Five Hobbies That No Longer Exist

Remember hobbies? Doom scrolling or playing games on your phone doesn't count. I'm talking about creative recreational activities that require you to actually use your brain and hands. 

OK, many of us do still partake in hobbies today as time allows. However, I thought it would be fun to pay homage to five hobbies that were popular at one time during the 20th century but have pretty much fallen by the wayside. How many of these did you participate in?

1. Slot Car Racing

Slot car racing parlors were a huge thing back in the 1960s. Slot car racing is exactly what it sounds like—you place an electronically controlled miniaturized race car on a groove in a track and race it against other "drivers". I'm not talking about the toy sets that were sold in Sears catalogs. Think multi-track courses that took up an entire room with several racers vying for first place. 

Cars were accelerated by pressing a button; no actual steering is involved. It sounds simple but there was real skill involved—go too fast around the curves and your car would fly off the track. Go too slow, and someone else would beat you to the finish line. 

Then there was the art of modifying your miniature race car for enhanced performance. Enthusiasts would experiment with tires and adding/subtracting weight via tiny parts so they could beat other racers. This eventually led to slot car racing's downfall, but more on that in a moment. 

The Lionel Corporation (the same company that made electric trains) produced the first electric slot cars in 1912 and made them available in their catalog. Tracks and cars underwent improvements in the following decades by several entrepreneurs and manufacturers. By the mid-60s there were over 3,000 "raceways" operating across the U.S. where enthusiasts of all ages would pit their cars against each other. 

It was a $500 million business at its peak and even the Beatles were fans. John Lennon in particular loved the Scalextric brand and combined several tracks into one huge set up in his attic and even incorporated speakers that blasted engine roars and tire screeches. He also insisted on bringing one of his sets on The Beatles' 1964 tour (George Harrison, as you may know, was a fan of the real thing when it came to racecar driving.) 

 

Photo credit: Curt Gunther

The hobby was initially accessible and enjoyed by all ages—kids, their parents, and retirees would frequent the racing venues and enjoy healthy competition as well as share their tips. 

However, some fans got a little too competitive. Those with hundreds of dollars to spend on car modifications did just that—and this eventually shut younger racers out. Their cars simply couldn't keep up. By the early '70s most slot car racing centers had shuttered their doors. 

Although they're spread pretty far apart across the country, there are some slot car raceways and hobby shops that feature slot car tracks operating in the U.S. Thanks to local clubs and online communities the hobby experienced a small resurgence after the pandemic-era lockdowns. It offers social connections and hands-on enjoyment with older adults that remember it from their childhood introducing it to younger racers. 

2. Sewing

Once a staple skill learned in girls' high school home economics classes, sewing started to fall by the wayside in the '90s. It's the rare individual now that is studying fashion design or does clothing alterations that has a sewing machine in the home. 

Wow! Singer used to offer a sewing course and competitions for teens. 

 

I come from a family of sewers—my sister worked as a seamstress for a bridal shop and my mother owned a vintage Singer sewing machine that belonged to her mother. Both were quite adept at creating clothing from tissue patterns. By the time I got the sewing bug in my 20s the cost of fabric had gone up enough that it made more sense to just buy a dress or a shirt. 

 

Speaking of Singer, the sewing machine manufacturer used to operate centers across the country where it would offer sewing classes. I can't help but think how fun it would be to take an in-person sewing course today.  

I miss tagging along with my mother to the fabric store and perusing the gigantic pattern catalogs. Many of them contained designer patterns from Calvin Klein, Liz Claiborne, Ralph Lauren, and other notable fashion designers from the '80s and '90s. 

Today those patterns are now available online as digital downloads. While I've met plenty of people that knit and crochet, I can't say I know anyone that sews in their spare time. 

3. Model and Balsa Wood Airplane Making

Back in the '60s my father opened up a hobby shop as a side job. The majority of his inventory was comprised of built-to-scale plastic and resin models: cars, boats, airplanes, animals, movie monsters, you name it. Kids would assemble these with tube glue and paint them. Many of the monster models featured glow-in-the-dark parts.

Likewise, balsa wood glider planes were another popular hands-on hobby, known by the term aeromodelling. You can still find them today—some ACE Hardware stores carry them—and they really do take flight if constructed and balanced properly. Some models can even do loops. In fact, NASA still uses them to teach aviation students how real airplanes can fly. 

You can still buy plastic models and find vintage kits from Revell, Aurora, and others online. Revell is still in business and sells plane and vehicle model kits on Amazon. 

4. Stamp, Coin, and Baseball Card Collecting

I don't think collecting has ever gone out of fashion, but what people collect now has definitely changed. And very few people today collect stamps, coins, or baseball cards. 

Stamp collecting in particular was popular with celebrities such as Charlie Chaplin, Ernest Borgnine, Willis Reed, and Ronnie Wood. Freddie Mercury amassed a collection as a child which was later sold to benefit an AIDS charity. 

The Guardian claimed in a 2020 article that millennials had fallen in love with collecting stamps, but I've personally never heard of anyone that's into it. Likewise, Pokemon card collecting seemed to replace baseball cards. 

5. Making Mix Tapes

This last hobby is something my fellow Generation Xers and I got quite skilled at decades before Spotify existed: we made our own playlists on cassette by recording songs on the radio. This required patience, luck, and a boombox or stereo with a cassette player and a record button. 

One of the most annoying things about compiling songs on cassette was listening to the DJ talk over and ruin the beginning of a song before the lyrics started. But you couldn't beat the reward: getting to listen to your favorite tunes over and over again for free! Some of us made mix tapes to give to a friend, boyfriend, or girlfriend. 

As late as the 1990s I was still recording songs, especially if I hadn't had the chance to buy the CD yet. 

Of course, there are tons more hobbies than just these five that fell out of fashion. Which ones did you enjoy or are still enjoying to this day?