Meccano Ltd and Dinky Toys made a grand entrance prior to the start of WWII. In these early days, they combined their diecast toys along with a few tinplate items, such as the RAC (Royal Automobile Club) Hut shown below. Another charming touch was the use of artistic scenes in the boxes of sets, which were set up for a nice, easy display. Here’s the Dinky 43 RAC Patrol Set that was produced between 1935 and 1941.
Unfortunately, neither the tinplate items nor the artistic scenes survived the war, although in the 1960’s, some scenes were again included. Pre-war Dinkys certainly are antiquated toys, crude by later standards, but have undeniable charm in their form and expression, of hand labor from long ago, when things were much less automated. As an example, notice the figures. All those tiny details — buttons on blouses, badges and facial expressions — were all hand painted by women wielding tiny paint brushes. That ended up being too time consuming and expensive, and became another casualty of the war.
The box containing the Dinky 43 RAC Hut gift set.
So turn the clock back to about 1937 for this little gem that has survived intact almost 90 years!
Another pre-war Dinky Toys set from long ago also used diecast manufacture, hand painted details, and a charming illustrated display box. This is the Dinky 42 Police Set with Police Hut, Motorcycle Patrol, and Policemen that was produced between 1936 and 1941. When WWII intervened in 1941, many early Dinky Toys sets were discontinued forever, but the Police Motorcycle Patrol and the Police Hut or Box survived to be reissued after the war. However, this early charmer is still a joy to view and offers insight into what toy making was all about so long ago.
The picture below is of both the pre-war Police Box on the left, and a post-war version on the right. Notice that both have the red painted light on top. The only real difference I can see is that the color of the box is quite a bit darker in the pre-war one, but that could be attributed to a different batch of paint. Also notice that the pre-war model seems to be a bit taller, but it’s the same die, and started out the same height. The pre-war model is suffering from a bit of metal fatigue or zinc pest, and has grown in size. This happens to many Dinkys from pre-war days, and some actually fall apart due to too much corrosion.
