Is there any toy more iconic than the humble slinky?
A design classic and then-pioneering plaything that was invented in 1943 by engineer Richard James, who had the idea when tinkering around with shipping springs.
Most toys take a knock or a few dents when they tumble, but, for the slinky, a tumble is just the beginning of a whole new adventure…. a compressed helical spring that flips and strolls like it ain’t no thing.
Simple, yet beautiful, inspiring us all to keep going through life, at no one else’s momentum but our own.
It’s no wonder over 250 million of these toys have been sold in the world to date.
In the 1950s toy manufacturer J&L Randall acquired the rights to slinky from James Industries, and for a couple of decades was its main manufacturer.
This Mini Slinky produced by J&L Randall in the late 1950s and 1960s is a precious little piece of slinky history… an “amazing waking spring that becomes alive in your hands”, and still packaged in its original box.
Available in the Collectable Toys category of the website now.