# Nostalgia Purchases **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 12, 2026, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314 "2026-08-12T17:25:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2026, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/21 "2026-08-13T17:54:20Z")
That sounds like a fun one because you can mount it on the wall as decoration. ---
**Author:** ![Aspenglow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspenglow/32/76_2.png) [@Aspenglow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspenglow)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2026, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/22 "2026-08-13T17:56:56Z")
Good idea! I’ll have to give that some thought. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2026, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/23 "2026-08-13T18:01:28Z")
This book fascinated me when I was 6-7 years old in the early 1960s. I was surprised to find it has its own [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Will_Go_to_the_Moon_(book)). [![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPhzI5emJwiu9As8u0eB82r39d86bL-MzfsQmmJE6pUJk0TQ6RuUYTNGSAcu8WlcM0P0kVeK7rNsSqu8XjN60NYuIUSiU02kHZzT8Mbl3sB1JCBxtgegy5kK-rsX5Hkv8COxTfMR9eL8c/s1600/1959YouWillGoToTheMoon01a.jpg) ](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPhzI5emJwiu9As8u0eB82r39d86bL-MzfsQmmJE6pUJk0TQ6RuUYTNGSAcu8WlcM0P0kVeK7rNsSqu8XjN60NYuIUSiU02kHZzT8Mbl3sB1JCBxtgegy5kK-rsX5Hkv8COxTfMR9eL8c/s1600/1959YouWillGoToTheMoon01a.jpg) I was particularly entranced by this image, and the idea of floating freely in the air. [![](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UI4WIZyziZk/V1C64yPFzQI/AAAAAAAAK2o/tdtUKe10dyUEfcnG40AyyGvrDwfUKD1GgCLcB/s1600/1959YouWillGoToTheMoon20.jpg) ](https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UI4WIZyziZk/V1C64yPFzQI/AAAAAAAAK2o/tdtUKe10dyUEfcnG40AyyGvrDwfUKD1GgCLcB/s1600/1959YouWillGoToTheMoon20.jpg) Notice the accurate depiction of a flat-screen TV in 1959! [![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfCEzE-3RvjURG3DIapXbRqnGIJKwYOuwZh39gUKO9L-vsObqRNjcvl_YDzDi1jSvml04CSuMjsRWz2Ho4frAFmbfEmbqCs_cy2qoKAJ-Wy40sqPiVNW_awLq9UNMI9Y9rdOSGdMFBbrs/s1600/1959YouWillGoToTheMoon27.jpg) ](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfCEzE-3RvjURG3DIapXbRqnGIJKwYOuwZh39gUKO9L-vsObqRNjcvl_YDzDi1jSvml04CSuMjsRWz2Ho4frAFmbfEmbqCs_cy2qoKAJ-Wy40sqPiVNW_awLq9UNMI9Y9rdOSGdMFBbrs/s1600/1959YouWillGoToTheMoon27.jpg) A few years ago I bought a copy online. But then we moved once or twice, finally to this small house that has no room for 90% of our books. It’s in a box in the attic. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2026, 6:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/24 "2026-08-13T18:05:58Z")
A few years ago I bought some super-nostalgia – “It Happened One Day”, which is a children’s book of short stories that I remember from my early childhood – probably one of the first books I ever read. The one pictured looks to be in terrible shape, but the one I got is in great shape and is the exact same edition of the one I had. Leafing through it makes me feel six years old again! [![](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91SoxqlhO2L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg) ](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91SoxqlhO2L._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2026, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/25 "2026-08-13T18:20:03Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Heh. I have that. And the issue with “The Martian Way” on the cover is signed by Isaac Asimov. Ray Bradbury signed my _Galaxy_ issue with “The Fireman” on the cover. I donated it to a charity auction after he died and it fetched a pretty good price. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2026, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/26 "2026-08-13T18:27:35Z")
Mine is similar to several in this thread: A book. My grandfather was a building contractor and one of the homes he built was the retirement home for [Earnest C. Watson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earnest_C._Watson), a physicist and professor at Caltech, and [Jane Werner Watson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Werner_Watson), one of the editors of the Little Golden Books and writer for over a hundred of them. At age ten I knew none of this and when we were in Santa Barbara on our annual trip there my grandfather had to go the the house to do some maintenance. The two men were outside working on whatever it was, I have no recollection, and after a few minutes I grew bored and returned to the house where I found the library. As you can imagine it was a huge library. I stood there for a couple minutes, wondering whether I dare pull one off of the shelf when Ms Watson came on. “Oh! Do you like books?” “Oh, yes!” She sat down and we talked about ten minutes about what interested me then she gave me a copy of [_The World of Science_](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World_of_Science). That book became one of my treasures and a read and reread it many times over the next few years. I don’t know if it was the basis for my insatiable curiosity about science and technology but if not it certainly jarred it out of latency. The book disappeared after one of our many moves but I never forgot it. Last year I did a search and found a well used copy on Ebay for a reasonable price and bought it. It has a birthday message on the title page so it may well have been as beloved as mine was. After nearly eighty years the information is hopelessly out of date. The geology section doesn’t have a single word about plate techtonics and the computer shown in the mathematics section takes up a very large room. I don’t care. ---
