Way back when, for legions of children the rocking horse held an allure that led them into their very own Narnia.
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Almost any American who lived in the 20th century will know the name Tootsietoy, the first maker of diecast toys in the United States.
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During the height of the doll and teddy boom from the early 1980s up until the early 2000s, some antique dolls and bears sold at specialised auctions for many thousands of dollars and the golliwog was there too. Dedicated golly collectors made their mark on the collector’s market, paying high prices for anything golly related that was a little different.
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Remember the days when you raced through a box of cereal, just so you could get to the bottom and shake out whatever new and exciting toy was being given away? Digging out a toy surprise from your Cornflakes might be a thrill of the past, but these freebies are now surprisingly collectable.
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What is it that makes Pelham puppets so collectable? Part of the answer lies in their history. As with many collectable toys, they originated in the mind and heart of one imaginative person. Back in 1947, Bob Pelham started the company that manufactured the puppets that came to symbolise the pre-technological, golden age of childhood.
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The iconic British toy firm of Chiltern was founded in 1908 by German toy dealer Joseph Eisenmann, taking the
name from the surrounding picturesque Chiltern Hills in Buckinghamshire. With his brother Gabriel, they previously had established their first toy export company in 1881. Joseph’s Chiltern works initially made dolls, but soon added stuffed toys to the lines.
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The image of the kangaroo has come a long way since the days of George Stubbs and the kongorou, which must have seemed like an alien species to the British when the painting was unveiled in 1773. Australiana expert John Wade explores toys based on the hopping motion of one of our favourite Australian animals.
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It’s a great British success story with a German and South African at its heart. For nearly three decades the Corgi range was at the pinnacle of British toy manufacturing with remarkable innovations that continue to fascinate collectors today.
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Beach buggies were created in the 1960s as sun, surf and sand vehicles specially designed for leisure pursuits. These latter activities sometimes amounted to nothing more elaborate than driving over dunes or along the beach in the summer… enter Corgi Toys with the toy version.
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“I was hoping to share some details about the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ of my collecting passion for model boats from the late 1940s to the mid-1960s. To date, I have approximately one hundred and fifty boats and in many respects I have only touched the tip of the iceberg”.
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In bygone days before the use of modern plastic materials, children’s windup toys were generally manufactured from tinplate metal. Such ingenious novelties were known as mechanical toys because most of them were
designed to offer realistic movement powered from their in-built wind-up mechanisms.
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When John Kirby Farnell established his textiles business Notting Hill in London in 1840, he probably never imagined it would go on to become a major UK manufacturer of soft toys. His initial output included tea cosies, pincushions and pen wipers, but in 1870 John’s daughter Agnes began making soft toys…
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Pandora dolls are also known as night and day dolls, because they were often created for ladies of fashion in pairs. Imagine the tailor to the courts of England and Europe, riding up to the palace gates with saddlebags full of miniature dolls and presenting them to the queen and ladies of court, one doll featuring a dress to be worn during the day, the other a dress or gown for an evening of entertainment.
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From 1955 to 1970, Lego produced a range of small-scale cars and trucks. These weren’t tiny kits made from the familiar Lego blocks, but completed, detailed models.
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When it was released, the Schoenhut Indoor Golf Game – the earliest version of miniature golf – sold for US$5 to $10 but in December 1921, when it was test-marketed for three weeks before its release the next year, stores in Philadelphia and New York sold more than $22,000 worth.
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Board games occupy an important place in almost every culture, having been a part of social interaction from some of the earliest civilisations. Their role has extended beyond being organised play to reflect concerns of different societies and until recently, there have been few houses that did not possess at least one or two games.
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Known as ‘the Matchbox of the Netherlands’, the range of Best-Box toys has largely been forgotten by today’s collectors but these Dutch diecast vehicles more than hold their own.
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Many toy makers began to create models of the airship during its heyday. Valuable collectables today, they often had clockwork motors that turned a propeller, enabling the ship to be powered on a circular path while suspended from a string.
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It’s a little bit ironic that one of the most popular board games in modern history – and one that celebrates capitalism on a grand scale – was created in the name of social and economic justice.
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The expression ‘jack-in-a-box’ existed for centuries before anyone thought of putting spring loaded puppets inside the box. The first reference known in print is found in John Foxe’s 1563 publication Actes & Monuments …
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Dolls have been made from ancient times, sometimes as playthings, sometimes for devotional purposes. The oldest were made from natural materials, easily available: clay or whittled wood, for example. We look at the background of the doll as a plaything, for the budding doll collector.
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For over 150 years, the Punch and Judy puppet show has been an essential part of the British seaside holiday.
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Horses, in one form or another, have always played a big part in Libby Bailey’s world, from the day her father bought her a pony when she was a little girl. Today she’s got a whole stable of rocking horses.
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Rupert Bear was born on November 8, 1920 in the UK Daily Express newspaper. Written in comic strip format with the captions in verse, the first Rupert was written by Mary Tourtel and the popularity of this ‘terribly English’ little bear has remained constant for almost 100 years.
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Corgi released its first forward control Jeep in 1959, a full five years before Land Rover joined the diecast toy market. The miniature turned out to be more successful than the real thing.
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Penny woodens, dutch dolls, penny Gretchens, peg dolls, wooden-tops, plain Janes, wooden Bettys, timber tops – by whatever name you call them, for over four hundred years these traditional peg dolls were handmade by peasant families high up in the Dolomite Mountains of Italy.
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According to his mother, Peter Young’s first word was ‘bus’. When he was seven his aunt gave him his first double-decker model bus, and that was the start of his collection…
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In 1919, Norah Wellings took a long look at herself in the mirror and concluded: ‘Norah, you are never going to be beautiful so you had better make yourself useful.’ And then she became one of the best soft doll makers in the country.
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Queen Mary’s dolls’ house is the largest and most famous dolls’ house in the world. Built between 1921 and 1924 for Queen Mary by the leading British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, it includes contributions from over 1500 of the finest artists, craftsmen and manufacturers of the early 20th century.
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If you were a kid in the 1960s or early 1970s, you might recall displays or trays on toy shop counters loaded with bright, colourful toy vehicles moulded in what seemed to be a kind of soft rubber. Promoted as being ‘furniture friendly’, maker Tomte Laerdal sold more than 100 million of them in more than 100 countries.
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When Universal Pictures released its classic monster movies to local US TV stations in 1956, it created a monster frenzy – and a marketing opportunity that was seized upon by Aurora Plastics, who launched the first of their massively successful monster kits in 1961.
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With all things Danish surging in popularity following the coronation of King Frederick and Queen Mary in January, we take a look at the famous Tekno scale model toy company – the cream of Danish diecast.
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‘One of the biggest novelties we have ever seen…We venture to predict that it will not only be the biggest novelty in the market this year, but it is at the same time so thoroughly practical and such a splendid conception that we marvel that it has not been done before.’ The Publishers’ Circular, 1902
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This popular series of children’s books was established in 1942 in the midst of World War II, and when Little Golden Books celebrated their 50th anniversary in 1992, it was claimed that 1.5 billion books had been sold. Collecting the series is fun and can be done on a shoestring budget.
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A collector since he purchased his first Coca-Cola truck at the tender age of nine, architect and elite equestrian Luke Jones has recently added ‘author’ to his list of achievements with the publication of the fantastic new book Australian Toys: A Collection.
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Those who were lucky enough to travel to Germany, Austria or Switzerland in the 1960s might have come across, in department stores, toy shops and even railway gift shops, miniature Rigi cable car sets. Made by the Lehmann Company of West Germany …
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