I have one specific memory of walking over to the Variety store in our neighborhood with my parents, and them - for no particular reason apparent to my young mind - telling me to go ahead and pick out a toy. I picked the tar pit model.
Moments like that are magical to children - every collector friend I know has at least one vivid memory of a time a parent or grandparent gave them - or more often, let them pick out for themselves - exactly what they wanted when it wasn't a birthday, Christmas, or other designated gift-receiving time. Maybe it's as simple as the first time we realized people were giving us something because they wanted to - not because they were supposed to, or we were entitled.
As an adult, I chased after a few of the sets I never got on Ebay - they're all in my storage now. A funny one, though, is one I got just because I remember my sister getting it. I specifically
remember us going upstairs in an old department store in Syracuse that had a cage elevator - this couldn't be later than 1972, I'd be about six. We went into the toy department to get the cro-magnon woman set. There was one and only one on the shelf and she bought it.
Years later on Ebay, I saw the box alone up for sale and bought it to add to my collection. My vivid memory was of seeing the box on the shelf in the store, my sister taking it, and not of the model, so I'm perfectly happy with the box alone. (I did buy myself the saber-toothed tiger, box and all though, which she had even though I don't have a specific memory of it - I just always wanted it because it was so cool!)
