-Removed-Nice topic.
I think this would vary between people who've grown up in different countries/regions, and there must be gender differences as well.
From as early as I remember, I had a room full of dolls and stuffed animals. As I got into school, more 'educational' toys and games (board games like Candyland and Chutes and Ladders, and of course card games like Old Maid and Go Fish). As I got older, I was given things not traditionally considered 'for girls', like a telescope and those little science kits (I even remember getting a train set when I was about 10) along with the more traditional bicycles and skates. And then I became interested in music and started collecting musical instruments and learning to play them all. Never learned the stringed instruments, though.
I think my father taught me chess around 8 years old.
-Removed-OMG
The JohnySeven!
1. Detachable Pistol (caps)
2. Rifle (white bullets - easily lost)
3. Machine gun (rachet system on right of gun)
4. Grenade Launcher
5. Side launcher (red torpedo)
6. Rocket (front launch)
7. Rocket Grenade (looked like an ice-lolly and launched from either side or front)
Best prezzie ever.
I was 8 or 9.
Following year it was a chopper.
My parents ran several businesses, and kids got in the way. Most of the time we had to play outside - bicycles, tree-climbing, and an old railway station bicycle-rack for a home gym. Inside the house it was only books (real ones from the library mostly, comics were frowned upon but we occasionally had them) and jigsaw puzzles and things like Snakes and Ladders. We had things like wood-chopping and working in the shop to do, as well as homework, so there wasn't all that much time for fun stuff.
I went to help out in a small country toy store at age 19, and remember being surprised to discover all the stuff that was available for kids to play with. I spent one Saturday morning alone in the store, happily playing with a GIANT box of Lego bricks (meant for sale per-piece) and every customer that came in that morning bought some! The whole box had gone by the time the shop owner came to lock up.