What gift items do you remember from your childhood which would never be gifts today?

[FredaFrogspawn]

Another thread ended up accidentally debating the fact that ashtrays were common gifts for weddings or twenty first birthdays. I remember big marble or onyx ones, and ones on a stand which went by the arm of the chair. No one smoked in our house and we still had a shed load of these things.
Another thing I remember is steering wheel covers, in pleather. What were those about?? And leather covers for the TV listings magazines we all had to have before papers printed what was on with ‘Radio Times’ self importantly embossed on them. (My dad kept his TV Times in there and ringed the programmes he wanted to watch with a Quink ink capitalised ‘Tell Dad When This Is On.’)

Anything else?

Pick up sticks- 'hey kids here's a box of coloured plastic toothpicks disguised as a fun game. Enjoy!'

Oh god yes Geller pick up sticks
and autograph books! Why were they a thing?!
What about those squirty water game things - you pressed a button to blow air to get plastic things inside other plastic things. I never had one, all my friends did, I thought they were the height of annoyingness.

I always wanted a magic water colouring book. Amazed me as a child. Never had one. I've bought ones for my DC in Hobbycraft for a few quid but I think I like doing it more than they do!

A Merlin. Oh I loved mine.
And Simon Says.

In the 80s I received a soap maker. You saved all the odds and ends of soap, then heated them and pushed the soft soap into the soap maker which squashed it into a new bar. If you collected different coloured soap scraps the new soap would be multi coloured.

I remember stealing a slim wafer of soap from the bathroom sink at my aunty’s house to add to my stash. She noticed at bedtime that this tiny bit of soap was missing, and phoned my house in a rage insisting she couldn’t get washed until my dad drove back over there and returned her soap. So he had to make a 30 minute round trip at 11pm to take this crumb of soap back. I honestly don’t know how she got washed with it anyway, it was tiny!

@rosegoldwatcher, that was Wooly Willy (the iron filings man). They're still for sale now for about £3, so you can enjoy hours of fun once more! 🤣

I was jealous of anyone who got one of those sets where you hammered nails in then made a picture with sparkly thread, as mentioned by a PP. Mandy up the stairs got one, a wee sailing ship I think, and I couldn't take my eyes off it.

What about the smoking monkey toy, anyone remember them? My DB had one, I can't imagine the thought process of anyone who ever thought that was a suitable, amusing toy.

Yes the dolls in plastic tubes!
Irish relatives sent my sister and I (aged about 5 and 9) leprechaun ones - we spent a happy afternoon trying to remove the glued on trousers to see if leprechauns had willies. Deadly serious at the time.

@Davodia

In the 80s I received a soap maker. You saved all the odds and ends of soap, then heated them and pushed the soft soap into the soap maker which squashed it into a new bar. If you collected different coloured soap scraps the new soap would be multi coloured.

I remember stealing a slim wafer of soap from the bathroom sink at my aunty’s house to add to my stash. She noticed at bedtime that this tiny bit of soap was missing, and phoned my house in a rage insisting she couldn’t get washed until my dad drove back over there and returned her soap. So he had to make a 30 minute round trip at 11pm to take this crumb of soap back. I honestly don’t know how she got washed with it anyway, it was tiny!

This is hilarious! Mind you i've got a teeny scrap of soap that's been going for absolutely ages. I had a new one on the go assuming the old one would be gone soon, but the old one has outlasted the new one (and wouldn't stick to it to amalgamate them together...!)

Kissing Cousins charms on necklaces. Weird concept.

Small bouncy balls you’d lose over people’s roof if you bounced then hard enough.

Trolls!

Mind you i've got a teeny scrap of soap that's been going for absolutely ages
This was exactly the problem with the soap maker! It took far too long to save up enough soap scraps to make a bar. When you get a toy you want to use it! Not wait for six months while you save soap scraps. Hence why I resorted to theft to boost my stash

I remember quite a lot of the things mentioned, but what came to my head first for 'would never be gifts today' was the 3 pack of tan tights. (No schoolgirl wore tan tights - the only acceptable shade was, iirc, 'chinchilla')

Those quilted nylon dressing gowns created their own static!

Mother Goose and Hector interactive Casette player. I'm pretty sure this is still at my mums house.

And these things

@VeggieSausageRoll My MIL would be delighted with one of those ornaments and certainly find a place for it in her large cabinet of random crystal shite.

Veggie my MIL is another who'd buy that and gift it. DH got a teddy one with his birth stone apparently a year or so ago - its currently loitering in my kitchen - until sufficient time has passed for it to have an accident / fall in the bin!

Doing school projects on a country and writing to their Embassy for info. Always got a big pack of stuff back. Oh the excitement
When I was doing my Queens Guide badge, one of the requirements was for a Commonwealth badge. I got loads of brochures from the travel agent, and cut out pictures to do a scrap book. I tossed up between Canada and Australia, and chose Canada)

For a Christmas or birthday treat we used to buy a tin of crab or prawns for my dad. And wrap it up.

Not a gift but I remember at nursery in the early 90s there was a little station with bits of wood and actual tools, including a hacksaw. It was overseen by a staff member but I remember a boy cutting his finger with the saw and getting a plaster from the staff.

I can’t imagine toddlers with hacksaws and hammers nowadays!

@FredaFrogspawn

Those timings you held to your eye and through a system of mirrors saw wonderful symmetrical glitter snowflakes

You can still get them! My nephews got one each for Christmas and they're fascinated. They're called kaleidoscopes.

I used to get golliwogs from my aunt. Had a huge range of them, from tiny to quite big.

I never liked them!

I bet they're still in my Mum's loft....

amusedbush
I'm almost surprised it was the 90s I remember the late 70s playing with a hammer and nails pinning coloured shapes to a cork / wood board.

A bar of soap wrapped in a handkerchief with a pin to hold it in place.
A plastic dog with real fur stuck on it -
A seahorse brooch -

@Veronicat - I had a Merlin. I thought it was really special and futuristic. DH bought me another one a couple of years ago. It's on our 'retro toys' shelf.

I got 'The Teddy Bears Picnic' as a vinyl single when I was very little. It had a photo of teddy bears having a woodland picnic on the cover. Still part of my vinyl collection & miraculously still plays.
My grandmother gave me a Paddington Bear pillowcase - designed on the children's programme. It became my version of the Xmas stocking & every year I got a satsuma & some nuts that required a nut cracker!
Also in the 1970s, my grandmother gave me a Gabriella Designs Paddington Bear (the company run by Jeremy Clarkson's mum) which I still have.
Paddington was a bit of a theme with my grandmother - I remember going with her to the Ladies loos at Paddington station to see Tiddles the cat & being terrified at how big it was!