The Little World

Some scale model builders look askance at people who deal with toys – whether these are wooden horses or cast-metal cars or life-like figurines.

There is more than a hint of condescension when they are compared to the latest Tamigawafix 1:200 kit of the Prince Of Huddersfield. The one with the 1200 separate parts and a PE fret the size of a tea table.

I say pooh. The toy makers and toy collectors are just as much on map of the Little World as the most finicky scratch builder. Indeed, for many of the toys there has never been and will never be a kit, plan, or any sort of assistance. The maker has managed to capture they thing on their own. If it is a little less detailed than the POH, it is a far greater achievement.

Not, mind you, in the eyes of Tamigawafix. They are a business that needs to make a solid profit from hollow moulds. Anyone ignoring them at the Nürnberg Toy Fair does so at the risk of a salvo from the POH landing around them. They consider themselves the arbiters of what will be needed, and certainly of what will be moulded and solded.

I saw the same attitude once in meetings of a die-cast collector’s club. While everyone was showing their latest purchase from the shops, one old fellow made a display of wooden toys he had constructed in his own workshop. Cars, trucks, fire engines, etc. Even construction vehicles. They were simplified but delightful, and any child lucky enough to be let loose in a sandpit with them would have had the time of their life.

There needs to be more of this.