When I was just out of college I settled down and began to look for a career. I had a job, one that I liked very much, in fact, but I felt like I needed a "career job." But what? What career? I had trained as an Actor, I was skilled at theatrical design. I was Artistic, and creative, and I enjoyed working with my hands, particularly woodworking.
The store where I worked, A.J. Hastings, Inc. in downtown Amherst, Massachusetts, was really a perfect place for me. It was a busy downtown newsdealer and stationer, they sold newspapers and magazines, cards and stationery, college supplies of all types serving the 5 Colleges nearby, as well as sporting goods and toys. I worked there throughout most of the latter half of the 1980s.
Among my responsibilities there, I managed the sporting goods and toy department. I kept track of inventory and merchandising, kept the area clean and stocked, and when the toy salesmen came to visit, I would listen to their sales pitches and purchase new items for the store to sell. This was a favorite part of my job. I really enjoyed the toys in particular. We purchased the sporting equipment and toys wholesale from Cariddi Sales, out of North Adams, Massachusetts. They sold sporting goods, camping and fishing gear, and toys, specializing in classic toys as much as the new electronic toys that would soon overwhelm the market. These classic toys were what I liked the best, Slinkys, Silly-Putty, Jacks, and Red Rubber Balls, etc., etc.- timeless toys powered by the hands, and the imagination, rather than batteries.
About this time, I got the idea to make toys myself. I lived in an apartment with my new wife. The apartment was small, but did have a little corner of the living-room devoted to my "studio" with a small woodworking bench and my easel. I still had sometimes-access to the campus wood shop at Hampshire College, where I made several baby rattles on their lathe, which I presented to friends and coworkers, who were expecting children. One Christmas I designed tops and made some for every one of my nieces and nephews. The following Christmas I got the idea to make some of these tops to sell at Hasting's Store.
The Cariddi Salesman was named Tom, we called him Tom Cariddi, (it may have been his name, but I don't think so). I discussed the toy business during his visits, and showed him the tops that I had made. He was impressed and asked me if I could make him a hundred of them so he could peddle them around and see if they sold. I said, "Sure!" without even a moment's thought. We agreed on a price and I was in the toy business.
Making a hundred tops, was really not too difficult, they were made from a commercial available wooden toy wheel, with a pointed wooden dowel glued in and painted simply, letting plenty of the wood show. I bought the wheels from a local craft supplier, who unfortunately, didn't stock enough. I called around and found a commercial supplier who would sell me as many as I wanted, cheaply, but the minimum order was 250 pieces. I ordered them, and paid extra for express shipping. The dowels came from the nearby lumberyard.
Once the materials were in hand I spent a busy, but fun and exhilarating weekend, cutting the dowels to length, pointing them in a fixture that I designed (like a big pencil sharpener), assembling and painting them. The hardest thing was to find places in the little apartment to let them all dry. But I did, and the tops were done in time to be delivered at the appointed time.
Tom picked up the tops and was again impressed. To my delight, the tops that Hastings agreed to carry were a hit with customers sold out quickly. Within a week, Tom called me and said that he sold all that he had and was sure he could sell three hundred more! But since it was now getting close to Christmas, he would need them in a hurry. I said he could have another 150 (all the wheels I had left) in a couple of days, but the rest would take at least two weeks. He agreed and I began full-scale production.
The next two weeks was a blur. The store was busy, my wife and I were hectic with the usual holiday craziness and every spare moment I had that fall was spent working on tops. This time it wasn't so much fun, compressed by time, as I was. But as I worked on finishing hundreds of tops, "Geppetto's Workbench" was taking shape in my mind. There was a definite market for handmade wooden toys, at least locally, that much was clear. If I could design different classic toys, and make them myself, I could sell them through Cariddi, as well as at the store and at craft fairs, and put my creative abilities to good use.
