This updated second edition now includes over 575 brands, as opposed to the only 170 brands presented in the first book. Once again this full-color guide will include popular contemporary brands such as Majorette, Tomica, Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Siku, Maisto, Bburago, Johnny Lightnings, and many others featured together in detail, showing the different models and thousands of variations. This extraordinary book is arranged alphabetically by brand name with hundreds of color photographs, manufacturers, model numbers, descriptions, scales, colors, distinguishing marks, and current market values. It provides a helpful bibliography and guide to resources for finding more diecast toys on the secondary market. 1998 values. 8.5 X 11.
In the 1960s, model kit building was a huge hobby. Kids built plastic kits of planes, tanks, race cars, space ships, creatures from scary movies, you name it. Before baseball card collecting, Pokémon, and video games, model kit building was one of the most popular hobby activities. Car and airplane kits were the most popular, and among the car kits, muscle cars, as we know them today, were one of the most popular categories. Many owners of real muscle cars today were not old enough to buy them when the cars were new, of course. Yet kids of the 1960s and 1970s worshiped these cars to an extent completely foreign to kids today. If you couldn’t afford or were too young to buy a muscle car back then, what could you do? For many, the next best thing was to buy, collect, and build muscle car kits from a variety of kit companies. Hundreds were made. Many of these kits have become collectible today, especially in original, unassembled form. Although people still build kits today, there is a broad market for collectors of nostalgic model kits. People love the kits for the great box art, to rekindle fond memories of building them 40 years ago, or even as a companion to the full-scale cars they own today. Here, world-leading authority Tim Boyd takes you through the entire era of muscle car kits, covering the options, collectability, variety availability, and value of these wonderful kits today. Boyd also takes you through the differences between the original kits, the older reproduction kits, and the new reproduction kits that many people find at swap meets today. If you are looking to build a collection of muscle car kits, interested in getting the kits of your favorite manufacturer or even just of the cars you have owned, this book will be a valuable resource in your model kit search.
"Over the past few years, paper toys have made a major comeback! Simple, original and charming, they are now hugely popular worldwide. Children and adults alike can have fun making these French paper models of elegant automobiles, funny animals, and colorful characters. Make collections of the finished models, decorate your office or bedroom with them, or give them to friends and colleagues as gifts"--Page 4 of cover.
A concise, comprehensive introduction to the topic of statistical physics of combinatorial optimization, bringing together theoretical concepts and algorithms from computer science with analytical methods from physics. The result bridges the gap between statistical physics and combinatorial optimization, investigating problems taken from theoretical computing, such as the vertex-cover problem, with the concepts and methods of theoretical physics. The authors cover rapid developments and analytical methods that are both extremely complex and spread by word-of-mouth, providing all the necessary basics in required detail. Throughout, the algorithms are shown with examples and calculations, while the proofs are given in a way suitable for graduate students, post-docs, and researchers. Ideal for newcomers to this young, multidisciplinary field.
Dana Johnson, author of Matchbox Toys, 1947 to 2003, Fourth Edition, The Other Matchbox Toys, and Diecast Toys & Scale Models, has produced a revised edition of his popular Toy Car Collector's Guide. Newly updated and expanded, this second edition provides an alphabetical listing by brand of nearly 1,000 brands of cast iron, tinplate, diecast, slush mold, plastic, white metal, and other toy cars from around the world and through automotive history. An estimated 50,000 models are represented, including brief company profiles of every brand. Over 1,300 color photographs serve to greatly enhance the exhaustive text of this all-inclusive book, undoubtedly the most comprehensive on the market.
In July 1939, the humble beginnings of what was originally Toys and Houseware, were based in a pair of below street-level lock-up garages one capable of garaging two single-decker buses side by side, beneath the forecourt of "The Bridge Garage" in Green Lanes, Palmers Green, north London. Within a year the original company, registered a change of name to Die Casting Machine Tools Ltd. The founder of what was often referred to as DCMT was Aubrey Robert "Bob" Mills who, with a partner, Sidney James "Sid" Ambridge designed, built and sold uncomplicated die-casting machines which used molten zinc alloy to produced castings from a die. The die comprised two mild-steel squared halves set up above a cast iron base at about waist level and was operated by the application of manual pressure. Two levers - one of which closed and opened the two halves of a die; one half being movable on stout rods and the other half securely fixed to the machine and the molten metal receptacle. A second lever was used to push down a supply of molten zinc-alloy (Mazak), through the feeder channel (or sprue) to completely fill the cavities of the casting within the two parts of the die, after which the first lever would be drawn back towards the die-caster thus opening the die and the casting would then be ejected into a bin. During WW2 DCMT produced castings for hand grenades and, its believed, aircraft components. The use of mazak for anything other than the War effort, was forbidden - so the manufacture of metal toys was a non-starter at that time but, nonetheless, some tentative experiments produced a few models in coloured plastic. In 1945, the ban on making metal toys was lifted and DCMT built dies to the order of "The Crescent Toy Co. Ltd.", a potential rival company, then, also in north London. Two different Car and two different Lorry moulds were somehow acquired, or built, by DCMT based upon "Tootsietoy" (U.S.A.) originals to quickly get some wheeled models out and on the shelves of toy/model stores in order to meet the demand for such objects that hadnt been obtainable for six years. In 1949, DCMT parted company with "Crescent Toy" and began to market toys and a range of tools under the uninspiring initials "D.C.M.T." and later "Slikka Toys" and "Slikka Tools". Regrettably, these brand-names didnt catch the public imagination, and so a more suitable name needed to be found. In 1949, they produced their first Western-type cowboy cap pistol called the "Lone Star" which bore "Slikka Toy" markings. The name "Lone Star" had a Western flavour about it with connotations of Texas. In 1951, the first written evidence of the use of the name "Lone Star" was discovered in a DCMT advert which offered a range of juvenile Western-style clothes, hat and accessories, i.e. Sheriff Badge, "Range Rider" Mk.1. cap-pistol (with dummy bullets) and holster set, a sheath knife, "Range Rider" Spurs and a Woggle for a Neckerchief.
"A nostalgic celebration of the most beloved toys of decades past - like Twister, LEGOs, My Little Ponies, Lite Brite, Viewmaster, Transformers ... and much more. Attractive, gifty, and fully illustrated with photos of vintage toy packaging, advertisements, and of course the toys themselves, Toy Time! is chock full of fun facts, trivia, and memories about the toys you cherished most"--
