Collectors’ Corner

A large photograph near the front of Lemaco’s 2000–2001 catalogue shows a steam locomotive in bare brass. Against the black background, its separate pipes, valve gear and tiny fittings are particularly easy to follow. The accompanying specification for the 0 gauge models goes beyond surface detail. It lists equipped cabs and smokeboxes, opening doors, hatches and covers, sprung buffers and brake rigging on both locomotive and tender. The driving axles…

Tenshodo was an established Ginza business long before it sold its own model trains. Founded in Tokyo in 1879 as a seal shop, it added watches and jewellery in the 1880s and began importing Swiss and American watches in 1889. Its company chronology dates the start of sales of its own railway models to 1949. Model railways became another branch of a business already associated with precision objects. The work…

The first European Car of the Year was a Rover. In 1964, the Rover 2000 took the award ahead of the Mercedes-Benz 600 and Hillman Imp. Behind the restrained saloon body was an unusual chassis: independent front suspension and a De Dion rear axle. The four-cylinder 2000 came first; the better-known V8 version belonged to a later stage of the P6 story. Corgi chose the 2000 for model no. 252.…

You may recognise these little Peugeot 201 vans without knowing their maker. They were produced by Giacomo de Andreis in Marseille, France, with colourful lithographed tinplate bodies. The real Peugeot 201 appeared in 1929. These toy versions are thought to date from somewhat later. Their roofs open, and the bodies appear to have doubled as biscuit boxes: a practical container that became a toy once the biscuits were gone. The…

This could be the perfect title for this little tinplate telephone booth, although the toy itself was manufactured long before the 1981 film. Its exact age remains a mystery. It could date from the 1920s or perhaps even earlier. There are no markings, logos or manufacturer's names to help identify it. Could it have been made by Ernst Plank? Possibly, but we have yet to find a catalogue reference confirming…

Carrera Universal arrived in 1963 with cars at 1:32 scale. Four years later, Carrera added the larger 124 system, with cars at 1:24. Those numbers describe quite a noticeable change in size. For the same full-size subject, a 1:24 model is one-third longer than its 1:32 counterpart. A car measuring 4.8 metres in real life would be 15 centimetres long at 1:32, or 20 centimetres at 1:24. The slot-racing business…

Why does a small gear make a large one turn more slowly? This Dutch Meccano manual sets out the answer with actual parts a child could bolt together. The opening spread of “Drijfwerk-Uitrusting A” explains gears, pinions and worm drives. One example pairs a 19-tooth pinion with a 57-tooth wheel: three turns of the small gear produce one turn of the large one. The text then reverses the arrangement to…

A collision was not always a failed lap. In Carrera’s 1998/99 catalogue, the Crash Derby set deliberately sends two little cars towards a narrow section of track where they can collide. The accompanying illustration shows a red car and a green one meeting nose-to-nose. The caption explains that their bonnets and body panels come away in a crash. Those loose pieces were part of the game. Crash Derby sits in…

A single horse at full gallop: this delicate clockwork carriage was made by Greppert & Kelch in Brandenburg, Germany. The firm began making toys in 1919, when horse-drawn carriages were still a familiar sight. In German, a carriage drawn by one horse is called an Einspänner. The same name is used for a Viennese coffee topped with whipped cream. The drink is traditionally associated with coachmen waiting beside their carriages:…

Before wiring an entire layout, Busch offered a way to try the circuits on a board. Its 1986/87 catalogue presents the Modellbahn-Technik 2080 experiment set, with around 150 experiments and circuits for railway electronics. The photograph shows separate plug-in modules joined by coloured wires. Circuit symbols and component names are printed on the modules, so the diagram and the physical parts can be followed together. Busch says the components can…