Not just a one horse race

4th October 2025

Our Toy & Collectors Auction steamed into view on October 4^th with a wonderfully large offering of 911 lots. The sale included the usual classics, such as dolls, teddies and rocking horses, but was also heavily bolstered by an extensive single owner collection of 00-gauge trains.

The sale started as ever with the doll and teddy section, the dolls sold as expected with the best prices coming from some of our more antiquarian items on offer, such as a very interesting German doll’s room setting from the 1920s that made £200 and a Victorian peg doll that made £220. But as ever there was always going to be a small surprise within the more “modern” lots, with a collection of well-loved Sindy dolls and clothing making £160.

Next, we entered the stables, with a nice collection of rocking horses, which all sold but one. The best of them came first with a very quirky little horse, thought to possibly be for a doll rather than a child, which out did our estimate to trot in at £320, next a horse thought to be by Ayres made a well deserved £900, but the best price was a wonderfully patinated Victorian horse that (even with some worm) made the top estimate at £2,000.

The miscellaneous lots came next including a good section of advertising lots that roared away beyond expectation!  Two lots of four cardboard signs advertising everything from “Mrs Winslow’s Soothing Syrup” to “Yorkshire Relish” made £800 and £1,250 respectively.  Then some stylish petroleum globes sold very well, with best of the standard sized models making £750 for a Regent TT globe.  But the biggest shock of the day came with four very small petrol globes that proved a really rare gem that attained an unbelievable £6,200.  Another lot that tipped the balance whilst coming under the sale headline of “collectors” came within a small but interesting collection of J. R. R. Tolkien related items, with the best of which being a limited edition book The Silmarillion, signed by the author’s son Christopher Tolkien, that made an exceptional £5,000.

Back on track with the more typical toys a great little collection of Sutcliffe model boats sold well, with the best price landing at £250 for a clockwork battleship; great to see as originally these models were made just down the road from our premises! Again, showing the power in modern plastics, Lego sold well with the best price being £240 for a Lego 8421 Mobile Crane.  However the best of this section was seen with an interesting little Chinese tinplate monkey, mechanised to climb a string, that made £400.

The engineering lots always sell well, with a great overlap between hardened toy collectors and garden shed steam engineering enthusiasts.  A tidy little Max Hemmens dribbler made a healthy £110, and a collection of well-played with Mamod sold better than expected with the best making £190, for a lot that two years ago might have only made £50 - perhaps the reaction to the fact that the company Mamod closed around a year ago. The best of the collection came with few surprises, when a very large and smartly produced 2 1/2" gauge Atlantic 4-4-2 live steam locomotive hit its mid estimate at £400.

Next came a huge offering of 00-gauge trains, with over 420 lots on offer and a collective section total of close to £40,000. The best of the singular trains unusually came within the American models with a Broadway Limited HO scale DCC sound fitted Union Pacific Challenger 382 locomotive making £260 and an MTH M4 Yellowstone Duluth Missabe Iron Range 228 locomotive making £360.  British brands such as Hornby still did us proud with £130 for a vintage girder bridge and £140 for a Caledonian Set with Duchess locomotive.

Rolling into the station after the 00-gauge, was the 0 gauge.  A more classical section which in recent years has not been as buoyant as historically, so I was very happy with our results with quality really shining through and bucking the trend.  The best of the bunch was seen with an MTH 0-gauge Duchess of Abercorn locomotive that made £350, a very smart Ace train 0-gauge BR Britannia Class locomotive William Shakespeare that made £460 and a very well-made Steam Age London live LMS Compound locomotive that fetched £1,250.

Last we had the diecast vehicles, starting with the miscellaneous makers and working through the Matchbox, to the Corgi and last the Dinky.  Although some singular cars did sell well, such as a Corgi Batmobile that made £120, some of the best prices were seen within the group and playworn lots, such as a box of well-loved Dinky cars that made £250 and ten Landsdowne models that made £320. My favourite lots of the section were two large scale model tanks by Valor, items never made for kids, but adult military enthusiasts and one even being stored in a huge faux ammunition crate, the first sold for £320 and the second for £340.

All in all, it was a greatly successful sale, with something for everyone and brilliant 93% sold rate. We already have our sale dates for next year and will be avidly collection between now and the start of 2026 for our next Toy Sale.