My Vintage Tin Toys Collection

I used to play with tin toys from China when I was very young. Those toys are 'hand-me-down' toys as I can't recall my parents ever buying them for me. One distinct feature about tin toys is that it has some kind of smell..dunno how to describe it. In my effort to have a toy museum, I collected some tin toys, for nostalgic reasons and also for future generations to see how toys have evolved. These tin toys from China are usually from the 60s and 70s.


The first picture shows a tin truck with panda inside. The truck have friction sound when push, and the baby panda inside slides from side to side. I used to have one of these but can't remember if the animals inside was panda. The other car was a BMW sedan. Again it has friction sound when push or pull.

One of my favorite is the police car. When you push/pull it, it has sparkles that light up the siren thingy...and windows as well. The taxi is similar to the police car, minus the sparkles.


Next, I have the common wind-up jumping frog. Beware when buying, there are re-issues today, the difference is in the eye. The vintage have painted eyes whereas the new ones have 'pasted on' wiggly eyes. Then I have a mini wind up tank. My favorite of the lot is the tin easter egg. You push down the lever, the egg spins and you see a cute little chick inside. According to an antique dealer, this easter egg is from the 1960s. How to check? The 'made in China' sticker behind the toy uses a traditional Mandarin of China, whereas the 1970s version have a simplified Mandarin for the word 'China".

Collectible Value: These are quite rare in Ebay. Most of the vintage tin toys I found in EBay are from Japan. Saw some of these trading at USD24++