T is for Tin-plate and Tractors!

You may well have realised I have a side-thing for tractors, and while I tend to call such things 'side collections', the horrible truth is I have so many side-collections they are really all part of 'The Collection'!

I took these a while ago at Sandown Park as I though they'd make for a slightly different post. There is something joyous in old tin-plate toys and food or cigarette tins, I suspect it's the brightness of the litho-printed colours even on rusty examples.

This tractor - made in Germany or; as it states quite categorically - 'Bavaria'! - differs only slightly from the one below, as the other one has all the company marks and dates of an original it must be assumed this is a newer, post-war copy.


Patented in 1916 by Animate Toys of the USA, this 'Baby Tractor' has the recognisable layout of an European tractor with far-set wheels, unlike the row-crop layout I hate! The lines printed on the rear wheels probably represent steel treads on a steel or iron wheel, much-like the contemporary traction-engines. My father tells of metal spade-lug wheels still being used on the family farm in WWII.

This is a bit of a mystery...the box (in its entirety - not just the label) appears to be a photo-realistic/printed 'repro' but still has some age of it's own, the car was not known to be a Schuco design originally, it's of Schuco quality and seems to be pretending to be Schuco and any help given would be greatly appreciated. I suspect a 1970's line of new 'Retro' models, from a Japanese tin-plate specialist? Anyway it's a concept design or 'Space Car' and help with identifying it would be as gratefully received as help with its history or origins.


Unknown British tin-plate searchlight, marked MADE IN ENGLAND, it will date from between the wars where its primary goal was to compete with the imports from Germany by Hausser and Lineol!

A pom-pom type AA gun from the same source, all sort of working features allow fro the projecting of match-sticks over some distance, no wonder all those hollow-cast guardsmen at car boots are always missing their heads and old composition are full of cracks!

"There'll be lots of 'Archie' over the living-room sector Biggles!