Models, Toys, Dolls & Games

Pete Waterman, Neil Young, Roger Daltrey and Peter Snow all do it. Frank Sinatra and Peter Sellers did it. Rod Stewart apparently hires extra hotel rooms on tour to indulge in it. ‘It’ being the innocent and highly popular pastime of model railways.

Star Wars, Action Man and plastic soldiers are just three of the toy collectable fields growing in demand as buyers get all nostalgic about their childhoods. Another biggie in this market is Lego.

It might not be a Bag for Life but this plastic bag has set a collector back £240.

East Bristol Auctions is holding a Lego sale next month. With more than 300 lots, the firm claims the auction will be the world’s first dedicated Lego toy sale.

With summer holidays upon us and no Antiques Trade Gazette being published this week, we take our regular look here at some of the highest selling items and top selling lots on thesaleroom.com

Who you gonna call? If you have ectoplasm seeping through the floorboards then ‘Ghostbusters’ is the obvious answer, shouted loudly.

A new record for a Star Wars production figure was established at Vectis' latest sale when a French issue of Boba Fett, the memorable bit-part character in ‘The Empire Strikes Back’, sold for £21,000.

The Rocket Firing Boba Fett has assumed legendary status among Star Wars collectors. Modelled in grey-blue plastic in advance of mass production by the Kenner factory in Ohio, it would forever remain a prototype figure.

Dinky toys, antique dolls and a life-sized Dalek will be among the lots offered in Mitchells’ first ever ‘Vintage & Antique Toys’ auction at their Cockermouth saleroom later this month.

A medieval chess piece produced one of the most exciting moments in Sotheby’s Treasures auction in London.

A vast collection of nearly 3500 diecast models fetched £120,000 at west country auctioneers Piers Motley. The lifetime collection of John Kinchen had been “well known in the Dinky world for decades”.

Jo Wood, model, entrepreneur, dancer and ex-wife of Rolling Stone Ronnie Wood, has consigned a collection to auction which is a world away from rock and roll excesses.

An important collection of early chess pieces will be offered as part of Sotheby’s Islamic sale in London on April 20.

Bimbo The Giant Clown was the beaming white face of Pelham Puppets for decades.

A new fair at London’s Olympia venue aims to revitalise the market in antique dolls, teddy bears and toys by attracting a fresh generation of collectors.

For many of the 40- and 50-somethings who trawl the internet for Star Wars toys, the ‘holy grail’ object is the Palitoy Death Star play set.

Following the closure of Bonhams toy department, two senior specialists have signed up with an ambitious Kent auction house.

For a huge model of what was once the world’s largest ship, a whopping price is a suitable result at auction.

Nostalgia is an important part of toy collecting, one that encourages otherwise fiscally astute middle-aged men to part with large sums of money for unblemished versions of the toys they had – or wished they had – as children.

The toy ripped open from plastic and cardboard may bring joy to a child – but it is the simple packaging that makes the big money when that child becomes a collector with an eye on pounds, not play value.