Date unknown, but some Sears swing sets sold for around $40 in 1969, so this could be a little before that, given $30 was a common price point in the '50s-60s. These were very common in backyards throughout North America by the '50s. Some models had appointments like ponies to ride, tires, or even jungle-gym type attachments.
The '50s sets got safety improvements in the '70s, and by the '80-90s changes to safety laws saw the metal tube sets phasing out in favor of updated designs. It was possible for children swinging in unison to tip the structure over if not cemented down, not to mention opportunities for cuts and pinches. About 1 in 25 owners in 1971 reported an injury requiring medical attention.
Here’s a photo of a metal tube swing similar to the Sears ad model, without the slide option.
Swings have been around a while. Here’s a small model of one circa 1400BC from Crete, specific year unknown.
This swing set was in production for a while. I know because I had it in the early 80s.
I had friends with them. You totally could walk it around the yard if you swang in unison.
Mine was attached to concert posts like a fence.
Your parents really loved you.
I’m not a fan of monopolies or megacorps, and I am in favor of safety regulations… but a huge part of me is sad that you can no longer mail order a house through Sears for a couple grand and just… assemble it yourself.
I grew up in such a house, built in ~1950, from a Sears kit. Two floors, four bedrooms, two baths.
Electrical was also done by the owner and was absolutely not up to code but that eventually got fixed. Was a decent house. Arguably much sturdier than some of the shit built in the 80s.
Nice. I made a post about a month ago about those Sears catalog houses. They aren’t as well known these days.
I currently live in a kit house, not sears and modified, but built by my dad.
I’m amazed he managed to build a house and work. I was one and a half when he started in '81. We are actually in the middle of a new project now so… not quite done (never will be).
We also had one of these swing sets.
Seriously, I remember even at a young age being able to rock the entire set back and forth. I guess the safety mechanism is that eventually your ass doesn’t fit in the swing anymore.
Oh, and I remember the slide feeling unstable as hell.
I had a swing set + slide as well. Pretty rock solid because my mother knew that it should be secured. Each part that touched the ground was kept in place with a big cylinder of cement just below the ground. There were definitely swing sets out in the world that were scary in retrospect, but I didn’t worrty about that as a kid.
That set looks pretty baller.
And don’t let those sedate chairs fools you, they can catch some altitude, and it’s only more terrifying because you’ve got nothing to keep your butt in the seat.
I am so used to BCE terminology nowadays that I was confused what BC meant until you pulled out the Cretian artifact. I wanna know more about that. Do you happen to have any sources or articles about it?
Oh yes, I’ve been trying to shift to BCE, but I forget a lot so I’m batting about 50%.
Ask and ye shall receive. Navigate to Page 62, 77th-100th Annual report of the Trustees of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1946-1969-70.
Danke. It’s curious how little we know of Minoan civilzation. What little written record we have of it (pretty much all from Athens, many centuries later) paints it as a strange place, but then we have works like this that just displays how much humans have always been humans, even thousands of years ago.
We had one configured like this in our midwest USA yard in the 80s. It’s wild that they went unchanged for that long. And, like other commenters, my siblings and I would make it walk up and down the yard. It was about the only thing that could get us to cooperate.
Yeah, those things were death traps without the cement.
naw it was real fun to make the whole thing tip up on two legs just to the point of falling over, like running up to a cliff at full speed and skidding to a stop inches from the edge
I just go to a public park near me. Crazy that we moved away from public infrastructure as much as possible in order to accommodate the automobile and large houses.
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