In August 2018, I received a message from Mr Adrian Mattes, the great-grandson of Georg Levy, founder of the Gely company, who was looking for [+]
Mes Avions-jouets
The 'My Toy Airplanes' collection dates back to the last century
In 2012, I published a book about part of that collection.
Our knowledge of 20th century vintage toys is very patchy: most of the manufacturers’ archives have disappeared, few of their catalogues have survived, and distributors’ and retailers’ catalogues are silent about the brands but indicate the date of sale.
A year after its publication, I realised that my book was riddled with attribution and dating errors, so I decided to set up a website to allow ongoing corrections.
Eleven years later, the site has been rebuilt to allow visitors to search for information as they see fit.
As I got older, I began to worry about what would one day happen to these toys. The Swiss Transport Museum in Lucerne agreed to take them on, and I have already entrusted them with the collections of toy cars from the inter-war period and space toys.
Patrick Despature
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In the 1960s, Japanese manufacturers developed fairly simple toy aeroplanes: the child would wind a crank that set a flywheel in motion, and the toy [+]
In the 1930s, just as in Great Britain and the United States, cookie and candy manufacturers in Central Europe presented their treats in toy boxes [+]
