RETAIL TRADE: The Electronic Age of Toys

Across the U.S., department store toy buyers joyfully talked about the "electronic Christmas." With hundreds of new gadgets operated by battery, remote control or miniature electronic brains, toy sales are heading for a new record. Forecast: $1,184,000,000, up approximately 4% over 1955.

The electronic toys, lifting ideas from the world of automation and guided missiles, are bound to dazzle adults as well as children. Among the startlers: "The Brain" ($11.95), a missile-shooting, robot-manned car with an electronic circuit built into the robot's head, put out by St. Louis' Jay V. Zimmerman Co., and remote-controlled buses and boats imported from Japan....

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