Author picture

Works by Gordon Gardiner

Tagged

Common Knowledge

There is no Common Knowledge data for this author yet. You can help.

Members

Reviews

Gordon Gardiner and Alistair Morris, the authors of THE ILLUSTRATED ENCYCLOPEDIA OF METAL TOYS: An All-Color Guide to the Art of Collecting International Playthings [Salamander Books, 1984, OOP], put together a nice oversize glossy beginner’s guide to collecting metal toys. It covers metal toys that were made mostly from 1850 through 1970, when plastics were pretty much taking over the toy markets. Current collectors will appreciate the photos of hundreds of toys, which take up two-thirds of most of the 208 pages.

In the Introduction there are useful tips about finding a theme, auctions, values, preservation, condition, etc. Chapters include Mechanical Novelties, Railroad Toys, Automotive Toys, Ships and Boats, Airplanes, Soldiers and Military Toys, Farms and Animals.

Each item pictured has a description including maker, size, approximate years of production, and notes on details.

Although this book was first published in 1984, the information on the toys and collecting is not very dated. These are still the toys that are out there, they’re just getting rarer and rarer!

I found this book to be a good overall view of metal toys, but not without a couple of small weakness. The descriptions sometimes referred to details that were not visible to the naked eye in the photos. A close-up of those particular details would have been appreciated. Also, the content was heavy on British toys. Germany is well represented, as it should be, because they were really the premier producers of quality metal toys.

The chapter near the end of the book with photos of Manufacturer’s Trademarks is extremely helpful and should be studied by anyone endeavoring to begin a metal toy collection.

This volume is a good accompaniment to a collector’s library and fun for non-collectors to browse.
… (more)
 
Flagged
BooksOn23rd | 1 other review | Nov 25, 2015 |

You May Also Like

Associated Authors

Statistics

Works
13
Members
88
Popularity
#209,356
Rating
½ 4.4
Reviews
5
ISBNs
18

Charts & Graphs