Antique, Vintage and Collectible Toys

Toys are vehicles for the imagination, the physical objects children manipulate as their minds race with fantastic scenarios and secret adventures. Since ancient times, toys and games have been crafted to give children pleasure and prepare them for the adult world. One of the most enduring categories of vintage and antique toys encompasses toys that move. Pull toys, or wheeled toys powered by the user, have been popular since the time of the ancient Egyptians, whose tombs included miniature animals on wheels with mouths that opened and shut. The Egyptians also played with spinning tops, clay rattles, and balls made from clay, reeds, and leather. Evidence from around the same time in Europe suggests that children played with toy carts, balls and rackets, and even yo-yos. Archaeological discoveries from the ancient Roman Empire also include cloth and terracotta dolls, which remain one of the most widespread form of plaything, common to ancient societies in Asia, Africa, and North America. Roman children even played with toy soldiers, paving the way for more modern action figures, from G.I. Joes to “Star Wars” figures to Marx playsets. By the Medieval period, many common toy forms were well established, including balls, kites, pull-along animals, and hobby horses. Often these were carved from wood or bone, though the wealthiest families might have bronze, silver, or glass miniatures for their children to play with. During the 17th century, Germany grew into a major toy-making center, particularly the region around Nuremberg, famous for its carved wooden craftwork. German-made toys were eventually shipped across the world, finding homes in households from the United States to Russia. Toys from this period are highly collectible, including objects like rocking horses, dollhouses, card games, jigsaw puzzles, and paper dolls. In the 1740s, kids and adults alike went wild for “pantins” or jumping-jacks, flat figures made from cardboard or wood whose limbs moved when the toy was yanked up or down by its string. Throughout the Industrial Revolution, wooden toys were increasingly replaced with metal designs. Wind-up toys, sometimes called “clockwork toys” for their mechanical similarity to the movements in clocks, also appeared around this time. When cranked or wound with a special key, these playthings representing everything from circus animals to race-car drivers would walk, crawl, or roll along the floor or another flat surface. Although the German industry continued to lead, American manufacturing was growing ever larger, with major companies like Bliss (dollhouses), Schoenhut (pianos and dolls, and Hubley (cast-iron vehicles). Toward the end of the Victorian Era, toys had reached a true Golden Age. This was partially due to technological improvements, but also because of changing ideas about childhood: By the late 19th century, middle-class children were given more time to play rather than taking on adult responsibilities. Elaborate lithographed playsets from this period featured all kinds of miniature scenes, from the familiar domestic interiors of dollhouses to the luxurious opera houses mimicked by toy theaters. Detailed toy soldiers with exotic dioramas shared floorspace with steam-powered train sets and baby dolls with blinking eyes. On the more affordable end of the spectrum were penny toys, those colorfully painted tin vehicles, animals, and figures typically sold by street vendors for a penny each. Several 20th-century toy companies were founded by parents eager to create more interesting playthings for their own children. Mechanics Made Easy (later known as Meccano) was established in 1901 in Liverpool, England, by Frank Hornby, who had initially created an assembly toy for his sons to build. Around 1912 in Germany, Käthe Kruse began sculpting realistic dolls for her family using raw potatoes for their heads, eventually developing a type of moldable fabric to use for their highly realistic faces. In Denmark during the Great Depression, father Ole Kirk Kristiansen crafted wooden toys for his children, turning the project into the business that eventually became LEGO. A.C. Gilbert would eventually improve on Hornby’s Meccano sets by adding gears and motors to his Erector Sets, which debuted in the 1910s. Around the same time, John Lloyd Wright (son of architect Frank Lloyd Wright) developed his log-cabin building set, eventually naming them Lincoln Logs after the famous cabin where America’s former President Abraham Lincoln had grown up. The first Teddy Bear debuted in 1907, inspired by President Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt’s hunting trip from a few years before. Roosevelt had failed to capture any animals, so his friends had tied a bear cub to a tree for him to kill, and his refusal inspired a popular political cartoon. In response, store owners Morris and Rose Michtom made a stuffed bear doll, called "Teddy's Bear," and placed it in their front window along with the cartoon. Children loved it, and soon the Michtoms founded the Ideal Novelty and Toy Company. By the 1950s, space toys and miniature robots were the latest trend, capturing America’s obsession with futurism and technological superiority. Today, collectors especially love vintage robots like Lilliput, Atomic Robot Man, and others made in mid-20th-century Japan. Even as the American and Japanese industries expanded, Nuremberg, Germany, continued to foster successful toy companies, such as Playmobil (previously known as Geobra), which began focusing on miniature plastic figures in the mid-1970s. In more recent years, children have clamored for character toys from their favorite cartoon strips, television shows, and animated films, such as Peanuts or, later, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Other toys, like My Little Ponies—whose collectible first-generation was made between 1992 and 1995—have inspired their own cartoons after the fact.