My Tin Toys

Good thing I have the box for this toy. Without the box I wouldn’t be able to tell you who made it.

This is a Tiny Giant Antique Bus by SSS International of Japan. It’s a friction powered bus. That means you rev it up by rolling on the floor or table and then letting go once the wheels are spinning.

Dayton made some really cool friction toys in the period 1895-1920, but all the ones I’ve had so far were beat up too badly to keep. Fortunately, these Japanese friction toys are much more common and easy to find in great shape.

When I buy these toys, I always make sure all the hubcaps are there. For some reason most of the toys end up loosing hubcaps.

Anyway, back to this little toy bus. Not really much to say about it. It’s marked “Made in Japan” on the dashboard.

Here’s another picture:

SSS made a whole series of these Tiny Giant friction automobiles. If there are currently any on eBay, links will be below this line.

SSS Tin Plate Litho Rolls Royce friction (CarMOB1)

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This is a friction toy car. I think it’s a Rolls Royce. I’ve seen these cars in green with “Rolls Royce” and “LineMar Made In Japan” rubber stamped on the bottom.

This has a friction movement and is just under 7 inches long.

LineMar is Marx Lines Backwards. In the early 1950’s Louis Marx started making toys in Japan. The Japanese toys were marketed under the name LineMar.

I think Louis’s cousin or nephew ran the Japanese manufacturing, but was unable to find any histories online.

Anyway, this toy may date from after Marx quit making tin toys in Japan, or may be a toy made with the same dies, but not made for Marx. There is a smear of black paint on the bottom where the Linemar logo would have been. Looks like it was stampled with “Linemar” and “Made in Japan,” and then the Linemar logo was painted over.

Here’s a bottom view:

50s60s Japan Tin Friction Toy Cars Guide Bandai Linemar

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These little tin litho toy cable cars are common as dirt. I think they were sold in gift shops in San Francisco. They are about O scale size at 7.5 inches long and 3.5 inches tall.

They are letter for Bay and Taylor Streets on one side - note odd placement of “Sts.” before Taylor on roof signboard - and Powell and Mason streets on the other side.

Here’s another view showing the other side:

This is a good item to use as an introduction to how Toy production moved around the world.

There is no makers mark, but they are lettered made in Taiwan on one step. This is visible in the bottom photo. This dates them to the mid 1960s or later. If they were made earlier they would be have been made in Japan. If they were made after 1975 they would probably be made in Hong Kong. Cheap toy production moved around the world to the low cost countries.

This is a fairly easy and USUALLY reliable way to date cheap toys. As the cost of labor and the skills of the workforce increased in each country, production moved to other countries.

Production dates for Asian countries overlap a bit, but they are basically Japan 1946-1970, Taiwan 1965-1980, Hong Kong 1970-1985, Singapore 1980-1995, Macao 1985-today, Thailand 1990-today, China 1990-today.

The movement of production between Asian countries fascinates me. If you have any information about movements among different countries, please drop me a note from the contact page.

Now back to the cable car. This is not a trolley. A trolley runs off an electric motor that receives current from a pole on the roof. That’s where the name trolley comes from. It originally referred to the roof mounted pole. Later it became the name for any small rail vehicle with a pole or pantograph used within cities.

This is a cable car. It doesn’t have a motor in it. The motor is mounted in a building at one end of the line. The motor pulls a cable running just below the middle of the street. The car has a clamp the motorman closes around the cable. The car is basically dragged around on the cable.

Here’s a view showing both ends:

This is a friction toy. That means you spin the wheels by running it along the floor. Once the wheels are moving fast, you let go and it continues to move. The cable car also has a bell that rings when the car is in motion.

These two cars are the same, but the positioning of the passengers is different. I doubt the assemblers paid much attention when they attached the men.

Here’s a last picture showing the “Made in Taiwan” lettering on the step, and a passenger that looks like a cartoon bank robber:

There are similar cable car toys made in Japan. The Japanese cars are lettered a bit differently, and have stamped poles on the open end. The Taiwan cars have steel rods for the poles.

Old tin cable car San Francisco...Japanese, friction

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In 1935 Lionel introduced the Hiawatha Streamliner. The new 250E Hiawatha loco was the top of the line O gauge engine until the 700E Hudson was introduced in 1937.

The Hiawatha came in both passenger and freight sets, and was the first Lionel loco with a die cast shell. Prior locos had cast frames cabs with sheet metal boilers.

Streamliner toys were big sellers in the 1930s, and most toy manufacturers made toy streamliners. Lionel’s City Of Portland set introduced in 1934 was such a popular seller it helped Lionel emerge from bankruptcy. I am sure Lionel had big plans for the Hiawatha.

In order to build support for the new Hiawatha, Lionel gave away these cheap Japanese friction toys at the toy fair.

Every year in late January or early February the American toy manufacturers gathered together in New York for the annual toy fair. At the toy fair, companies would display their new lines, and take orders from jobbers and large department stores.

The toy fair allowed manufacturers like Lionel to judge demand for their products and allocate production lines. If a new toy wasn’t well received by retailers it might not be produced.

This 1935 Hiawatha friction toy might have been Lionel’s first specially produced giveaway. If Lionel did promo items before 1935, I’ve never seen or heard of one.

Made of lithographed tin with the Lionel name and the number 250 on the side, this cheap friction toy was made in Japan.

After I found the Lionel example shown above, I spent a year buying every similar toy on eBay. I assumed Lionel had custom ordered a cheap toy with special graphics, and was looking for the original version.

As you can see in the photo below, I found the original.

There is no maker’s mark on this cheap toy. It just says made in Japan on the cab. The original toy is blue and lettered for the New York Central. The New York Central was the largest railroad in the heavily populated northeastern corridor. It makes sense that a manufacturer of toys would use a railroad name commonly seen in it’s biggest market.

Here’s another view showing the other sides:

I have no idea who made these toys. I know they are from the mid 1930s based on the introduction of Lionel’s Hiawatha.

I’ll take a picture of the Lionel Hiawatha and add it to this page so you can compare the tin toy with it’s full scale brother.

Here’s a link to see Lionel Hiawatha locomotives on eBay

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This is the car I wanted when I was building custom Volkswagens, but I never found one for sale. Volkswagen didn’t export the Notchback to north America so the real cars are much rarer than the toys.

This is a mid 1960s friction toy. It doesn’t say Bandai or have the “Sign Of Quality” logo on the bottom so it might have been made by another Japanese toy company. The bottom just says “Volkswagen 1500.”

The construction is similar, but just a little cruder than my Bandai Volkswagens. The front window on my beetles fits much better.

Whoever made this it is a neat little car, and a good reminder of my teenage Volkwagen driving years. The car is about seven inches long.

Find out what these cars are selling for on eBay

BANDAI VOLKSWAGEN 1500 - TIN - FRICTION

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