That's two things I sort left out. One was the wooden box I had with a bunch of old clocks that I took apart - wind up type clocks, not electric. Still fascinated by finely crafted gear mechanisms.
And trains of course. Always been a train nut. We never had space for anything permanent, but we had a set up from Thanksgiving to after New Year. I remember once, I was about 6 or so, I got up on a Saturday morning to find my Dad had finished the loop of track, so I tried to run a train It stopped about halfway around. After much investigation I found where the missing pair of wires were, hooked it up, and had the train running when my Dad got home from work.