Though my childhood was anything but Dickensian, there were
nevertheless a few deprivations. I never had, for instance, “Robby the Robot” or “Gang of Five” wind-up toys to play with.
“I never even heard of them,” said my mother, by way of insufficient apology.
Not available in the U.S. since the ’60s, the toys started appearing in stores again earlier this month.
They arrived, via Japan, thanks to a couple of Oak Park-based entrepreneurs, John Eisner and Michael Perry, who started a company called Rocket USA and cut an exclusive deal with Japanese toymaker Masudaya Corp. to market and distribute the robots Masudaya has been making since the ’50s.
After their long absence from the U.S. market, the toys were reintroduced at the Chicago Gift Show in late July and are priced in the $14-$20 range. That’s a bargain; a vintage edition of “Machine Man,” the rarest and oldest of the “Gang of Five” robots, fetched $42,500 at a Sotheby’s auction last year.
I hope such relatively simple items will be able to find homes in this increasingly high-tech toy world.
And I wish I had had some of the robots when I was a kid; wish I had hung onto them, too. I could sure use an extra 42 grand.
