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The Slinky Was Originally Designed for Navy Warships
“A spring, a spring, a marvelous thing!”
Naval engineer Richard James of Philadelphia wasn’t trying to invent a toy; he wanted to stabilize warships’ instruments from the vibrations of gunfire, rough waves, and propeller shafts. Among the hundreds of tension spring coils stacked around his desk in 1943, James noticed one of them began “walking” away in a series of arcing motions with the help of gravity alone.
His wife Betty called it the Slinky, and together they saw the commercial potential. Upon going into business, James sold his entire inventory of 400 Slinkys in less than two hours. A couple years later, they’d reach $100 million in sales, which is well over $1 billion adjusted for inflation.
Sales had dried up by 1960 when James disappeared to South America, but Betty took over the company in his absence, initiated a new marketing campaign, and steered the Slinky from a forgotten novelty to a timeless classic.
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