Check out what I’ve got – a catalogue of the T.B. Rayl hardware store’s offerings from 1926. Presenting Rayl’s Christmas – From the fiery depths of hell!

This old catalogue is full of old-fashioned toys, obsolete devices and old-time strangeness. Here, two people with indifferent expressions open gifts amid the blood-red flames radiating from the inferno that is the family fireplace. One’s a little girl; the other is either a helpful father or an adult-sized older sibling who still plays with dolls. No mother or other siblings visible. In contrast to the cheerful, wholesome character of most early to mid-20th century kitsch, this vintage ad is comparatively and strangely dark and foreboding. Merry Nietzschean Christmas.

Let’s see what’s inside its pages.

This precocious child is pictured posing with a model skyscraper he built with the Bilt-E-Z Building Set, showing grace, proportion, solidity and a host of other qualities lacking in the steel-and-glass origami designs of actual modern architects. This kid’s still dumb enough to make the building something nice looking in general, rather than aiming to impress his handful of like-minded architect peers while disdaining the general public and its tastes. It’s a little old-fashioned nowadays, sure, but at least his heart is in the right place. And he’s like 11 years old.

Below it are ancient roller skates that doubled as torture devices, and a “balky mule,” a one-trick present that grew tiresome about five minutes after being unwrapped. “OK, I get it, Dad, it winds up and moves. Enough already.”

Here we find children depicted doing something forbidden today – being children, back when they were kids and not delicate little cherubs made of glass. These kids are playing without helmets or elbow pads or knee pads or mouthguards, and no fussy parents looming nearby in case the Ritalin wears off.

The Flexible Flyer sled appears to be nothing more than a piece of plywood with a handle, the kind favored by Cubans of all ages as they “sled” their way to Florida across shark-infested waters. The kid here is going balls-out – head first and helmet free. This ride is going to be intensely spectacular or shockingly traumatic.

The Kiddie Kar offers the same safety-free options for parents, as well as rubber tires to permit indoor use, exactly the option parents want. And since this is basically a two-by-four with wheels, UL safety certification was probably wishful thinking.

Holy cripes, call the authorities. The boy has a gun, and he’s smiling like an NRA member.

This striking image was mundane when it came out, at a time when a boy with a gun was a hunter or hobbyist and not a potentially bipolar nutjob with seething resentments ready to open fire at school.

The next offering is a “coon jigger,” which sounds like a racial slur just waiting to happen. Being of the “Sambo” variety of toys, it basically was.

There’s a toy boat rounding out the page that travels several hundred feet, though no mention is made of how the hell you get it back once it’s halfway out into the lake.

What stands out about the items in this catalogue is the simplicity of the offerings, the little it took to keep a child occupied and interested. There were no TVs, video games, or computers back then, but instead wooden boats and wind-up toys and other items for children with durable attention spans, simple toys in a simple time when Rayl’s was surrounded by a beautiful downtown, itself circled by safe, bustling neighborhoods full of people in a city bursting at the seams. Nowadays, such simple realities are as quaint as the toys spawned from that era.