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Most toys from the early 1800s and early 1900s had one thing in common - the toys were supposed to be "functional" and teach the child something. It could be about a mechanical lesson or a moral value.

An example of a toy with a moral value can be found in the blue cylinder where you see an old man with a cane. If you wind up the old man, he frantically tries to open the door but can't because he's intoxicated. This was meant to teach the child the consequences of drinking alcohol.

Mechanical toys that were functional could be cars, ships, steam engines, and nuclear power plants that used META tablets for power.

At one point it got a little out of hand when trying to create as real toys as possible. In 1952, the toy Gilbert U-238 Atomic Energy Lab Kit was launched. The children who played with the lab kit were to carry out nuclear experiments themselves and therefore 4 different radioactive materials were included when you bought the toy.

They stopped selling the toy not because it was dangerous to life, but because children simply did not understand nuclear power and it was sold in far too few copies.

Even the toy stoves you see in the stand were fully functional.