Models, Toys, Dolls & Games

London auctioneer overcomes power cut to complete sale including a mighty Fresnel lens

Specialist toy sales held in April on either side of the Atlantic have yielded some notable prices for items from two specific categories: toys relating to Popeye and a collection of toy boats.

When the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was liberated on April 15, 1945, a party of British Red Cross nurses and doctors stayed and tended those they could help back to health.

Power of the Force line was launched as the original Star Wars began to lose its shine but rarest figures still bring demand

To mark the new range of Star Wars toys that came with the release of Return of the Jedi in 1983, the Leicester firm Palitoy commissioned a series of hand-built and hand-painted store displays to send to some of its best retailers.

The Mickey and Minnie motorcycle made by Tippco, c.1932, is the most desirable of the German tinplate clockwork toys from this period.

The Five Centuries sale at Lyon & Turnbull (25% buyer’s premium) featured items from Borders property Kimmerghame, Duns, home of the Swinton family.

A feature of Milestone’s spring toy sale in Willoughby, Ohio, on April 9 will be a collection of over 60 Popeye-related toys.

A collection of toy boats will be part of the toy auctions to be held by the Ivoire group’s Chartres saleroom on April 23-24.

This rare bisque socket head doll was made by Kämmer and Reinhardt as part of its art character series, c.1910.

During the 19th century visitors seeking out idyllic lakeland views caused a mild tourist boom in the southwest corner of Ireland.

The latest Tinplate & Specialist Toy sale at Vectis (20.83% buyer’s premium inc VAT) in Stockton-on-Tees included this large-scale tinplate clockwork vintage car by the Gebruder Bing factory of Nuremberg.

With the advent of modern tournament chess in the Victorian era came the issue of game time.

Halls (23% buyer’s premium) offered the Enid and Bruce Moulder collection of toy teawares via a timed online auction that closed on November 23.

If you cannot decide on whether to collect dolls’ houses or toy vehicles, try this lot offered at Lawrences (25% buyer’s premium) of Crewkerne.

An English all-wooden doll originally presented by Queen Charlotte to her goddaughter sold for $200,000 (£148,000) at a US auction.

Described as being a little fragile but otherwise good, this Victorian transformation game was drawn on both sides of a single sheet of cut and folded paper.

Pedal cars are regular visitors to salerooms but rarer powered versions were also produced for children to use, partly for road safety training

A new American firm, LCG (Legacy Collectibles Group) Auctions, sold what it described as “the highest graded Cobra Commander GI Joe action figure in existence” in a timed sale last year.

Certain areas became hubs for the manufacture of toys, such as Nuremberg and Erzgebirge in Germany.