Call me old fashioned, but toys are not built as well as they used to be. Back in the day, a good toy used to last you well into adulthood, and would never go wrong. You could drop your wooden toy car from the top of a multi-story car park and the most damage it would receive would be a few minor scratches to the paint work. Try dropping a modern toy car from any height at all and it pretty much atomizes. You spend weeks looking for all the bits and pieces that have cracked, smashed and fallen off.
Some people might suggest that today’s toys are more advanced and have more technical pieces to go wrong. This is a pretty lousy argument however as there are some toys that are just as simple these days, and yet they still fall apart. Also, think back to when got old train sets as gifts, and the intricacies involved with the small parts and mechanics. These trains seemed to be built from rock. You could lay something on the line to derail it and it even when the whole thing came off the tracks, it still stayed in one piece.
So how come toys are not being made the standard that they once were? Well, as you might expect it comes down to money. There are still some toy makers and distributors that provide good quality products, but they are sadly in the minority these days and most companies are more concerned with getting high volume of products, for low cost and built from rubbish materials.
What to do? If you’re buying for a girl, hunt around for the best gifts for women on trusted websites, where you know you’ll get quality. When buying gifts for men you’re more advised to actually go to a shop to take a look at the build quality. As boys are a little more aggressive with their toys than girls, making sure you buy ones that are built of stern stuff is pretty important