from one of our Christmas'.

Tony

Great story - great pics. My best matchbox cars are the ones I played with in the 50s and early 60s. They were beaters my brothers repainted with house paint.
I think you are right to just clean your truck - leave the B for BOBBY - with all the accumulated knocks and scratches of childhood.
Toys were expensive then - we only got them for birthday or Xmas.

What a cool toy. I could stand to see more.

I might have to find some pics of the Playskool train that I grew up with. I still have the loco and caboose somewhere in a box.

Great toy, Great story, Thanks for sharing it.

What a lovely story and some priceless memories. I like the truck too, the tool storage at the back is neat.

awesome Bob!

I had it wrong. The train I grew up with was a Fisher Price, not Playskool. Mine's pretty beat up but this is what it used to look like. The pictures don't do it justice - you really have to see and hear it in motion. First, the smokestack on the caboose is a spring with a weight on the top so it bounces around when the train moves. There's a guy in the caboose with a lantern and when the wheels turn he swings his arm back and forth. The engine has eyes also connected to the wheels that make them look up and down when moving. The best part, though is the pistons and connecting bars which all move and then there is some sort of mechanism inside that makes a great noise, sort of a repetitive "clucking" sound that sounds almost human like someone clucking with their tongue.