Vintage Toys

Due to an uptick in people ignoring RULE 3 this is a reminder that r/vintagetoys is NOT a marketplace. The only time you may post a link to a sale or say that you personally have something for sale is in response to someone asking for help locating that toy.

Hi redditors,

i like to analyze the growth of subreddits and the reasons behind it.

VintageToys caught my interest because it grew by 41% this month.

Why are so many people joining in the past 30 days?

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Such a random question to ask, but I have held onto my favorite childhood teddy bear and he has definitely seen better days. He could use a cleaning and repairs and when I asked Google I could only find things like tin and wooden toy repair. Does anyone have any recommendations? I’m in Seattle, but am willing to ship. Thanks in advance!

I am going crazy trying to remember what this toy was as a kid. The memory is extremely faded, and there is of course a chance it is a false one. Well aware the chances therefore of someone knowing it is low but may as well give it a try! Here's what I think I remember:

• Likely 1990's (late 1990's most likely) but there is a chance it was early 2000's.
• Available in Britain. More than likely, available in British Toys "R" Us retail store at the time (actual entity of that time now defunct, rip) since that's essentially where christmas/birthdays happened back then.
• The premiere feature was that the toy was able to release a fog effect (potentially trying to mimic steam/smoke).
• Probably targeted at boys.
• I remember that there was a button involved that you could press to release the fog. Possibly you had to hold the button, but unsure.
• Unsure if the button itself was mechanically activating the effect or electronically.
• I remember it being fiddly. My dad is a technical person and would fix anything; and I was very curious to learn about what he was doing. So I vaguely remember seeing the (internal?) rubber tubes that formed part of its function. I'm unsure if it was "refilled" with something but it was probably as I remember the effect getting "weaker". Possibly one reason why I remember the internals is it "ran out" or broke and that led to some disassembly of sorts (likely quickly).
• Now, the bit that escapes me is the obvious "well, what was it?". In my head, it was possibly a vehicle of some kind. I have the idea it was a toy boat, ship, or cruise liner (possibly another vehicle of some sort?) with the fog coming from the chimney. I was fairly confident this was it at first, but my search yielded nothing which has left me wondering if my brain made all this up! This part is the bit, extremely unhelpfully, I am most unsure about. I don't have a good answer to "What was it even trying to be?". Most likely because I was obsessed with the fog ability in isolation.

I asked ChatGPT and it came up with some good ideas including specific products, but was mostly over-indexing on "cauldron" like toys which I can confidently say it was not.

Probably no one will have any idea, but you never know 😊.