did everyone have a wind-up tin toy?

i had a wind-up tin ice cream cart before i was three, in the 80s. i still miss it.

i only half remember it: a little man in a red hat, pushing an ice cream cart, red and white and yellow. you wound him up and he pushed the cart along the floor. i remember every toy i had back then, even the ones i can only half see.

later it went to my younger cousin. a lot of my toys did. once i'd grown out of them, my dad gave them to my cousins, and in their hands most of them lasted a few days.

lately i've been looking at a lot of tin toys, and every one of them gives me the same feeling. familiar, for no reason i can name. it isn't my cart. it's a frog, or a robot, or a ferris wheel. it still feels like i've had it before.

so either i'm sentimental, or everybody had one.

short answer: a lot of people did. in shanghai, a workshop was already turning tin scraps and old biscuit tins into toys by 1910, and in 1965 alone the city's toy makers put 335 new kinds of toy into production. many of them carried a factory code instead of a brand. that's why so many people remember one and can't say where it came from. the longer answer is below, after a short survey.

a short survey

answer in your head, or in the comments. nobody's counting.

1. did you have a wind-up toy made of tin — not plastic?
☐ yes
☐ no
☐ it was plastic and i'm still a little upset about it

2. what was it?
☐ a frog that jumped
☐ a chick pecking at the floor
☐ a car that drove straight off the table
☐ a robot
☐ a man pushing an ice cream cart
☐ something nobody else seems to remember

3. who wound it?
☐ me
☐ an adult, because i wasn't allowed
☐ whoever got to it first

4. did you ever wind it too far, or the wrong way?
☐ yes
☐ yes, and that's how it stopped working

5. where is it now?
☐ i still have it
☐ at my parents' place, probably
☐ gone, and i know exactly when
☐ gone, no idea where

6. if you saw the same one today, would you buy it?
☐ yes
☐ i'd pick it up, wind it once, and then decide

why so many people would tick "yes"

because tin toys were made for a very long time, in very large numbers.

in shanghai, where china's modern toy industry started, a workshop in 1910 was already making cheap metal toys out of tin scraps and old biscuit tins. in the 1920s the kangyuan can factory made its first wind-up toy: a chick pecking at rice. in 1965 alone, shanghai's toy makers put 335 new kinds of toy into production (rmzxw, 2015).

a lot of those toys never had a brand on them. one collector writes that china's tin toy factories had numbers instead of names, and that the toys are known by codes like mf, me and ms rather than by who made them (carnewschina). which may be why nobody can tell you where their frog came from. it just showed up.

then plastic and plush came along. they were cheaper and easier to make, and tin toys mostly disappeared from the shelves (rmzxw, same article).

how does a wind-up toy work, and how do you not break one?

the key winds a spring. the spring unwinds and turns a set of gears, and the gears move whatever's attached: legs, wheels, a ferris wheel. no batteries. when the spring runs out, it stops.

overwinding is also how most of them died. question four, again. the tin ferris wheel i just put on the shelf comes with the warning the old ones should have had:

• the first time, one to three turns is plenty.
• when the key starts to feel heavy, stop.
• never turn the key backwards.

is a tin toy a good gift?

for the right person, yes. the person who answered "gone, and i know exactly when" to question five.

it needs no batteries, no app and no charger. it doesn't do anything useful, so it isn't competing with anything they already own. and when they wind it the first time, there's a decent chance you'll hear about the one they had. that's most of the present.

two things to know first. the wire and the tin edges are thin, so it's a shelf piece for grown-ups, not a kids' toy. and it's put together by hand from printed tin, so a small scuff or a bit of chipped paint on an edge comes with it. if they need it flawless, pick something else.

more coming

the ferris wheel is the first tin toy on the shelf. it winds up, turns slowly and plays the blue danube. more tin is coming over the next few weeks. they'll live on the shelf.

mine was an ice cream cart. it went to my cousin. what was yours? tell me in the comments.

go play.