battery-powered lights and without,
hence the “non-electric” designation here.
Here in New England, winter loosens its grip reluctantly, often over-staying its welcome deep into the month of April. So when I learned in February that my old friend and fellow collector of Tri-Ang Minics, Alan Lee, was putting his collection up for sale with Vectis Auctions in the UK, summertime adventures weren’t even on my radar screen yet. I was more interested in why Lee—as dedicated a collector of miniature cars as anyone I’ve known—was parting with the outstanding collection he’d put together over the course of the last few decades. So I called him. He told me, “It was mostly the family badgering me. We’ve got a big house here, and there’s a lot involved with the disposing of everything. Our kids aren’t interested [in old toys] and they wouldn’t know how to dispose of the collection, or what the value of any of it is. So, I took the bull by the horns and decided to dispose of it myself, while I still can.”
Lee actually had two collections of Minics over the years. He sold the first in 1988-1989 to individual collectors via advertisements in collectors’ magazines. “It was [New York collector] Gates Willard’s passing that started me on my second phase of collecting Minics. Gates had talked about it while he was still well … he said to me, ‘If anything ever happens to me, can you take my toys back to the U.K. for auction?’ We flew to New York when he was struggling with his health, and his family asked me to [arrange to] take his toy collection back to the UK to auction it.So that started me off again with Minics. I bought a few directly from his family and then bought more at the auctions.”
He told me that values for Minics, both those made pre-World War II and after the war, have taken a tumble in recent years. He said it’s been right across the board, not just Minics … Dinkys, Hornby trains, they’ve all gone the same way as collectors pass on or move on to other interests.
Mixed Emotions
It saddened me to think of Alan Lee parting with these British treasures. But the collector in me recognized an opportunity to add some rare and desirable pieces to my shelves, given the high level of quality and originality of the Lee collection. I managed to win a number of his pre- and post-war Minics in the March and April auctions that Vectis held, and he tells me there will be five auctions in total over the next few months. Check their site at www.vectis.co.uk for more information.
When I received and unpacked the Minics, the weather was starting to turn Spring-like. It suddenly dawned on me that about half of my new acquisitions were convertibles – which got me thinking about other toy convertibles and how they symbolize (like their full-size counterparts) ‘Summer Fun in the Sun.’ This Summer-focused issue of the Journal was coming up, and one thing led to another, and here we are.
Convertibles, of course, have been around since the dawn of the automobile, even if they weren’t known as such. Cars like the Benz Patent-Motorwagen didn’t “convert” from a closed to an open configuration, but they were open vehicles all the same, and at a time when 20 miles per hour felt like flying. Enclosed passenger compartments were gradually introduced, but the open style of motoring would prove to have enduring appeal.
Toy makers followed suit, with manufacturers like Tippco in Germany, Tootsietoy here in the U.S., and JEP and CR in France offering convertible toy autos as part of their product lines. When Lines Bros. introduced the Tri-Ang Minic line in 1935, they included convertibles because British children saw them driving on their roads, despite the infamous English weather. Even a second World War couldn’t stop production of convertibles entirely: technically, the Jeep—of which more than half a million were made by Willys and Ford—was a convertible, which was either good or bad depending on whether someone was shooting at you.
Regular Appearances
of the Saunders Sportster.
Toy convertibles have made their way onto my display shelves with some regularity over the last 30 or so years, in tinplate, die-cast metal, and plastic forms. One of my favorites is also one of my oldest: around 1948, Illinois-based manufacturer Saunders introduced the Nu-Style Sportster, a 10-inch plastic wind-up convertible that has some of the swoopiest lines I’ve ever seen. They made it in red, blue, and yellow (along with a red top-up “fire chief” version), and I think it’s a great example of late 1940s industrial design.
And then I found its doppelganger. At a toy show last fall, I spotted a yellow example of the Saunders, only it wasn’t a Saunders. It was far too light, due to its not having the usual wind-up motor, and it had solid plastic wheels rather than the standard rubber units on the Saunders. And it was right-hand drive, which led the dealer to say, “I think it’s a British version of the Saunders car.” I figured that was a good guess, but after closer inspection, I realized it has to be a Hong Kong knock-off, despite the lack of any identifying marks underneath. Starting in the late 1950s, Hong Kong toy makers often produced scaled-up versions of toy cars made by Dinky, Corgi, and the like, and some were absolute masterpieces in accuracy and quality. The right-hand drive steering on the yellow car would make sense, as Hong Kong was a British colony until 1997. It’s an incredibly close copy of the Saunders, and they look very sharp next to each other.
but look for one that’s not warped.
