Those were the only ones available when I was a kid. You had to really yank to pull the lever up, but it’s was a bit easier than twisting the plastic trays.
The only real problem was that you filled the tray with water, and then put in the divider/handle. This meant that all the cubes were connected below it, so they didn’t pop out quite as nicely. Heh, haven’t thought about these for years.
Oh yes, I grew up with that kind too. What a blast from the past. I assumed they disappeared due to the claimed aluminum/Alzheimer’s link.
I had the aluminum ones growing up. I thought they were PITA. The plastic ones are also PITA. Can you not get bagged ice there?
Why has no one mentioned the sound??? It’s a metal-on-ice scratchy sound when you pull the handle up and it jerks throught the ice. For me, it’s equivilent to fingernails-on-a-chalkboard.
:::shudder:::
I hated those damn trays! Either your skin would stick to the tray, or the cube being would slide out when you ran water to loosen it up.
And I know at some point (probably at the time the plastic trays started taking over) they really cheapened the product, because I ruined about six trays in a row when I pulled the handle right off.
You might want to get silicone ones. Mine stack fine. They’re practically indistructible, and it’s easy to get the cubes out, since the walls are soft. I don’t know if you can order these, being in Japan, but they look really cool, too.
…And I was just reading here thinking, “damn, everything else for the kitchen these days is silicone, I wonder if someone…”
I gotta try and find some of those.
Are they floppy though? I can’t see carrying a stack of 8 or so from the sink to the freezer if they’re floppy. But if not, those are what I’ll go for.
Thanks for the advice everyone. We can get bagged ice here but we’re far enough from the store that it would probably melt a bit by the time we got home. Maybe I should just get a cooler to keep in my car.
The aluminum trays are out if you have to run water over them to get the cubes out. We like to make big batches of ice and put it in an ice bucket thing so we can just reach in and grab it. If the cubes are wet they’ll stick together in the bucket when it goes back in the freezer. Thanks for the advice everyone!
I picked mine up from the Lego store in the mall. If there’s one nearby, they probably have some in stock. Sales tax is cheaper than shipping them, too. You can get more conventionally-shaped ice cube trays (with bigger cubes) for about the same, maybe slightly more, at most home-supply stores.
Not sure which aspect of this thread struck me as sadder, the fact that the ice trays I grew up using are being discussed as an ancient artifact, or that someone considers it a significant inconvenience to have an icebox without an automatic icemaker. 
We used to have one of these metal trays; the handle/divider was a separate piece that droped into the tray before freezing. because of this, pulling on the handle typically resulted in the whole contents coming out in a single block, and holding it down while you pull the handle risks getting your skin pinched in the mechanism.
Soft silicone rubber ice trays seem like a good idea, but only work a couple of times - after that, the material seems to go slightly porous and the ice sticks to them like snot to a blanket.
The best ice trays I’ve used are the really cheap plastic ones with trapezoidal wells; to remove the ice, you just twist the whole tray a bit, then empty all of the cubes out at once into a bag.
ahh-the dreaded ice tray:
Am I the only one who always fucked it up?
I’d grab the handle, get freeze burns on my fingers, and then the damn thing would jam up, and the handle wouldn’t move. So I’d give an extra super-hard yank, and then suddenly the whole fricking thing would just explode ,and ice cubes would go slithering across the kitchen floor in all directions.
so,dammit, please keep your nostalgia to yourselves.
The best ice trays I’ve used were shaped like plastic bottles. You fill the bottle about 2/3 full then place the cap on. It would lay on it’s side and the wells were small and round. The plastic of the wells was thinner than the rest of the bottle, so you could poke it with your thumb after twisting the bottle, to release the ice.
They were tiny though, so you needed a bunch.
I haven’t seen one in years.
I hated those metal trays. We’d always make my dad do ice duty, and keep the cubes in a big plastic bowl in the freezer
I thought that too: could you be any more American?!
I have rubbery ones - possibly silicone, not sure - and they’re perfect, because they push out so easily. I only have two trays, and fill a tupperware tub with the exuded ice whenever I can be bothered, then refill the trays.
Whoops, sorry for missing your post here. They’re slightly floppy. I can carry them to the freezer one-handed. I only have three so it’s not a big deal. If you put a good piece of cardboard under them I expect they’d be as rigid as you needed them to be. You might consider buying one first just to see if it’s stiff enough for you (and see the size of the cubes… bigger than your standard LEGO 4-brick, smaller than your average tray cube… think of your average restaurant ice cube, only more rectangular).
I remember those aluminum trays. When I was about four my mother left one on the edge of the kitchen counter, and I learned why you should never touch your tongue to cold metal.
If no one else has mentioned this: if (when) you or your kids stick fingers or tongue to the cold metal tray, carry the tray over to the sink and run warm water over the stuck spot, if you want to get loose without drawing blood.
The Philco Fridge of my childhood had approximately 2 of those. The cubes were much bigger than what you get out of the new plastic dealies. The dividers would go askew. The dividers were fairly thin pieces of metal and didn’t offer ideal leverage for ice breaking. My mother generally put the contraption under running water to get everything unstuck.
I forgot about those crazy old things.
I couldn’t believe my eyes too. It is still unusual here to have a fridge with an ice-maker - I had no idea it was standard in the US. I lived in Japan for years and I can confirm that they have the plastic cube makers that you twist and the ice drops out- in fact, the very same ones that we still use here in the third world.
I’ve never not had an icemaker, and therefor am spoiled to have ice cold water. I drink a ton of water usually, but have been drinking less here because ice is a pain. Ice makers are cheap; about $50-$70, iirc, and easy to install if you can get to your plumbing. Most refrigerators that aren’t ancient are designed to be ice-maker-ready if they don’t already have one. It really isn’t that big of a deal or a major luxury.