African Scrap Metal Toys

Afrigadget has a few pictures of hand-made toys from Kenya and Ghana, including these scooters that ingeniously use spray-can tops as wheels.

African Toys - A Pictorial [Afrigadget]

[#1 posted by pork musket , March 17, 2008 12:18 PM]

I love these things. A friend brought back (from S. Africa I believe) a Predator figure made entirely out of wire much like the bikes, it is about 9 inches high and absolutely awesome.

[#2 posted by strider_mt2k , March 17, 2008 12:40 PM]

They look very clever!

If I saw something like that for sale here I might consider it if the wheels worked. :)

[#3 posted by Marty , March 17, 2008 12:43 PM]

One of my sons' favorite picture books featured a scrap metal toy made by an African boy - a Galimoto:
http://tinyurl.com/25ettw

[#4 posted by Enochrewt , March 17, 2008 1:18 PM]

Awesome. Whoever makes these should seriously consider selling them on the web, they'd make a mint.

[#5 posted by michaelportent , March 17, 2008 3:38 PM]

Why don't we see more of this everywhere? Really, young kids don't care/know that their toys aren't made from new plastic/metal.

In a world environment where plastic and metal are being discarded and not recycled properly at an alarming rate, I think it's high time we started turning this stuff into the toys of the future.

[#6 posted by dculberson , March 17, 2008 8:11 PM]

Michael, I suspect it's due to the massive number of liability suits that would be filed after kids started losing fingers.. Those things look sharp in more than one way.

[#7 posted by treq , March 17, 2008 11:56 PM]

There are somewhat similar things elsewhere, I've seen more than a few coke can biplanes and rockets sold at local fairs. Never seen bikes though, that's pretty cool.