It was full of wild cherry seeds and mice. He was only 13 years old at the time but he was determined to fix up the car. “I remember a Sunday morning hike when Richard found an old abandoned 1923 Buick car. When the United States entered a brief economic depression in the early 1920s, he often had to get creative in his endeavors to keep himself entertained: armed with a vast imagination, springs and pieces of glass became captivating toys.Īs recounted by his brother, Samuel, in a 1976 interview with the Delaware County Daily Times, James had an indeterminable spirit to “get things done,” and to make money:
The toy has dealt with a slew of uncanny circumstances - an inventor who fled to South America to join a religious cult, a seven-figure debt, a mind-boggling reemergence under unlikely leadership - and has somehow managed to prevail with very little redesign.īorn January 1, 1914, in Delaware, Richard Thompson James was a curious child. To counterbalance its simplicity, the Slinky has an utterly complex backstory. Yet it is utterly simple, and this simplicity has made it iconic. More often than not, it works itself into an impossibly tangled mess. It does nothing particularly extraordinary or special. After all, it’s essentially just a glorified spring. The Slinky seems to be oddly immortal - and this is confusing. The Slinky is not most toys: in its 70 years on the market, it has sold more than 300 million units. Of those that persevere, most live and die on the pulse of advertising and product release cycles, only to fade into obscurity after a few years of success. It has been said by industry executives that only one in a thousand toys makes it to the big time. “You don’t have to be smart, athletic, rich, or clever to appreciate the Slinky.
0 kommentar(er)
