Remember the Little People

For many years now, I have had a thing for old toys. By old I mean as old as me (41). I have ammassed quite a collection of vintage Tonka trucks, Hot Wheels, Fisher Prices Little People (FPLP) over the years. Maybe this is because I refuse to let go of the glory years of my childhood in Del Mar or because I want to to share the artifacts of those times with my boys. In either case, they love nothing more than to go into the basement and open boxes of vintage treasure.

By the time Jasper was 2 years old he had a broad collection of FPLP sets, vintage of course (masonite not plastic bases for those in the know). So, over the next few months I hope to introduce you to some of our collections and provide you with the vintage toy education you have always wanted.

I am sure you are all very intersted in the history and evolution of the FPLP, so here is a link to "ThisOldToy.Com" a great FPLP history site. Our collection focuses on the wood body/wood head and wood body/plastic head models, but we have a few all full plastic versions for rare models. The bulk of the beauties in our collection are from the toy glory years of the mid-sixties to the mid-seventies. The birth of rock n' roll also saw the birth of redline Hot Wheels and the expansion of the FPLP products.

From the site mentioned above I got the following information about our collection:

1963-1972
Straight-sided people and dogs. All wood (always), they have no narrow "peg" on the base. 5.





1967-1975
Geometric-shaped base people, used with the #151 Goldilocks & Three Bears set (67-70), the #136 Lacing Shoe (65-70), and #146 Pull-A-Long Lacing Shoe (70-75).




1965-1990
The most prevelant of "little people" body styles is the wide body/narrow "peg" base version. This is what most people are referring to when talking about "little people". This style was introduced in 1965 in the #192 School Bus set, and was used until 1990.




Here is a picture of the FPLP display in our living room