The Toys Portal
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A toy or plaything is an object that is used primarily to provide entertainment. Simple examples include toy blocks, board games, and dolls. Toys are often designed for use by children, although many are designed specifically for adults and pets. Toys can provide utilitarian benefits, including physical exercise, cultural awareness, or academic education. Additionally, utilitarian objects, especially those which are no longer needed for their original purpose, can be used as toys. Examples include children building a fort with empty cereal boxes and tissue paper spools, or a toddler playing with a broken TV remote control. The term "toy" can also be used to refer to utilitarian objects purchased for enjoyment rather than need, or for expensive necessities for which a large fraction of the cost represents its ability to provide enjoyment to the owner, such as luxury cars, high-end motorcycles, gaming computers, and flagship smartphones.
Playing with toys can be an enjoyable way of training young children for life experiences. Different materials like wood, clay, paper, and plastic are used to make toys. Newer forms of toys include interactive digital entertainment and smart toys. Some toys are produced primarily as collectors' items and are intended for display only. (Full article...)
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The Mansion of Happiness: An Instructive Moral and Entertaining Amusement is a children's board game inspired by Christian morality. Players race about a 67-space spiral track depicting virtues and vices with their goal being the Mansion of Happiness at track's end. Instructions upon virtue spaces advance players toward the goal while those upon vice spaces force them to retreat.
The Mansion of Happiness was designed by George Fox, a children's author and game designer in England. The first edition, printed in gold ink "containing real gold" using one copperplate engraving and black ink using a second copper plate engraving, produced a few hundred copies. Water coloring was used to complete the game board, making a brilliant, colorful, and expensive product fit for the nobility. Later in 1800, a second edition was printed, probably for rich but common folk. Only one copper plate was used to print black ink and no water coloring was used. The game must have become quite popular in England as a third edition was printed using two copper plates, one for black, and the second for green lines to indicate blank spaces. Water colors were added to make a beautiful product. Laurie and Whittle published all three editions in 1800. On all three editions George Fox was listed as the inventor and the game honored the Duchess of York. In the first edition, gold not only added color and price but homage to royalty. In all three editions, the paper was glued to linen so it could fold up and be inserted into a heavy attractively labeled cardboard case. The game influenced later games, such as The Checkered Game of Life. (Full article...)General images -
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A bauernroulette game (from List of wooden toys) -
1970s No. 2 Meccano set (from Construction set) -
Burr puzzles (from List of wooden toys) -
Girls assembling a puzzle (from Girls' toys and games) -
Interlocking Disks enable the construction of high-symmetry models such as that of C
60 Fullerene. (from Construction set) -
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Girls in Barbie Fashion Show in Children's Museum of Indianapolis (from Girls' toys and games) -
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A bead maze (from List of wooden toys) -
Jeujura wooden construction set (Swiss chalet) (from Construction set) -
A ball-in-a-maze puzzle (from List of wooden toys) -
Detail from Children's Games by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1560), showing Flemish girls playing popular games of the era (from Girls' toys and games) -
A gee-haw whammy diddle in use (from List of wooden toys) -
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Tartu Toy Museum (from Toy museum) -
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A girl in Udaipur playing "Jungle Child" (from Girls' toys and games) -
A matryoshka doll taken apart (from List of wooden toys) -
A puzzle of dexterity, a type of mechanical puzzle (from List of wooden toys) -
An infant boy playing with a toy dump truck at the beach. (from Boys' toys and games) -
Constri (from Construction set) -
Hello Kitty Dreamcast set, 2009 (from Girls' toys and games) -
Rows of pink girls' toys in a Canadian store, 2011 (from Girls' toys and games) -
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Toy Museum - http://www.raheelpatel.com/toymuseum.html. (from Toy museum) -
Girls playing in a park in the Netherlands (from Girls' toys and games) -
Lego bricks are a construction set example. (from Construction set) -
Paintings of girl with dolls (from Girls' toys and games) -
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Various spinning tops (from List of wooden toys)
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A construction set is a set of standardized pieces that allow for the construction of a variety of different models. The pieces avoid the lead time of manufacturing custom pieces, and of requiring special training or design time to construct complex systems.
Did you know...
- ... that the Roman emperors Augustus and Claudius may have had an affinity for gambling?
- ... that before becoming a voice actor, Kikunosuke Toya was the keyboardist of an all-male Princess Princess cover band in high school?
- ... that Elizabeth II's childhood toys at 145 Piccadilly included 30 toy horses and a farm set collected from Woolworths?
- ... that the design for the water playground at Chelsea Waterside Park was criticized because local residents thought that the sprinklers resembled sex toys?
- ... that "Toy Town" was said to have "almost destroyed" the happy hardcore scene?
- ... that development economist John Toye said free-market proponents "first turn liberty against equality and fraternity, then overthrow liberty itself"?
- ...that akabeko (pictured), red cow toys from the Aizu region of Japan, are believed to ward off disease?
- ...that the travels of a shipment of 29,000 Friendly Floatees bath toys lost overboard in the Pacific in 1992 have been used to model the world's ocean currents?
- ...that Tuttuki Bako players insert their finger 60 mm (2.4 in) into an electronic device to render images of that finger on an LCD screen?
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Types: • Doll • Vehicle • Puzzle • Teddy bear
Industry: • American Specialty Toy Retailing Association • Birmingham toy industry • International Union of Allied Novelty and Production Workers • Kiddicraft • Play value • Toy safety • Toy store • Toyetic • Wooden toymaking in the Ore Mountains
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