wooden toys

allen levine

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new york city burbs
every morning I walk 2 miles, weekends elen joins me....not a great feat, but for someone who was told a knee replacement was likely, and I couldn't walk 20 steps, Im happy.
anyway, there is an abundance of garage sales on Long Island.
its becoming so popular, people are demanding the local towns make permits necessary and limit people to onlyl one or two sales a year, claiming people are using them as a business.
whatever, we walk, we examine all the stuff, and this morning, I noticed a sale with a ton of wooden toys. All handmade.
the quality is there, I asked the person who made them?(hey, maybe theres a fellow woodworker the next block), she told me a family friend who passed away a few years ago made one every year for her son on his birthdays, and now she says, they are just dust collectors. REally?
I wanted to tell her her family friend worked hours and hours and hand made those kits, for her son, but she didn't seem to care, so I asked how much. She said like asking a question, 5 bucks each?
I asked, if I give you twenty, can I take 5 of them? sure she said, I probably could have bought them all for 3 dollars each.
I just hated to see them so unappreciated anymore, like the hours spent meant nothing, especially now that the builder is gone.
I don't know what Ill do with them, Im not a kid, I don't need toys, but I hated to see them just sit there and probably get tossed eventually if they didn't sell.(we drove by just now, and they were all still there)
Nice work, she said some of them are 20 years old.

ok, that's my post. (I think hand made wooden toys are cool, and I know how much time is put into them.)

the triplane had some offensive stickers on the wings, at least offensive to me, so I pulled them off and I will sand down the wings to match so the outline cant be seen..
 

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A great rescue story. This is one reason why I prefer to make things for strangers. I'll never drop by and see a piece being "mistreated" :rolleyes:. Someone made those with love and they were probably loved for many years. I would have packed them away and re-gifted them to grandchildren. Not everyone feels the same way and we cannot control that.

I build my pieces with care and respect and then send them out into the world where I hope they will have long happy lives. I have to "let them go" since some will be passed down for generations and some will surely end up at the dump after an estate sale.
 
Great rescue Allen, I would leave them exactly where they are they look real cool and look like a good deal of effort was put into them. I think that Tanker really is clever, the planes must have taken a fair amount of work. I know kids in other places would be very happy to have those. Its a pity shipping to less fortunate places is so expensive.
I had a similar issue with books a few weeks ago and managed to get a local school library take them in and give them a home.

You know cleaned up and fresh coat of finish, they might go down well at a Childrens hospital in your area. Even if they just used as props to keep play alive.
 
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