the whole set

 ...Well, as far as I can tell. 

A while back, I posted about a couple old childhood toys my mom found and asked me if I wanted them. I did - in fact, I had thought they had gotten lost and were gone forever. So I carried them back to me.

I knew a little history of them - they were premiums given free in the early 1970s with Crest toothpaste. I don't remember when or how I got the elephant and hippo, but they were the first ones I got, and then the lion showed up in either a Christmas stocking or my Easter basket the next year.

I also knew of the existence of an alligator (the son of family friends had that one) but I hadn't known there were others. And I thought "well, if I can find the alligator for a decent price, maybe I try to complete the set.

I did, earlier this summer. But then I learned there was also a rhino and a bear, neither of which I had ever even seen before. A quick Etsy search turned up a package deal (rhino, bear, the alligator, and the elephant) for not too bad of a price, and the thought of having a full set was pretty irresistible. (I tend to be a "completist" about things like this). 

So now I have them all. And two alligators and two elephants:

The rhino (orange) is particularly cute. It's funny; when I was a kid a lot of my friends and I thought of rhinos as "mean" animals (e.g., sometimes the "villains" when we played with our little zoo animal sets). Maybe that was because in the "furry" version of Robin Hood, rhinos served as the Sheriff of Nottingham's henchmen, and most of us had seen that movie either in its original run or at a revival theater. But I've since read that rhinos can actually be kind of goofy and funny, especially the young ones (there's a video making the rounds of a baby rhino in some zoo somewhere scampering around and trying to get his keeper to chase him). Apparently hippos,which look more "cuddly" are actually pretty dangerous. 

But anyway. It's nice to have these even if I have a spare gator and elephant (I might keep both of those, at least for now. I don't do the Etsy/eBay selling thing, and I suspect no one local would be interested in them). Maybe eventually I find another person of my age who remembers these and want their long-lost alligator or elephant back...

They show a little wear, typical of plastic things from the 70s that were played with; there are some stains from contact with other plastic items. At some point if I have the energy and figure out the best/safest soap*, I could mix up a basin of soap and try washing them a little to see if some of the stains come off

*Murphy's Oil Soap might work for that. 

I should get a little shelf for these; there are too many to fit on one of the little wall shelves I have up, and anyway, one has the Bangor and Aroostock HO train car I inherited from my dad** and the other one is where my Mirabel Madrigal doll sits. 

(** long story but for quite a while he had stock in Bangor and Aroostock; possibly his dad originally bought it. He also had a HO trainset for a while when my brother and I were kids. I think he either bought his car, or maybe was sent it by the company, but never really used it (it was in a separate box from the others) and eventually after he died my mom asked me if I wanted it as a keepsake and I decided to take it. I remember the train set better than my brother does; our dad worked on it more actively before 1977 or so. Bangor and Aroostock is gone now; bought out by one of the other companies. A lot of the little old regional railroads are gone, either fused in to Conrail or something like that.)