Cedar Rapids toy store offers classic games, toys

A visit to a southwest Cedar Rapids store likely will bring back pleasant memories for many shoppers.

Closeout Unlimited, 517 Third Ave. SW, is chock full of classic games and toys such as Chinese checkers, Hot Wheels, Big Wheels, Buddy L toy trucks, wooden alphabet and number blocks, Suzy Homemaker dolls and toy trains.

Pedal cars and fire engines, which many a baby boomer owned in the 1950s and 1960s, are available at Closeout Unlimited. The store also offers watches, jewelry and other items, such as Jockey lamps that were previously sold on the QVC shopping channel.

The toys and other merchandise are sold at a substantial discount, making it possible for a couple with five children to spend about $100 to finish shopping for Christmas presents.

Ernie Petit, who co-owns Closeout Unlimited, said the store has been welcomed by neighborhood residents who were hard hit by the June 2008 flood.

“They've told us that they're really glad to see a new business open in the neighborhood,” Petit said. “We wanted to bring in toys with deep-discounted prices to help everyone in the area.”

Closeout Unlimited sells NASCAR and sports-related die cast cars ranging from 50 cents up to $100 apiece. Petit said a variety of G or garden scale train sets are available from a circus train to an army train.

“The army train really is a bargain for $99,” he said. “It includes the engine, coal car and caboose, track and the transformer.

“A lot of people set up the G scale trains in their gardens.”

The G scale trains are larger and the tracks are wider than the O gauge Lionel trains and triple-rail tracks that many baby boomers played with when they were young.

Petit said Double Bubble gumball machines are a popular item, along with baseball trading cards from Fleer, which introduced Dubble Bubble bubble gum in 1928. The baseball cards were packaged with the bubble gum, making them a favorite of youngsters for decades.

Closeout Unlimited also sells plastic model kits.

“We own two model kit companies,” Petit said. “We own a molding facility in Michigan and we make 90 percent of our plastic model kits in the United States.”

Petit said Closeout Unlimited, which opened the day after Thanksgiving, is open from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.

He said the store will stay open as long as there is support. He said a larger story would open in the same building in January.

“We felt that it was important to get the toy store open in time for the holidays,” he said.