Collecting Erector Sets

Leaning over the trussed steel girders of his model merry-go-round, L. Andrew Jugle, 64, smiles like a kid on Christmas Day as he watches red, white and yellow toy horses prance to carousel music under blinking lights.

Jugle assembled the 1963 miniature carousel at his home in Elmhurst, Ill. (pop. 45,349), from the nuts, bolts, gears and motor of an Erector set, one of the best presents that an engineer-minded boy like Jugle could find under the Christmas tree in the days of Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys and other early toy construction sets.

"Erector sets weren't something that built just one toy; they could make thousands," says Jugle, citing model-size cranes, derricks, elevators, skyscrapers, steam shovels, towers and windmills.

"There was nothing like them. Kids saw buildings and bridges being built outside their windows, and suddenly they could make the same thing," adds the retired high school science teacher, whose collection of more than 200 Erector sets line floor-to-ceiling shelves in his garage.

Invented in 1911 by American toy visionary A.C. Gilbert, the Erector revolutionized toy construction sets by including 3-inch to 12-inch steel girders with lipped, interlocking edges, enabling kids to build models as large at their budgets allowed.

"That guaranteed him immortality," Jugle says of Gilbert. "He patented the girders and cornered the market."

Manufactured in New Haven, Conn., Erector sets originally were packaged in sturdy wooden boxes that also included rods, screws, axles, wheels and pulleys. The product was backed by the first national advertising campaign for a toy. Over five decades until the company's bankruptcy in 1967, Gilbert sold more than 30 million sets through Sears, J.C. Penney, Montgomery Ward and independent toy stores.

Through creative play, the toy inspired several generations of children to become architects, engineers and tinkerers during a century when America significantly expanded its infrastructure of roads, bridges, pipelines and dams.