Air Plane Photos 2013: Diecast Airplanes

Diecast Airplanes

Source(www.google.com.pk)

The term die-cast toy here refers to any toy or collectible model produced by using the die casting method. The toys are made of metal, with plastic, rubber, or glass details. Wholly plastic toys are made by a similar process of injection moulding, but the two are rarely confused. The metal used is either a lead alloy (in the first toys), or more commonly Zamak (or Mazak in the UK), an alloy of zinc with small quantities of aluminium and copper. Lead, as previously so widely used for cast metal toys, or iron are impurities that must be carefully avoided in this alloy, as they give rise to zinc pest. These alloys are also referred to casually as white metal or pot metal, although these terms are also confused with the lead toy alloys. The most common die-cast toys are scale models of automobiles, aircraft, construction equipment, and trains, although almost anything can be produced by this method.

Diecast (or die cast, or die-cast) toys were first produced early in the 20th century by manufacturers such as Meccano (Dinky Toys) in the United Kingdom and Dowst Brothers (TootsieToys) in the United States. The first models on the market were basic, consisting of a small car or van body with no interior. In the early days it was common for impurities in the alloy to result in zinc pest; the casting would distort or crack for no apparent reason. As a result, diecast toys made before World War II are difficult to find in good condition. The later high-purity Zamak alloy avoided this problem.

Lesney began making diecast toys in 1947. Their popular Matchbox 1-75 series was so named because there were always 75 different vehicles in the line, each packaged in a small box designed to look like those used for matches. These toys became so popular that "Matchbox" was widely used as a generic term for any diecast toy car, regardless of who the actual manufacturer was.

The popularity of diecast toys as collectibles developed in the 1950s, as their detail and quality increased. Consequently, more companies entered the field, including the Corgi brand, produced by Mettoy, which appeared in 1956 and pioneered the use of interiors in their models.

In 1968, Hot Wheels were introduced in the United States by Mattel, to address the complaint that they had no line of toys for boys to balance their line of Barbie dolls for girls. Because they looked fast and were fast (they were equipped with a low-friction wheel/axle assembly), Hot Wheels quickly gained an important niche in the diecast toy market, becoming one of the world's top sellers and challenging the Matchbox 1-75 series in popularity.

During the 1960s various companies began to use diecast vehicles as promotional items for advertising. The idea that children can play a large part in a family's decision as to what products to buy came into wide circulation. In addition, by the 1980s it was apparent that many diecast vehicles were being purchased by adults as collectibles, not as toys for children. Companies such as McDonald's, Sears Roebuck, Kodak, and Texaco commissioned toymakers to produce promotional models featuring their names and logos, or licensed their use. One early example was an American Airlines London bus produced by Matchbox, an idea some other airlines quickly copied.

Beginning in the mid '70s trucks and other commercial vehicles took a lion's share of the diecast market. Matchbox started the trend when they re-launched their Models of Yesteryear range. They made a score of different versions of their Y-12 Ford Model T van, along with other trucks in colorful liveries such as Coca-Cola, Colman's Mustard, and Cerebos Salt. They also made promotional versions for Smith's Crisps (potato chips) and Harrods department store. Some models were made exclusively for certain markets and immediately became quite expensive elsewhere: Arnott's Biscuits (Australia) and Sunlight Seife (soap, Germany) are examples.

1:24 Diecast Model of the Honda Valkyrie

Corgi copied this idea when they expanded the Corgi Classics line in the mid-'80s, producing more than 50 versions of a 1920s era Thornycroft van. Some collectors disparaged this development as "collecting paint," as the castings were identical; only the decorations were different. Other collectors created what they called the "10-Foot Rule" when the collecting of minor variations of the same vehicle got out of hand. The idea was that, if you couldn't differentiate between two versions of a model from 10 feet away, it wasn't worthwhile to collect both of them.

In the seventies, Japanese toymaker Popy (owned by the larger Bandai toy company) created a line of die-cast toys based on the popular Super Robot anime series of the period. The line was named Chogokin, meaning "Super Alloy", after the futuristic metal robot Mazinger Z was said to be made of. The line was meant to give kids a sense of the weight of the super robots in the cartoons, in a similar manner to Popy's other line, Jumbo Machinder (known in the West as Shogun Warriors), and the name gave the children the idea that their toys were made of the same stuff as the "real" robots. The line proved popular, with some figures imported to the west. In the late nineties, Bandai created the Soul of Chogokin line of adult collector figures featuring metal parts, as a callback to the original Chogokin toys, and then the smaller but similar Super Robot Chogokin line