I was born in 1990. Did I miss all the fun?
I had a bicentennial quarter but I spent it on accident.
I was 11 in '76. I remember Wonder Woman on TV, and I remember they painted all the fire hydrants red-white-and-blue to look like Minutemen (but they looked like fat little nutcrackers instead – oh well).
There was some series on TV – each episode was an independent story about people who lived in 1776. The only one I remember was one in which Northern Calloway (he played David on Sesame Street) was a slave who was trying to escape, but he had to send a signal to somebody. At the climax he was about to be recaptured and had to make a choice, and chose to send the signal rather than escape. I remember him waving his shirt like mad from a hilltop just before his pursuers grabbed him and wrestled him down. I was trying to deal with the concept of David being a slave. :eek:
Oh, and the Freedom Train passed through our town.
Kennedy bicentennial half dollars.
The Franklin Mint issued several porcelain plates and other collectibles.
This it? I had the 4-6-0 version.
I graduated from college in '76. The nineteen hundred one smartasses! 
Anywho, I have a letter signed by Gerald Ford congratulating me for having parents who had the foresight to see that I was born in time to be a member of the Bicentennial graduating class. 
Ok, so anybody who graduated from anything from Kindergarten on up got one.
I was born in 1980, but when I was a kid we still had a hideous hooked rug and our console TV had eagles all over it.
I was six years old then, and had a beer can collection. (Didn’t seem odd then).
I have a bunch of bicentennial beer cans. Falstaff, Iron City, Point, Bud, Schell’s Farmfest, Billy, Ballantine, etc. Or had rather - unless they’re still in my parents’ basement.
I was 11. I had Bicentennial quarters, comic books (Richie Rich and Dennis the Menace, I remember–possibly more) and I seriously lusted after a skateboard with a flag design on it, though I didn’t get it. My parents and I took a cross-country motorhome trip that summer and ended up in and around Plymouth, MA on July 4, 1976. I remember being kind of a Bicentennial nut at the time, so I really enjoyed getting to visit these areas during this very appropriate time, even though everything was insanely crowded. It’s still one of my best memories.
The worst Bicentennial thing I had still annoys me after all these years. I’d finally gotten around to joining the Girl Scouts, partially because of the cool uniforms they had (in those days it was a one-piece medium green shirt-dress thing with a sash, a green baseball cap, and I think a belt. Looked really cool. But the Bicentenniel year they decided to go with the “old fashioned” look so they had everybody wear long dresses, “mob caps” and aprons. As a serious tomboy kid, this was like hell for me. I think I wore the damn thing once, and quit the troop not too long after that (not just for that reason, but that was definitely a factor).
The zoo in my town acquired a new buffalo in 1976 and named him “Bison Tennial”. That is all.
At that point in your post I started to dislike you. After reading the rest of the thread I added most of the rest of the responders to my list.
On the serious side, I was a re-enactor who did most of the bigger events and way too many of the small ones from 1972 to 1976 and beyond. Most of the crap I bought or got was stuff like medals, tokens and pins. But I saw some stuff that I still can’t believe from lamps to condoms. And I don’t want to think how many attics are full of stuff like that “because its going to be valuable some day.”
Last Christmas I finally got rid of my HO scale version of the damn thing. God bless eBay and all its minions.
Having just survived the 250th of the French and Indian War (my side lost again) and having the American Civil War heat up again in a year (haven’t picked a side yet for this time around) I will take some comfort at (most likely) not being around in 2026 when you all get to experience it again. I have a feeling it could set a new benchmark for ticky-tack.
Yup, that’s the one! (And nine years after this thread was started, I can say that I now have the train in my house. Don’t have a single piece of track, but I have the train!) I had the Alco Century 430 model loco, and the three boxcars from the 1975-76 catalog. That site also backs up my belief that the thirteen-colonies boxcars were not from the same set, since I don’t see them listed anywhere.
I’m sure I had a bunch of stuff, but all I remember are the quarters and the tall ships (that was during the same time, wasn’t it?).
I have about 100 mint bicentennial quarters.
Let’s see, July of 1976… I was just starting my second trimester of gestation, so I remember very little of the celebrations.
I just remember the quarters. Like swampbear, my sister graduated from high school in 1976, and her tassel was red, white, and blue instead of the school colors. I was mighty jealous.
I was 13.
The fireworks were awesome that year.
The only thingI remember getting, I still have.
It sits on a shelf with my other obsolete and antique gadgets.
The good news is that they are worth 25 cents each! The bad news is that a quarter don’t buy as much as it used to.
(the shop I work for sees at least 10 gallons of the things a year - they really don’t have any premium unless they are MS63 or better)
I wish I had been able to have all that stuff! I was overseas, serving in the Army, for the better part of 1976, and I missed all the hoopla.
Except for the Seven-Up cans. Does anyone else remember how they had 51 different parts of a picture printed on the back, and if you stacked all 51 in a pyramid there was a picture of Uncle Sam? The gals in my barracks eventually got them all. Drank a lot of Seven-Up to get all the right cans though.
Another thing about that time was just how overwhelming the Bicentennial motif was. The advertising, collectibles, themes were omnipresent, hell even the Viking landers on Mars have Bicentennial symbols attached. You literally could not escape the celebration.
I’ll check back with you in 57 years.