As the story goes, Hodgson, who was broke and in debt, borrowed $147, bought production rights from GE, made up a batch and packaged one ounce lumps in plastic eggs (because it was shortly before Easter).  Calling it "Silly Putty," he marketed it to stores as a novelty item, mainly for adults.  After New Yorker magazine ran an article on it in 1950, Hodgson received 250,000 orders in 3 days and sales took off from there.  Silly Putty, which became one of the nation's most recognizable brands, made Hodgson a rich man.  When he died in 1976, he left an estate worth $140 million. 

Silly Putty bounces higher than a rubber ball.  You can flatten it with your fingers and stretch it slowly to considerable lengths.  But if you pull it sharply, it snaps in two.   And, of course, you can flatten it, press it against the comics in a newspaper and pick up the image, which you can then stretch and distort to your heart's content (although the inks in today's newspapers reportedly don't work as well as they did in the past).

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History has a collection of Silly Putty and one vintage egg, like the one above, is on display in its "Material World" exhibit in Washington.  In your local toy store Silly Putty is now available not just in its classic pink version, but in a variety of bright colors, some of which even glow in the dark, and in a temperature-sensitive version that changes color in your hand, and a special 50th anniversary metallic gold edition.  Technology marches on.