Collecting - and Collecting Information Part 30

Starting from nothing

There is very little source material about the Japanese toy manufacturers of the early postwar period. Most of it centers around the currently popular areas of collecting: space and robot toys, and large metal car models. Well-researched reference works can help you date a particular piece, and identify its Japanese manufacturer and its American importer.

No such luck for these companies' entry-level toys. There are no reference books -- just information printed on the boxes.

Nomura, the original

Most of the larger companies, such as Nomura, Alps, and Yonezawa, supplied toys to several U.S. importers. And sometimes interchangeably. These cross-currents complicate the picture -- like the examples below, made by Nomura.

The original - made by Nomura (TN), branded by Nomura.

The first example is the original box art for this Santa Fe H0 set. The Nomura logo ("TN" in a diamond) is right there on the box. The set is exactly as pictured. And note how artfully it's pictured. The last part of the second boxcar is hidden behind some trees, implying more freight cars and a long train.

Not so. One locomotive, two boxcars, that's it.

Rosko, the importer (of Nomura)

The second set is branded Rosko Tested. Rosko was a US importer of battery-operated tin toys in the late 1950s and early 1960s. As you can see, Nomura didn't go out of their way to change the cover art for Rosko. The maintenance instructions have been resized and moved over to make room for the Rosko logo. And, for some reason, a red film was laid over the front of the loco.

I don't think the color change on this box art is fooling anyone.

At this time, four-color printing involved using different plates of film - one for each for cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. If you wanted to alter the image, you had to change each color plate the change affected. The black plate had to be changed, of course. And the only other color in the Rosko logo is red (which would change the magenta plate).

So why overlay the loco with extra magenta?

No idea. The set inside is still the same, with bold red, yellow, and black Santa Fe markings. Did they want the box to look different in case the two brands showed up side by side in a dime store? Perhaps, but I doubt the average customer would notice.

Whether branded Nomura or Rosko, the contents are the same.

No, this one's a mystery.

Straco and the Mystery Train 2

This is a followup post to my 9/6/16 post, Straco and the Mystery Train. Some odds and ends had come up for auction on eBay, and just by comparing the photos, I guessed that they were made by the same Japanese toy company that made the Straco Express. Those particular items were priced too high for me to bid on -- but then another example became available that was within my price range (about $8.99). 

So I can at least make physical comparisons between the box cars. I think the evidence is clear: these box cars were made by the same company. 

The Straco Express box car (top) and the mystery set
box car (bottom). Identical construction and chassis lithography.

Straco Express (left), mystery train (right).
The ends were something of a surprise. There's no real reason
for a graphic redesign. All that was necessary was to change
 the red color plate to blue. Note that the couplers
are also identical. 

And here they are together. A colorful (and patriotic) pair of boxcars!

Some questions remain, of course. Who made these sets? What pieces were in the State of Maine boxcar set? Who was this mystery set made for -- was it also Fred Strauss and Co.? 

Based on this, though, I'm confident the caboose I saw in that auction is also a companion piece to the Straco Express caboose. That locomotive, though...

What's missing from this set?

A Clockwork Coupe from Japan

I recently won an auction for the tinplate toy you see below. It's made in Japan (as marked), and initially I purchased it for the Straco Display Layout. But now I'm not so sure.

The size of the piece is pretty close ("scale" is a squishy concept with these inexpensive Japanese toys). While most of the vehicles on the display layout are friction-powered, this coupe is clockwork. That's not really a problem. Some of the display cars have no power at all, just free-spinning wheels.

No, the issue is that this is definitely a pre-war toy -- and the focus of the display layout is early post-war Japanese tin toys. The design of this toy mimics automobiles of the of the late 1930s, and the type of lithography and the colors used are also more pre- than post-war. And it's ingeniously constructed..

This coupe seems to fit right into the Straco display.

The sides are indented to give room for the stem. This keeps the stem from sticking too far out the side of the vehicle. There are two tabs, one under each bumper. The front tab is the catch, which lets you wind the spring, then release it for motion. The back tab controls the rear wheels, which can be turned at a slight angle to the left or right. So you can steer this coupe (sort of).

Front tab is spring catch, the back turns the rear wheels.

It's a great piece, and remarkably, after eighty years, it still runs. No one's over-tightened the spring, or bent the axles, or broken off the stem. And that allowed me to make the video below. Well worth the $9.80 this cost me!

 

And it does look good on the layout....