My Toy Airplanes: 1910-1960

In 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic, turning him and his plane--the Spirit of St. Louis--into instant international celebrities and launching the aviation industry. That same year the manufacturer J.M.L. produced a toy version of Lindbergh’s plane, and with it, the toy airplane industry also took off. Toy biplanes, propeller planes, hydroplanes, military planes and autogiros were produced by such early twentieth-century German toy manufacturers as Märklin, Tipp & Co., Distler, Günthermann, Rossignol, Joustra, INGAP, Paya and Rico. Made of tinplate or sheet-iron, and based on blurry black-and-white newspaper photographs, these multicolored toys took great artistic license and lacked technical accuracy. This catalogue presents these naive masterpieces alongside the actual aircraft they were intended to model, and tells a story of product design in which enthusiasm fruitfully soared beyond technology.