Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
HUBLEY CAST IRON RACING CAR, 1930S. CAST IRON
Anyone who has visited our museum in the past twenty years knows we have an amazing collection of toys. We have been steadily working on enhancing our documentation of these flights of fancy and will be featuring some of them in upcoming social media posts. As a counter point to our very popular exploration of dolls, we will be highlighting some of the planes, trains and automobiles in our collection.
In the early 20th Century many toys in Canadian homes were either handmade or they came from outside the country and could be purchased at a local retailer or through a mail-order catalogue. There were not very many toy manufacturers in Canada at the outset of WWII. When the import of toys was banned early in the war, the industry opened to entrepreneurial Canadians who eagerly ventured into this new emerging marketplace. Many tried and many failed, creating some rather lack lustre interpretations of homemade wagons, trains etc. while attempting to sell to retailers at inflated prices. The Wartime prices and trade board eventually stepped in to regulate this industry.
From farmers in cabins deep in Quebec to beturbaned quick-fingered girls on the assembly lines of modern factories, Canadians have been turning out toys and more toys until our pre-war output has been tripled. Old firms have expanded and many a new one has sprung up.
— Linda Bruce Macleans magazine December 15, 1945
The toy industry exploded in Canada and across the world, as manufacturers sought new ways to use the surplus steel available after WWII. Many of the toy trucks, cars, planes Canadians played with over the past Century or so were either made from cast iron, pressed steel, lithographed tin or they were die-cast.
BUDDY L CHAIN DRIVE DUMP TRUCK, C.1920. PRESSED STEEL.
Pressed steel toys first entered the market around 1920, providing an alternative to the cast iron toys of the nineteenth century. Steel was more malleable, stronger than cast iron and less likely to rust or crack. The metal was easier to work with and the toys lasted quite a bit longer. Large sheets of thin steel were pressed into curved and angled forms using heavy die. Most early pressed steel toys were made from leftover automobile steel.
The first die cast toys entered the market in the late 1940s. Specific toy shapes are created by putting molten lead or zinc alloy into a mold. Plastic toys are manufactured in a similar manner. Almost anything can be produced by this method but the most common die cast toy models are usually cars, planes, military vehicles, construction equipment, and trains.
Coquitlam Heritage is very lucky to house a unique snapshot of toys Canadians might have played with over the years. Some are local, some were produced in other parts of the country, while a lot of the toys came from producers across the world, each with a unique story to share. Some of the brand names featured in our Planes, Trains and Automobiles series are Tonka, Lincoln Toys, Wyandotte, Marx Brothers, Tri-Ang, Marusan, Buddy L, and Turner.
MARUSAN JAPANESE TIN LITHOGRAPH WIND UP TOY C. 1950. TIN LITHOGRAPH TOY
If you want to learn more about the history of these companies, the toys they produced, and a bit about the cultural context they mirrored and transformed, check out our new video series Planes, Trains and Automobiles launching in Fall 2020.