image: tsrf.com
As many of you know, I have a pretty extensive collection of toy cars from all sorts of different makes, but one thing I don’t have is vintage Japanese tin toys from the “golden age,” between about 1950 and 1970. What once sold at Kresge’s, Grant’s or F.W. Woolworths for just a few bucks are now seriously valuable to Boomers who blew theirs up with M80s–or maybe who just had mothers that threw them out!
image: tsrf.com
In a couple of weeks, Bonhams is having an auction with tons of these cool vintage Mini CCs. The biggest headliner of all is one of these 1962 Imperial four-door hardtops by ATC, also known as Asahi, estimated to bring between $9,000 and $12,000. My “1/1-scale” Town Car cost less! While I would love one of these Imperials, that is some serious dough. The car in the auction is black, but this navy blue example looks so much nicer.
image: tsrf.com
There really is no denying the coolness of vintage toys like this Imperial. Hat tip to Kevin Martin, who forwarded me this link from the Autoweek Daily Drive. If you’ve got a hankering for more, do check out tsrfcars.com (where the pics of this blue Imperial came from) for more amazing tin toys, with everything from a Continental Mark II to a ’56 Ford to a Toyopet Crown to a Rambler Ambassador wagon! Definitely worth a visit, one page is exclusively dedicated to Cadillac toys, and another to Schuco toys from West Germany.
awesome model. Thanks for sharing. I have one of the Yat Ming ’61 Imperial convertibles. Beautifully detailed. I own a full-size ’63 Imperial convertible and have been looking for a model of it. Haven’t seen any as detailed as this. At 9-12K, I think i’ll keep my change toward a ’63 LeBaron.
Did you notice that that model seems to have 1961 styled hubcaps? ’62-63 are more similar. I wonder if they made a ’61 or other Imperial to match those hubcaps…
The Bug-Eyed Imperials have always been my favorite!
Tom, I’ve lusted after that Imperial since I bought this book many years ago.
I just received Kelley’s “Collecting The Tin Toy Car 1950-1970” from Amazon yesterday. It’s a nice reference guide but I wish it had more info on Schuco and Dux units. Surprisingly, the Bandai Fiat 600 that I have also was not included. A must have book nonetheless.
I have that book too, my dad got it for me when I was a teen.
Any Mk10/420G Jags in there?
+1
There two pages of Jags: 120, 140, 150, and E-Types, for a total of eight cars. Unfortunately all photos are black and white.
The detail on these toys was amazing, right down to emblems and trim. This 60+ year old example is from my childhood collection. It still looks decent despite lots of hard play time.
Wow. I have a ’60s Japanese tin Greyhound bus, complete with friction motor, but it’s only worth $20 or so.
According to Dale Kelley’s excellent book (available on Amazon), the Asahi Imperial “is very rare, only a few are known in collections around the world.” He also includes a picture of a red example that he characterizes as the only one “known in a collection”; at that time (1984) it was part of a collection in Switzerland.
Holy Ramblers, Batman! I have the Rambler wagon and trailer shown at the bottom of the page, here: http://www.tsrfcars.com/toys-japanese.htm
You must do a Mini CC on that Rambler wagon, it is so cool!
+1
That’s a sexy model for sure!
When I see these kinds of articles, I get queasy thinking about the “junk” I blew up, sledgehammered, torched, or just tossed over the years. I had a metal ’66 Toranado that I bet is worth a ton now. A very nice model that had silverish paint that got looking bad,so it got blown up with, yes, an M80. Shrapnel galore. I had a promo ’66 Toronado that matched the one we had and I think it’s still in a box in the basement. I need to go down there and see what I’ve got. I might be sitting on a small gold mine.
I’d better shut up, sit down in a corner quietly and start crying.
My brother and I had VW’ Beetles in Dutch Police livery, 2CV Citroëns where the canvas roof could open, FIAT 600, “Americans”, DS’ses and too many Japanese tincars to remember.
American Ambulances were cool we thought as kids.
Thing was, they were so good to make them realistic crash victims in our opinion, so no survivors here.
The only one I bought years later was a French made Peugeot 404 by Joustra, a French manufacturer who turned to plastic made cars, the 404 is metal.
And I bought a flieoguided Citroen DS once, electric driven on batteries with wire remote control.
My brother still has a -then rarity- radio controlled Schuco 450SLC in ‘da box.
That thing must be worth a fortune !
Here a picture of a mint Joustra Peugeot 404 , m not mine I’m afraid…..
It’s amazing that a .22 slug is about the right scale to simulate an RPG. Tin toys don’t stand a chance!