**Author:** ![Reeses\_Monkey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reeses_monkey/32/2885_2.png) [@Reeses\_Monkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeses_Monkey)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2026, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/27 "2026-08-13T21:51:59Z")
I used to like to draw as a young kid and my grandfather supported my hobby by buying me the Ed Emberley books. I see now that Books A Million wants $76 for the one I had back in 1980. Looks like I’ll be searching Thrift Books and Half Price Books instead. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2026, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/28 "2026-08-13T21:57:37Z")
I reacquired _The Forgotten Door_, _Search for a Living Fossil_, _Helen Keller’s Teacher_, _The Ghost of Dibble Hollow_, and a few other books I first read in or around 4th grade as an adult to reread for the nostalgia fix. ---
**Author:** ![Daithi\_Lacha](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/daithi_lacha/32/5430_2.png) [@Daithi\_Lacha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daithi_Lacha)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2026, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/29 "2026-08-13T22:13:26Z")
When I was a kid, I had a battery-powered submarine. It had movable front vanes attached to a sliding counterweight so it would dive and surface on its own. I didn’t have it for long, because one day I went with friends to a bay beach, the little sub did its thing – until it stopped surfacing, and that was the end of that. It never actually worked that well, and I always wondered if there was a trick to it that I just wasn’t able to figure out. I guess I had been puzzling on it for 35+ years because I did a search on eBay, and there one was! Now I run it in my pool, where I can keep an eye on it. It still doesn’t work great. C’est la vie. ---
**Author:** ![XOldiesJock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ec9cab/32.png) [@XOldiesJock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XOldiesJock)\ **Post date:** [August 13, 2026, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/30 "2026-08-13T23:20:21Z")
> [@SuntanLotion](#): > > _Fizzies!_ Many many years ago I recall reading a story of how people were using Fizzies during sexual encounters. (I’ll leave that to your imagination.) “My my, wouldn’t _that_ make a happy Fizzies party,” a friend observed. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Girlfriend](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.girlfriend/32/193_2.png) [@Dr.Girlfriend](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Girlfriend)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2026, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/31 "2026-08-14T00:00:17Z")
Mine is also a book… somewhere along the way I lost my copy of “The Phantom Tollbooth” so I had to get another one. ---
**Author:** ![Jackmannii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackmannii/32/311_2.png) [@Jackmannii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackmannii)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2026, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/32 "2026-08-14T02:57:54Z")
I recently found a paperback copy of Lorenzo Milam’s “Sex and Broadcasting”, full of interesting and often bizarre ideas about starting a community FM station, which inspired my guerrilla exploits back in college radio. > **[Sex and Broadcasting: A Handbook on Starting a Radio Station for the Community,...](https://www.amazon.com/Sex-Broadcasting-Handbook-Starting-Community-ebook/dp/B0711CRR3W)** > > Sex and Broadcasting: A Handbook on Starting a Radio Station for the Community - Kindle edition by Milam, Lorenzo W., Thomas, Thomas J.. Download it once and read it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Use features like bookmarks, note... One of his suggestions was to rig a small transmitter tethered to a hot air balloon, sending it cross country with the prevailing winds to broadcast subversive messages. Probably not good from the standpoint of air traffic safety, but fun to dream about… ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2026, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/33 "2026-08-14T04:38:38Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > Funny. Thanks to Steam, I was able to start playing “Age of Empires II” again after a few years of not being able to install it from the old CDs. It was sooo sweet when I got it going and played that first game after so long. It has once again become a real time sink. Yeah, my steam account has some games I played in the 90s and early 2000s. I’ve got age of empires, half life, command and conquer, etc I also have an emulator full of NES, SNES, Genesis, etc games. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2026, 5:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/34 "2026-08-14T05:25:25Z")
