Sometimes an Accident is a Good Thing.

"A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance:..."

 Proverb 15:13a

 

 The slinky was invented by Richard James in the early 1940's when he was working on making springs for stabilizing sensitive naval instruments.  He accidentally knocked one of the springs off a shelf and it "walked" down the shelf, onto a book, and landed standing on the floor.  

James went home and spent some time perfecting this idea for a new toy, testing different gauges of steel and adjusting the tension until he developed what worked best.

Richard and his wife Betty took out a $500 loan and made 400 slinky units.  He and his wife took them into Gimbels Department Store in Philadelphia, PA in November of 1945.

They sold all 400 Slinky toys for $1 each in 90 minutes.

The price of the slinky has remained very low because Betty wanted a toy that would be available to all; she wanted children of all financial brackets to be able to enjoy the toy.

100 million slinky toys sold in the first 2 years of sales.

300 million slinky toys have sold in the last 60 years.

Slinky toys have been used as teaching tools, wartime radio antenna, and in Nasa experiments (they won't "slink" in space).  Undoubtedly, patient and wonderful Grandmas who push grandchildren around, allowing them to sling their slinky toys wins the "greatest use" award...
well, at least in my book.

Great job to Richard and Betty James for giving us the Slinky!

Now, will somebody please invent one that won't turn into this.

 -information obtained from Wikipedia.