POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Dinky toy 'Cierva Autogiro' aircraft

Object No. 2008/158/1-13

This is a Dinky Cierva Autogiro toy aircraft. The full-size Autogiro was designed by Don Juan de la Cierva and achieved limited success as a sporting aircraft. The toy is from a small collection of 16 pre-Second World War Dinky vehicles which illustrate design and production at a time when Dinky Toys were the market leaders in die-cast toy vehicles. The toys were made in Liverpool, England, by Meccano Ltd between 1934 and 1940 and collected and owned by Richard Wyatt as a boy in Tasmania before and during the Second World War. In 1933, Frank Hornby, the inventor of Meccano and manufacturer of Hornby trains, introduced toy cars to go with his 0-gauge toy railways. The first set of cars, the 22 series, appeared in 1933 under the name 'Modelled Miniatures' but from 1934 they were called Dinky Toys. In the same year a large range of vehicles, aeroplanes and ships were manufactured and by Christmas 1934 there were over 100 items. As with all Hornby toy production, the toy vehicles were linked to an ingenious marketing campaign and 'collecting Meccano Dinky Toys' was advertised in the 'Meccano Magazine' as the new hobby for children. By 1938 there were over 300 toys in the range. Children both in Britain and her Empire embraced the new realistic toys which depicted the variety of vehicles seen on British roads, on the sea and in the air. They were relatively inexpensive to buy so could be collected by children. Meccano Ltd exported to all of Britain's former colonies, including Australia, aided by Commonwealth trade agreements. In the space of only five years these toy vehicles, which began as mere accessories for railway layouts, became collectable in their own right. Many Dinky Toys were destroyed or discarded during the Second World War, in part due to the British Government encouraging children to recycle their metal toys for the war effort, to produce aircraft and tanks. As these toys were owned by an Australian child, they escaped this fate. Although in 2008 they appear naive in construction, and finished in bright and unrealistic colours, Dinky Toys heralded the later post-war explosion of die-cast Matchbox, Corgi and later Hot Wheels toy vehicles. These 16 Dinky vehicles and accessories are part of a small collection of toys used by members of the Wyatt family in Hobart, Tasmania and Roseville, NSW from 1935 until 1965. They are significant in that they have remained in the one family and have been extremely well looked after. Cooke, David, 'Dinky Toys', Shire Publications Ltd, Princes Risborough, Buckinghamshire, England, 1999. Opie, James (ed) 'The Collector's Guide to 20th-Century Toys', Bracken Books, London, 1995. Margaret Simpson Curator, Science & Industry March 2008