12-22-2004Once upon a time in the 1960s and ’70s, children unwrapped their gifts under the Christmas tree and found toys and board games like “Cootie,” “Battling Tops” or “Lite Brite.”
Today, gifts under the tree include cell phones, PlayStation, CDs or DVDs.
But the games of yesterday have not been forgotten. They make their comebacks, often repackaged and reworked. And a Warsaw man is helping keep the older versions alive with his Web site.
Kurt Kelsey, 42, has maintained his site at www.feelingretro.com for about seven years.
“It all started with me buying an old Christmas catalog,” said Kelsey Monday. He wanted to see again the toys he remembered from his childhood. He scanned the images of the toys from the catalog. Along came eBay with retro toys available and more photos for the posting. The Web site evolved.
On average, Kelsey said his site has 700 visitors a day. Most are from the U.S., followed by Great Britain, but they also come from as far away as Africa. Many of the people who click to his site are about his age wanting to just see the toys they, too, remember.
The site features scanned photos of the toys, along with photos Kelsey took of his own toy collection. Sometimes a person will e-mail Kelsey a photo of a retro toy or ask to see a certain toy, which Kelsey will post once he can find it.
His site also includes links to his favorite foods, music and Saturday morning cartoons of the past.
“The whole era was kind of ... a very colorful era,” Kelsey said of the 1970s and disco.
When he began the site, Kelsey said, he wanted to get as many toys on it as possible so he put more work into it and it took more of his time. Now, he adds about one new toy a week, but it’s been no sweat.
“All of them were pretty easy to find,” he said.
The two toys visitors most often check out on the site are the Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle and the Battling Tops. Guys also like to check out the G.I. Joe action figures while women want to remember their past with Baby Go Bye-Bye.
“I never thought I’d get the following I have gotten,” he said.
As for his own toy collection, Kelsey said, “the collection is growing.”
But he’s not one of those toy collectors who never take the toys out of the box. He and his children will play “Stay Alive” or “Battleship” together. He said if he’s going to sit around and play board games with his children, it might as well be games he enjoys.
For more information about retro toys, Kelsey recommended the book “The Playmakers” by Tim Walsh, who also has a Web site at www.theplaymakers.com
The book covers the history of toys from the 1940s to present that sold a certain number, were invented by an individual or small development company and/or were on the toy shelf for a minimum number of years.
“It’s really a cool book,” said Kelsey.