Generally speaking the category of Vintage and Antique Toys takes up in Victorian Era Europe, England and the United States and progresses forward to the 1950s. An emerging wealthy class supported an often elaborate toy industry but simple cast and handmade toys appeared in greater numbers in the late Victorian era, winning support from an increasingly stable employment regime generating some surplus money, some of which was spent on treats for youngsters.

Icon toys include cast lead soldiers, farm and circus animals, dolls with manufactured bisque heads or faces, sometimes bisque feet and lower legs, bodies often sewn up by hand in small factories. Cast metal horse and carts, and of course cast automobiles, as the car emerged in Edwardian times, and toy trains in both tinplate and cast metal genres are regularly seen today as reminders of a bygone era. Some collectors concentrate on the German tinplate era which produced beautiful carnival replica toys as well as steam engines, trains, boats and even airship models!

Beautiful dolls have always been around, but the development of plastics from the mid 30’s enabled this area of the trade to flourish. This rewarding area of collecting creates nostalgia for a by-gone era, often reviving memories of  childhood, and can be very affordable, particularly if small purchases of , say lead soldiers, are made individually, eventually building into a disciplined, valuable collection.