Tinplate sale flies

The Specialist and Tinplate Toy sale held at Vectis on the 15 May featured six private owner collections, including the second part of the The Hartley Clark Collection – a selection of boxed and unboxed cars, motorcycles, vans, trucks and other vehicles from Politoys, Dinky and Mercury. The Melida Collection had 26 lots of Dinky trade box sets and vehicles, and The White Metal Racing Car Collection featured 12 lots from TW Collection (Trevor Wright Models). The sale also included the fourth installment of the John Gurney collection, a large selection of Lansdowne and Brooklin models. A large section covering tinplate and plastic included German, French and UK novelty toys and automata, plus FROG aircraft, Tri-ang catalogues, Victory Industries plastic models and racing sets and a KT Toys Liliput Robot.

Lot 736 was a Crawford's Biscuits "Pride of London" tinplate airliner shaped biscuit tin. This was a scarce example in a metallic gold finish, with tin-printed detail and A-ONE registration number. The bi-plane wings were made to fold lengthways with a folding tail plane and rear wing section for storage. The model was marked on top with a "Royal by Appointment" crest, it lacked half of the front propeller but did include the wheeled undercarriage and rear jockey wheel. Even with some age related wear, overall it was a good example for display and realized an impressive £744.