Die Cast Toys

Die cast toys have been around since the early twentieth century. Dinky Toys and TootsieToys were some of the early lines. They get their name from the fact that the toys, mostly made of metal, are die cast and then additional parts of plastic may be added. The quality of die cast toys has been steadily improving over the years and they have become increasingly detailed.

Many of the die cast toys became a method of advertising
for companies.

Notice the attention to detail.

In the World's Largest Toy Museum we have hundreds, if not thousands of die cast toys. Most of them are in the museum of course, but we also have quite a selection in our gift shop.

There are trucks, cars, tractors, planes and boats. There are large ones, medium size ones and tiny ones. Some are merely replicas of a particular car or truck while others are used to advertise a particular company's business.

Is it a toy or is it a collectible  I've always felt like a toy should be played with but then some of the die cast toys get a little pricey and some children are harder on toys than others. Consequently I'll leave the decision up to you. It is fun, however, to have a replica, for instance, of your first car or the tractor you drove on the farm as you were growing up. 

Lockheed Constellation
Pan Am

When I was a little boy, my younger brother was in the Cincinnati Children's Hospital so my aunt and uncle took me off mom and dad's hands to give them a break. They took me to the Cincinnati airport and I saw the plane pictured at the left coming in for a landing. I was forever hooked on planes from that moment on. In fact mom always said I was just "plane" crazy. We have all kinds of die cast planes here from early to current, military to civilian, private to commercial. Needless to say, they are my favorite die cast toys.

Often a die cast toy will also serve as a bank like this 1925 Delivery Truck at the right. Sometimes the coin slot is obvious like this one and sometimes it will be hidden and you will have to remove a part of the toy to reveal its location like on some of our tugboat die cast banks.

You can read more about die cast toys on Wikipedia.

Go to our Facebook page World's Largest Toy Museum to see more pictures of just a few of the thousands of die cast toys that we have. Or, better yet, come see us at The World's Largest Toy Museum and see them first hand. There are hundreds in our gift shop that are available for purchase as well.