Ramagon 2: the toy in action
There are about 150 people who have stumbled across the Ramagon tribute I wrote last year, one or two at a time. I finally stumbled across some photographic evidence of the toys when I was scanning an old photo album last night. Here are some out of focus close-ups of three things I made with the Ramagon toy kits:
Sheath for a toy sword: I had a cheapo plastic toy sword which glowed in the dark, so it became both a medieval sword and a lightsaber. Since it wasn’t a real lightsaber, it needed someplace to stay when I wasn’t posing like Luke Skywalker, so I built a simple sheath for it. You can see the basic symmetry of the Ramagon toys in the photo: they did pyramidal very well, and it was easy to link them together into a strong boxlike structure.
Holster for a toy gun: Just as the Ramagon hubs could do pyramids, it was trivially simple to make cubes with them. Add a pyramid at the end to taper the gizmo, extend one end with a square for a belt loop, and cover the frame with the plastic snap-in panels, and presto: very uncomfortable and big holster. There’s a very cringe inducing “action shot” of the holster and the sheath on Flickr; in my defense, it was 1982.
Toy gun: This was the coolest of the three toys, and I’m sorry I don’t have a better picture. A combination of a long hex frame and some closely snapped together hubs, and the illustration shows the short connectors (the black piece here used for the “trigger” and to secure the close clusters at the end of the gun) that I had forgotten existed. “Action shot” here (not me in the picture).
Hello,back in 1982 in Milwaukie OR
I built the plastic mold for that
toy.
David, that’s awesome. There’s a real dearth of information about Ramagon out there–thanks for commenting.
Hello……….I am Richard’s wife and Randall’s mother. It is still hard to believe that this wonderful, creative toy never became a household word. Every child we knew loved to play with Ramagon. It was a labor of love.
I have 500 shares of stock from 1983, can somebody please lead me to some information about this????
Ramagon Toys, Inc., the public company is no more. Most of us took the write off years ago, If remember the IRS rules, you can write it off the year you find this out. Check on it. I liked the certificate and have one of mine framed. Now if someone has about $15 million, the company can be put back together….write me…It was fun to do the first time and now we know what NOT to do, as it would make a good internet business for someone who really wants to take the time. (Nothing keeps you younger than working with children learning while playing.) I was the first financial person in the 1977 start up.
I pulled out my Ramagon toys from my youth, and my 6 year old son is LOVING this toy! He’s putting together all sorts of stuff. The sticks break a little easily, but otherwise, this toy rocks. Please make it again, and I bet you can sell it. (Make money, well, that might be another story!)
hi,
the only reason i know of this toy, is because it is featured in the 1984 film ‘Silent Night, Deadly Night’. in one scene within a toy store, it is on the shelf near the cash registers. i paused this scene because the box cover interested me (i was born in 1977 so all those 80’s toys i am very fond of).. and saw the word ‘Ramagon’ and i googled it.. it reminds me of Tinker Toys but a little more technical perhaps?
.. i remember having Construx as a little kid, and Erector sets.. this Ramgaon seems unsung!
-mike
skeletal77@yahoo.com
A marvelous construction set. Wasn’t it used to build a space station in the movie, Star Trek: TMP? I purchased a few set off of eBay a couple of years ago. Useful for building techie displays. People are stupid, why else wouldn’t this be a runaway hit?