Word: erector
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...except for such items as bicycles, trains and erector sets which will still be short, U.S. moppets will have almost everything. Items: streamlined baby strollers; aluminum jeeps and station wagons; helicopters; stuffed spaniels that glow in the dark; toy sinks with running water; model kits to make prefabricated houses; dump trucks; and an electrical gun that throws pictures on the wall with each pull of the trigger. For the first time in six years, Germany will ship some $250,000 worth of music boxes, harmonicas, mohair deers, whiz-bang racing cars...
...Erector Set. Although dispatches did not identify the type of bridge, it was a safe bet that it was a Bailey-a British invention which has carried Allied armies across the river-seamed face of Europe and is a main reliance in their coming big battle: the spanning of the Rhine. Field Marshal Montgomery calls the Bailey bridge "quite the best thing in its line we have ever had." The bridge, at once simple and ingenious, was first sketched on the back of an envelope in 1940 by a tweedy British civil engineer named Donald Colman Bailey...
Bailey's bridge, designed for speedy building, is nothing more than a large-scale erector set. It consists of interchangeable, prefabricated steel panels which can be swiftly put together in almost any shape. The panels are held together by steel pins stuck through ready-made holes. The only tools needed are a few standard wrenches. Six men can carry the heaviest panel...
...Gilbert Co., famed for its metal Erector sets, has invented reasonable facsimiles in wood and porcelain. Lionel Corp. has substituted fiberboard model railroad kits, with "realistic roadside accessories," for their streamlined electric trains. Other ersatz build-it-your-self sets ran the gamut from Flying Fortresses and anti-tank guns to farms complete with milking pails, and three-ring circuses complete with rolling lion cages. There were cardboard guns that rat-a-tat-tatted just as if they were made of metal, Para-Commando dolls (with ammunition and food kits), miniature WAVES, WAACs and Marines, wooden roller skates...