6 Great Inventions Used Only as Toys

6 Great Inventions Used Only as Toys

There are many small, basic inventions which changed the world forever. Just imagine how life would be without something as basic as a fork, if nothing else our dining habits would be very different. However, there are some inventions that required thousands of dollars and years worth research only to be used as toys. This is a list of discoveries that should have been revolutionary, were often held in awe at the time of their creation, but ended up as cheap knick-knacks.

1. Play-Doh

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The story of Play-Doh started in 1927 when a dying Cincinnati soap company tried to revitalize its business by creating an innovative new product. Play-Doh was a compound of various non-toxic chemicals meant to clean coal soot off walls. This was a serious problem as most household had coal fireplaces and the only way to clean wallpaper was with a home-made mixture of dough and baking soda. The Play-Doh company took a serious risk, using all its funds in order to create a product that could be used to clean the walls. What follows is a tale of hard work and unbelievable success against seemingly unbeatable odds. Within only a few years Play-Doh was the number one choice for cleaning wallpaper and was selling thousands of cans.

However, after the Second World War coal fireplaces fell out of use and Play-Doh was seeing its business rapidly shrink. A great success story looked like it was about to end abruptly, when the wife of the company manager read an article about children making decorations from wallpaper cleaner. With the company on the brink of bankruptcy once more, the owners took another great risk, rebranding the old wall cleaner into a children’s toy.

The rest, as they say, is history, and remember that if you ever need to clean coal soot off you wall you can just use Play-Doh.

2. Kites

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When we think of kites we imagine a fun summer day and lots of fun, however kites have a long history of being used...