I used to love the original Herbal Essence shampoo of the 1960s-1970s. The new Herbal Essence shampoos smell nothing like the original, which makes no sense - why remove the single defining characteristic of the original? But I read of a shampoo that smells just like the original. I started getting it, and it takes me right back to my youth. All I need now are beaded Indian room divider curtains and some patchouli incense! I get it on [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07TPBJBNB), but supposedly large Walmarts have it much cheaper. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2026, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/35 "2026-08-14T05:50:53Z")
> [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > I recently purchased an old Sci-Fi art book, “[Space Wars: Worlds and Weapons](https://www.google.com/search?q=Space+Wars%3A+Worlds+and+Weapons&rlz=1C1GCCA_enUS1088US1094&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#sv=CAMSaxoyKhBlLU1rd0hrbTVLR3pCQnBNMg5Na3dIa201S0d6QkJwTToOQ1RWQVQxbzJxWGE3T00gBCoxChtfVzZ0OGF2S19EdS1fcDg0UDhfLVBxQUlfNTcSEGUtTWt3SGttNUtHekJCcE0YADABGAcgtqGStQRKCBABGAEgASgB)” by Steven Eisler. I had the book as a kid and I used to go through it again and again. When I was a tween/teen, in the late '70s, and the big new mall opened in downtown Green Bay, one of the stores that I frequented was Waldenbooks; they had a sci-fi art book that I loved to look at, but never purchased (it was probably pricey for my budget); that may well have been the one. My nostalgic purchased revolve around childhood/teen hobbies that I had. One was model rocketry; my mother threw away all of my old model rockets sometime after I’d gone off to college. I got back into the hobby for a while, about 20 years ago, and found “clone” kits to build new/replacement versions of all of my old rockets. The other was model trains. I hadn’t touche the hobby since I was in high school, but in 2020, during COVID isolation, I bought a little N scale train set, which expanded into a fair-sized collection of locomotives and cars, many of which I selected for their connection to the railroads I grew up around in the Midwest: Burlington Northern (and its predecessor, Chicago Burlington & Quincy), Chicago and North Western, Milwaukee Road, and Green Bay & Western. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2026, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/36 "2026-08-14T06:36:30Z")
Speaking of books, I found and bought “All About Dinosaurs” by Roy Chapman Andrews, which I received for my fourth grade birthday as #1 of the All About Book series of science books for kids. So badly out of date it was disappointing. I read him for dinosaurs, and when my wife was a kid she read him for tales of exploration. ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2026, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/37 "2026-08-14T08:41:50Z")
Books seem to figure in a lot of nostalgia purchases. In my case, it was _The Velveteen Rabbit_, by Margery Williams. I enjoyed it as a child, and when I spotted it maybe ten years ago in a used bookstore, I couldn’t resist. It’s a nice hardback. Not a first edition, but fun to read again. ---
**Author:** ![SailorHG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecae2f/32.png) [@SailorHG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SailorHG)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2026, 11:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/38 "2026-08-14T11:29:34Z")
Mine was an AgonLight 8-bit Z-80 retro computer board that I bought last year: > **[AgonLight2 - Open Source Hardware Board](https://www.olimex.com/Products/Retro-Computers/AgonLight2/open-source-hardware)** > > AgonLight2 Single Board BBC Basic Z80 Modern Retro style Computer I was a high-school student in the early 80’s with a TRS-80 Model I computer that I did everything on – coding my own software by typing in from books and magazines, learning Z80 assembly code, disassembling the entire ROM by hand… lots of good memories. This board is a lot more advanced than what I was using back then, but the nostalgia factor is quite similar and it’s fun to use. Now I just need to re-learn all those assembly op-codes I memorised in my teenage years! ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2026, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/39 "2026-08-14T12:32:30Z")
For no practical reason at all, I bought a GE handheld transistor radio about two years ago because it was identical to one that I had in 1968. I would lie in bed and listen to “The Top Nine Tonight” on WLEE out of Richmond, VA. Of course, I’d often fall asleep and the 9-volt battery would run down. A new 9-volt battery was not cheap or easy to come by at that age. The radio works just fine, but it’s AM only and there’s very little worthwhile on AM nowadays. However, I did rig up a low-power AM transmitter and put some of my 60s tracks on shuffle so I could get a somewhat similar experience. It was fun for about an hour. The radio now sits in our craft room, where no guest ever sees it. But I still think it’s cool when I get a chance to show it to (unimpressed) people. ---
**Author:** ![We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@We\_re\_wolves\_not\_werewolves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/We_re_wolves_not_werewolves)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2026, 12:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314/40 "2026-08-14T12:37:52Z")
Holy smokes, we had that book! I had completely forgotten about it until I saw the pictures you posted. I still remember those! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/nostalgia-purchases/1032314.md?page=3)