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One Christmas, possibly 1975/1976, my sister recieved an Orbitoy after "Father Xmas" visited our Glasweigan semi! I had never seen anything like it nor have I since and I never asked "Father Xmas"....my mum! where she got it. I got the impression it was quite old when my mother had aquired it as it seemed to have been inspired by the 1969 Moon Landings and it had the price written on the box as something like 3/6 !! It consisted of a yellow plastic "satellite" which was magnetically attached to the rim of a double-ended cylinder. It's a bit difficult to describe here, but the object of the toy was to get the satellite up to speed by rotating the cylinder gently and then to bang it on the kitchen floor so that the satellite could spin on its own on the floor. It was a colourful toy with bright paintings of the moon and the surrounding galaxies all over it and it made such a cool sound as the satellite rotated around its rim, in fact that was what really attracted myself and my sister to the toy. We still have it to this day in my mother's attic in full working order, didn't need batteries, or a SIM-card, just good old fashioned gravity and dexterity!
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Re: Orbitoy
I suspect it was pre-1969, originally...
There are two going on eBay at present, one with a couple of nice pictures.
The tinplate artwork looks late 50's-early -60's
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Vintage-Kiddie...item335c5cccd1
But the toys that entertained us in the 70's 80's and 90's didn't all have their origins then, even if "new" was often what we children craved from the latest TV ad, or because the cool kid at school had one."It's never too late to have a happy childhood." -
Re: Orbitoy
Thanx for that Emmett, good old ebay, although i'm surprised nobody put a bid on it???Comment
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Re: Orbitoy
Ker-ching! Another memory drops into place. I had an Orbitoy at some point in the 60s. It's attached to a story that always comes up in my family of how I got a birthday present in the post from my Gran and I just wouldn't let it out of my sight. I'd carry this parcel everywhere to the point where, at my birthday, the paper was pretty much falling off anyway. I knew it was a 'spinning top' sort of toy but I just couldn't picture what it was. Now it all slots into place. It was an Orbitoy!
Blimey, that's two long lost memories brought back recently - Hot Wheels' Zowiees and now Orbitoy
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