Minic Tin Toys - Part II

Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Minic Tin Toys

Part II

My 600th Post

    Yesterday, I posted a "revisit" of the Minic (British) toy company. Because I'm using Lloyd Ralston's photographs, I can post a few extra images,since there usually is only 1 photos for each listing.  As I was looking on ebay (Britain), I noticed that even there, there were not that many different  items form The Lloyd Ralston Gallery. I was fortunate to be able to present a good amount of Minic's toys.  Today's presentation are cars, and mostly pre-WWII and some perhaps early post-WWII.

    All of these toys were key windup clockwork toys. Once you wound up the coiled spring, you releases the toy, and it would run around from the built up energy. Some of these toys came with electricity (batteries) and had lights that could be turned on and off. 

Please click here to visit the nice website of the Lloyd Ralston Gallery

The trailer or as the British call, a "caravan" has what in my opinion is a more modern box.

That item was in fact made earlier, but inthis case is probably newer than the car.

I like those large-sized keys. Not only would they be easy for small hands of young children to use to wind the toy, but the keys would be harder to lose.

I have a feeling that these toys were all hand made. The noise in the factory must have been very loud, and I'm sure the workers had to produce many toys during their shift at the factory.

I particularly like this taxi because of the added details.  The curved metal piece off of the rrear Landau roof, and the taxi meter add to the beauty of this toy.

This toy came with human figures. L also like the small Shell brand gas tank. I wonder if cars had these tanks on the side, and if they did, did they have something to tie they down?

Take a look at the lower photo and the gear mechanism. The brass-tomned gear is the main working gear, so the material is probably harder than the silver-coloured gears.  Even after so many years, these toys are still working!

Since there weren't any specific dates for all of these toys, I do not  know the age of the toys.

I'd be curious to know just how old this particular toy and similar others in such nice condition are.

The  above 2 convertible  cars are the same model but for their different colour themes.

My final thought for this post and these Minic toys would be how many of these toys would be purchased by parents for their children? Because each one probably would have been more expensive than the Dinky or Matchbox brands (without wind-up movements) of the times, why would a parent spend the extra money for a toy that did the same thing (move on its own)?

However, now some 50-75 years later, collectors want every one for their collections go figure?

After I just added this post to the blog, I noticed that this was my 600th post to date.
That's a lot of posts considering the short time that I've been posting. I started on January 19, 2011.
I started slowly with a post every so often, and usually discussed just 1 toy. At the time, I used my own toys and photos, and then sold the toys on ebay. I don' know what will happen in the future, but I've fun writing. As well, I occasionally get compliments for the blog.

So thank  you  everyone, and keep on reading.
And I'm always open to suggestions and people who would want to share their stories and toys on this blog.

Thanks for visiting,

and have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com