The Products Company of New Jersey made a simple, one-piece convertible that must have sold in the millions, because it turns up regularly at toy shows and online. It’s 6 inches in length and was made during the early to mid-1950s, in a variety of colors. A sedan version was also made, along with 9-inch-long versions of both that were dead ringers for the 6-inch versions. It’s a great-looking model of (most likely) a late 1940s Cadillac convertible, but Lapins often suffer from warping of the plastic, so you might have to hunt for a bit to find an intact example.
We’ve delved into the products of the legendary American toy maker Hubley in these pages before. The company did its part in the convertible category during the mid-1950s, producing a 6-inch MG, a 7-inch Jaguar XK120, a 9-inch Ford Thunderbird, a 9-inch MG, and a 13-inch Chevrolet Corvette, all in die-cast metal. Earlier, in the late 1940s, Hubley produced a wonderful 7-inch die-cast Buick that featured a top that could be rotated down into the rear body of the car, creating a convertible. The Jaguar is typical of Hubley’s offerings of the period as it captured the flowing lines of the XK120 quite well, despite the front grille being too upright. Interestingly, Hubley called these models either “Sport Car” or “Sports Car,” rather than the actual make of car on which each was based.
A Little Quirky
New York manufacturer Manoil also entered the convertible stakes, producing several in die-cast metal from the 1930s to the 1950s. Manoils always catch my eye as they tend to have a different look than most toy cars of the period. The 6-inch Cadillac and Buick shown here are good examples, both being a little too long and narrow with overly heavy windshields and steering wheels. But they have bags of 1950s charm, and I can easily see myself cruising down to the beach in one of these, surfboard balanced on the rear deck.
As long as we’re talking charm, we should consider the marvelous little plastic cars and trucks produced by Allied of New York and Cheerio of England in the 1950s. I don’t know for sure, but I’ve always thought the two companies shared or swapped tooling for their cars and trucks. The 3-inch cars and trucks (they also made larger toys) aren’t easy to find, suggesting that production was far less than that of Allied’s and Cheerio’s competitors. Like some other toy vehicles of the time, they’re simple one-piece bodies, but they’re neat and sharp, and they rock the charm thing big-time.
are now quite hard to find.
Another plastic player was Revell, maker of a gazillion plastic model kits. But in 1960-’61, the company made a rare foray into the HO-scale market by partnering with automaker Chrysler to produce a line based on Chrysler’s upcoming 1961 models. The resulting seven pre-built (as opposed to being in kit form) models boasted excellent detail and accuracy and included several Chrysler products that have rarely ever appeared in model form, such as the Dodge Polara and the Plymouth Valiant station wagon. Most collectors are unaware of the series as they rarely turn up for sale, due almost certainly to the fact that Revell offered the series only for the one season, after which the 1961 cars would have been yesterday’s news. The ’61 Chrysler convertible reminds me of the car driven by Milton Berle in the 1963 cinema classic, It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, even though Berle actually drove a 1962 Imperial convertible. Close enough, though, and if you haven’t seen the film, I recommend it without reserve.
Speaking of the Imperial convertible, Cragstan offered a beauty during the late 1960s as part of its Detroit Senior series, a line of 1:43 scale die-casts that also included a Plymouth Barracuda and a Buick Riviera. The models were made in Israel, of all places, by Israeli manufacturer Koor. They were also sold under the brand name Sabra in markets outside the U.S. The models featured suspension, and some also had opening doors or trunks, and they were very accurate models for the time, actually competing well with established names such as Corgi and Dinky.
What was I thinking?
Haji’s tinplate travel trailer set.
In 1:1 scale (actual cars), I won’t be doing any top-down motoring anytime soon due to my inability to turn my 2018 Mazda 6 into a ragtop. But I recently bought a bicycle, so maybe I’ll settle for the next-best thing and pedal down to that ice cream stand on Route 1 when the mood strikes me and see what’s doing with the gang.
Douglas R. Kelly is the editor of Marine Technologymagazine. His byline has appeared in Antiques Roadshow Insider; Back Issue; Die-cast Collector; RetroFan; and Buildings magazines.
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