The Majestic Wyandotte China Clipper Airplane

 July 6, 2011


If you do a search for Wyandotte toys and do not include a second word such as "toy, or airplane, or coupe", you will most likely come up with several pages of photos of chickens. The Wyandotte chicken is a famous class of chicken that is famous in the US. However, I digress,and today's instalment is all about the Wyandotte China Clipper.


The Martin China Clipper, after which the toy is modelled after, was famous airplane of PAA or Pan American Airways. It flew from San Francisco to Hawaii and farther west in the 1930's and early 1940's.
It was used to fly mail, and I assume the odd passenger. There were only 3 produced. It flew airmail to Honolulu, Midway,Wake Island, and Guam.

There are at least 4 different models of this airplane:

1.  Blue body, red wings, with 3 tail fins

2. Red body and ?? wings

(I'll update this in the future)

3. White body, red wings, 1 tail fin

4. Silver body, red wings, 1 tail fin

Whenever I buy one of these models, they always are certain to have the following problems:

1. Rear tail fin and small wing teeters and wobbles

2. No rear small wing altogether

3. Missing the propellers and the narcelles (the engine housing for the propeller)

This isn;t a problem as you can readily purchase the missing pieces from

Thomas Toys

or

Classic Tin Toys

both of which can easily be found on the net.

Notice the above model:

a. No bottom plate

b. No rear wheel  or axle

Notice the above model:

a. Has the bottom plate

b. Has a rear wheel and axle

c. The wheels are made of wood, while other models may have rubber wheels

This model is similar to the blue and red model

 I'm writing this instalment on July 6, 2011. For me, and most likely for many other sellers, the E-Bay market for old toys (vehicles and airplanes, farm toys) is very slow. This most likely is a direct result of several factors:

1. The US recession has got worse and resulted in discretionary income 

being spent on more important  items!

2. In my opinion, younger collectors and children are not as interested in  hands-on toys. The Ipad, Ipod, and the cell phone occupy more time for children. The XBox, the Wii and computers are the "toys" of today's generation.

The Wyandotte China Clipper and the Hubley P-38 are toys that still have endured in their demand, and still fetch good prices on E-Bay.

The China Clipper in great condition with all of its' parts will garner the seller anywhere from $ 100.00 - $300.00 depending upon various factors. The same airplane with missing parts will fetch less of course.

I have wanted to repaint one of these beauties, but at the cost of purchase, I dare not!

So that's it for today's instalment, and thanks for dropping by.

AS usual, you can double click to view an enlargement of any image, and if you have any comments, add them to the instalment, or  e-mail me at majortrout@gmail.com.

1 final note:

I have most of my photos on Flickr and l just started to add them to Picasa.

My Flickr address is:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/53763761@N07/

and to access my Picasa photos, you'll have to follow the instructions below as I can't seem to copy and paste an address .

1. Go to Picasa 

2. Enter the words Hubley toys and you should find 1 of my photos

3. My nickname there is Majortrout

4. Click on the word "majortrout" and you'll come to my Picasa Web Albums

5. Click on any of the images

6. Enjoy