Toys of the Sixties: A Pictorial Price Guide [Paperback]

William R. Bruegman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1996

Over 1,000 vintage collectible 1960's toys are pictured, described, and valued in this 200-page all-sixties price guide. History, trivia, and anecdotes about the items are found throughout. Toys of the Sixties also includes an overview of the toy business in that most creative era, a profile of the toys and the toy companies that still survive today, and an informative and entertaining interview with a former Mattel executive who was instrumental in bringing many of America's favorite toys to the marketplace.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This book is like opening up a time capsule filled with all my fave toys from the 60's!! This is much more than your average price guide - very informative and fun to read. Bill Bruegman has created THE toy collecting reference BIBLE filled with various Holy Grails - and the hunt, for me, is on!" -- Kirk Hammett, Lead Guitar, Metallica

"What a flood of memories this book brings back! Obviously, it's a valuable reference guide, but it's also great fun to browse if you grew up when most of these toys were new." -- Leonard Maltin, Entertainment

About the Author

Over the years Bill Bruegman has become an internationally recognized leader in the profitable hobby of collecting memorabilia, and is a certified member of the American Society of Appraisers, specializing in Post-War toys and popular culture items.

Starting as a dealer in vintage records, Bill soon noticed many of his customers wanted music and collectibles from the TV cartoons of their childhoods. Spotting a trend toward 1950's and 1960's memorabilia, Bill turned to selling and trading model kits, board games and other toys which led to the formation of his mail-order firm, Toy Scouts, Inc., in 1983 as well as founding Model and Toy Colletor Magazine in 1986. Since that time, Toy Scouts has grown to supply customers around the world.

Because of his expertise, Bill has been recognized in leading news sources including Rolling Stone, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Enterpreneur, Your Money, and Pronto, the prestigious Japanese trend monitor. He has also been sought out by motion picture studios such as Warner Brothers and Columbia Pictures as a source for the purchase and rental of period props, and has helped furnish the new multi-million dollar MGM Theme Park in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Items from the Toy Scouts inventory and Bill's personal collection have been displayed at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. as part of "It's Your Childhood, Charlie Brown," an exhibit of post-World War II children's life. Other museums, including the Henry Ford Museum, The Strong Museum, and the "Please Touch" Museum for children in New York, have also featured pieces of the Toy Scouts inventory in their displays.

Product Details

• Paperback: 219 pages
• Publisher: Toy Scouts Inc; Revised edition (June 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0963263773
• ISBN-13: 978-0963263773
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.3 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,297,440 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Baby-Boomer Nostalgia, August 21, 2005

By 

J. Collins (Las Vegas, NV USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Toys of the Sixties: A Pictorial Price Guide (Paperback)

"Toys of the Sixties" is primarily a collector's tool, but in being so has a considerable listing of toys manufactured from the late 50's through 1970 or so. Without a doubt, if you grew up in this time, some of your toys will be listed here- and some toys you wanted but never received. All this said, even though my copy says "4th Edition" and the copyright is 1996, what prose there is, and the ads for additional material seem out of the 1980's. I couldn't find websites or email addresses for any of these catalogs, and no specified method of payment either. I would be cautious about using this book for collecting given the fact it's almost 10 years old, but a lot of memories will come back while reading it.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great resource for sixties or vintage toys!, January 1, 2002

By 

joyce grant (Phoenicia, NY USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toys of the Sixties: A Pictorial Price Guide (Paperback)

Love this book. It has been a great help to my business (timewarptoys.com), and for my personal collecting. I wish he would do another! I highly recommend it for any child of the sixties or anyone that loves toys!

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Scouts' Honor, March 15, 2006

By 

Gord Wilson "alivingdog.com" (Bellingham, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Toys of the Sixties: A Pictorial Price Guide (Paperback)

This book is like an oversized, jam-packed version of the quarterly catalog Bill Bruegman put out for Toy Scouts, his retro-nostalgia toy hunting business. It's an oversized, black and white paperback with a full color cover showing lots of great toys. The inside is chock full not only of pictures of 'sixties era toys but also stories. One of the best is about the guy at Ideal who invented Mr. Machine (recently reproduced by Poof Toys). There's also great info about how Mattell came up with so many ingenious toys.

Many of the toys of this era would be outlawed today for insurance reasons. Companies like Tycho bought the molds and brought a lot of them back, sometimes in revised, safer versions. Due to books like this, some toys like Rock 'Em Sock "Em robots have made a comeback. Twenty bones might seem high for this book, but in my view it's a bargain, with hundreds of pictures to pore over, not to mention sprinklings of trivia and Bill's industry anecdotes. Not only that, but this book alerted me to a toy I never knew existed that I stumbled on at a thrift shop. Which is to say, it's a great place to start scouting.