Models, Toys, Dolls & Games

The World Chess Championship currently taking place in Dubai began on November 26 in familiar style.

Top names in their different fields, ages and markets, Wurlitzer and Armand Marseilles were the star makers at Hartleys (17.5% buyer’s premium).

The auction at toy specialist C&T (22% buyer’s premium) in Kenardington, Kent, on November 3 included this very rare pair of doll’s shoes dated to c.1700.

The Milestone (20% buyer’s premium) auction held in Cleveland, Ohio, featured just over 700 lots of toys – the majority from one collection.

It’s toy time at Sandown Park on Saturday, November 13, where Barry Potter and family hold the largest of their regular vintage toy fairs with 500 tables staffed by more than 300 dealers.

A handful of collectors joined the competition when Mehlis (23% buyer’s premium) in Plauen offered a 19th century ivory and ebony chess set.

This 1950s battery-operated Mickey Mouse toy is part of a selection of Disney-related items in Potter & Potter’s Steiff, Toys and Pop Culture auction.

The studio potter John Maltby (1936-2020) created this chess set shown right for the Millennium celebrations at the New Ashgate Gallery in Farnham.

The American Flyer 'G Fox & Co' boxcar is one of the “most desired trains a collector can own” according to Philip Weiss from the eponymous auction house in Lynbrook, New York.

The late songwriter/record producer Aaron Schroeder (1926-2009) built an international music-publishing network with Abby, his wife and business partner of 49 years.

This Doll et Cie four-seater open touring car toy, c.1920s, is a live-steam model made in Germany.

Toys from the private collection of Sue Pearson, the UK’s leading dealer in antique and vintage teddy bears and soft toys, were offered in Newbury.

Demand for anything to do with Concorde is always high but a huge ‘museum quality’ model at Dominic Winter (20% buyer’s premium) had an extra touch.

One of the finest European railway toy collections built in the US generated a suitably enthusiastic response when it came to auction.

What was billed as ‘the finest Matchbox collection to be auctioned in recent years’ was offered at Vectis (20% buyer’s premium) in the spring.

Such is the recent appeal of dolls’ house accessories that you do not even need the ‘house’ to put them in, it seems.

A live-steam Gauge 2 Midland Railway locomotive and tender was the top lot of Tennants’ (20% buyer’s premium) Toys, Models, Collectables and Sporting Sale.

This rare French Emile Jumeau bisque-headed character doll from c.1892, with a distinctive light brown complexion, turned heads in a US saleroom.

By the 1980s toy action figures were shrinking in size from GI Joe and Action Man proportions to the likes of Action Force and Star Wars.