After the holidays were past, full of dreams and a bit of success, I started designing and prototyping feverishly. There was a big Children's craft fair in Amherst each Summer called the "Teddy Bear Rally." Impulsively, I signed up for a booth, certainly I would be able to get everything done between January and mid June. I made up a half-dozen or more toy designs, tops, buzz-saws, building-blocks (in the shape of buildings, each with a carved letter on them), jumping-jacks in the shape of teddy bears and several others.
As time went on it became clear to me that to be ready for the Rally meant I would have to work at the same feverish pace as I had that fall with the tops. I couldn't keep up the pace. The reality soon became evident, I needed a shop, some equipment, some working capital and way more time than my life and current obligations afforded me. Reluctantly, I canceled the booth at the Teddy Bear Rally. There was no realistic way for me to be ready in time.
That spring we bought a house, started having children, financial troubles, and eventually we divorced. To make ends meet, I got a "Career Job," and moved back to Connecticut. Geppetto's Workbench foundered and closed.
I've moved around a lot since then, each time carefully moving all of the Geppetto's Workbench prototypes and what little stock I made. Periodically, I would think to myself that someday in the future will be the right time to return to it. Maybe when I retire...
Making a hundred tops, was really not too difficult, they were made from a commercial available wooden toy wheel, with a pointed wooden dowel glued in and painted simply, letting plenty of the wood show. I bought the wheels from a local craft supplier, who unfortunately, didn't stock enough. I called around and found a commercial supplier who would sell me as many as I wanted, cheaply, but the minimum order was 250 pieces. I ordered them, and paid extra for express shipping. The dowels came from the nearby lumberyard.
Once the materials were in hand I spent a busy, but fun and exhilarating weekend, cutting the dowels to length, pointing them in a fixture that I designed (like a big pencil sharpener), assembling and painting them. The hardest thing was to find places in the little apartment to let them all dry. But I did, and the tops were done in time to be delivered at the appointed time.
Tom picked up the tops and was again impressed. To my delight, the tops that Hastings agreed to carry were a hit with customers sold out quickly. Within a week, Tom called me and said that he sold all that he had and was sure he could sell three hundred more! But since it was now getting close to Christmas, he would need them in a hurry. I said he could have another 150 (all the wheels I had left) in a couple of days, but the rest would take at least two weeks. He agreed and I began full-scale production.
The next two weeks was a blur. The store was busy, my wife and I were hectic with the usual holiday craziness and every spare moment I had that fall was spent working on tops. This time it wasn't so much fun, compressed by time, as I was. But as I worked on finishing hundreds of tops, "Geppetto's Workbench" was taking shape in my mind. There was a definite market for handmade wooden toys, at least locally, that much was clear. If I could design different classic toys, and make them myself, I could sell them through Cariddi, as well as at the store and at craft fairs, and put my creative abilities to good use.
After the holidays were past, full of dreams and a bit of success, I started designing and prototyping feverishly. There was a big Children's craft fair in Amherst each Summer called the "Teddy Bear Rally." Impulsively, I signed up for a booth, certainly I would be able to get everything done between January and mid June. I made up a half-dozen or more toy designs, tops, buzz-saws, building-blocks (in the shape of buildings, each with a carved letter on them), jumping-jacks in the shape of teddy bears and several others.
As time went on it became clear to me that to be ready for the Rally meant I would have to work at the same feverish pace as I had that fall with the tops. I couldn't keep up the pace. The reality soon became evident, I needed a shop, some equipment, some working capital and way more time than my life and current obligations afforded me. Reluctantly, I canceled the booth at the Teddy Bear Rally. There was no realistic way for me to be ready in time.
That spring we bought a house, started having children, financial troubles, and eventually we divorced. To make ends meet, I got a "Career Job," and moved back to Connecticut. Geppetto's Workbench foundered and closed.
I've moved around a lot since then, each time carefully moving all of the Geppetto's Workbench prototypes and what little stock I made. Periodically, I would think to myself that someday in the future will be the right time to return to it. Maybe when I retire...
