Dinky Toys Aircraft: 1934-1979
by Geoffrey Randolph “GR” Webster, blurb.com, London, 2011, $95.95
Funny thing about history: Time can confer it on anything and everything. After Liverpool-based Dinky Toys began producing die-cast metal airplanes in 1934, children could hold little bits of aviation history in their hands. When Dinky Toys went out of business in 1979—after decades of different models, a French affiliate and several other firms in other countries using its molds to produce clones of varying quality—the toys themselves became history. Collecting them is now serious business.
With a list price equivalent to almost $1.25 for each of its 79 pages, Dinky Toys Aircraft 1934-1979 is serious business in itself. But it has been written and photographed by enthusiasts—“GR” Webster, with contributions by John Beugels and Sir George Cox, among others—and for enthusiasts, with an explanation behind each of the more than 500 color photographs that fill those pages.
For dedicated collectors, when and where a given airplane was made can be as important as the item itself, and Dinky Toys Aircraft—here in its second, somewhat expanded and enhanced edition—delivers the goods. Given a bit of time, Webster’s book is likely to become a Dinky Toys collector’s item in itself.
Originally published in the January 2012 issue of Aviation History. To subscribe, click here.
