Enthusiast builds up collection of 2,000 tin toys
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E-mail CNTV, February 27, 2015
Born-and-bred Beijinger Zhang Yang has collected vintage tin toys for quite a while. And in 2008, he followed his wife's advice and opened his own private gallery.
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Enthusiast builds up collection of 2,000 tin toys |
These toys have stood the test of time, thanks to their outstanding quality and durability...
Tin has been a favorite metal of toy makers since at least the middle of the 19th century. It's lightweight, cheap, and easy to work with. But it's sturdy enough to withstand the torture of young fingers, playing with wind-up animals, friction sports cars, and science-fiction-inspired ray guns.
People are nostalgic for their childhood years. Nowadays even early mobile phones that were bigger than housebricks can fetch up to 10,000 Yuan, not because collectors admire their technology, but because they represent the good old days that could never come back. When it comes to a vintage tin toy collector, I'm not sure it's worse than alcoholism, but collecting is definitely an addiction.
But the first image of a tin toy in Zhang Yang's mind is a green, Russian-style locomotive - a gift from his grandmother in his primary school days. Zhang Yang was in his late 20s when his younger brother returned it to him years later. He wiped off the dust, and instantly fell in love with it again.
From battery-drived robots to a wind-up pecking chicken, he bought every tin toy he could find in the flea market, whatever the price. But it was quite a few years before Zhang Yang decided that wrapping up the toys in oil paper and piling them up in boxes wasn't the best way to celebrate his precious toys.
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Enthusiast builds up collection of 2,000 tin toys |
"The house my family lived in was quite packed, I could only store my toys in boxes in the attic - Some of them corroded from to lack of care. Then my wife came up with an idea. Her family's old house could be renovated for the storage and display of my collection - you see I am only driven by enthusiasm, but it's my wife who's got business sense," Zhang said.
The years of collecting led him through a natural process of learning the history of tin toys. For example, how the Chinese tin toy industry took over the leading role in the global business: at first by copying their Japanese counterparts, and then designing their own toys based on early Chinese cars and trucks.
"Chinese factories made many variations of one model, with different wheels, colors, interiors and even types of drive. This makes everybody happy: The factory could make maximum use of its expensive mould. For us collectors, we won't rest until we get the most valuable piece. Some even want to collect all variations and complete the series," Zhang said.
Admiring fans and fellow tin toy collectors come to his loft apartment-turned exhibition room, hoping to see the famous collections. Zhang Yang says he doesn't have a favorite toy - He knows every toy's story. Although some may not be as high priced as others, they're valuable in their own right, and equally precious to their owner.
Many vintage tin toy collectors in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore have turned their collections into a business. There are dealers that buy and sell precious items, and some have even launched their own toy brand, putting newly designed toys into mass production. But that's not the case in this collection. He has kept this project purely out of personal interest. "
"The toys aren't antiques that could fetch a high price at auction. And they're not sculptures that deserve a place in a museum. Sometimes me and other collectors organize commercial exhibitions for auto companies, but "nostalgia" isn't a hugely profitable marketing concept yet. Right now I'm focusing on archiving, which is really a lot of work," Zhang said.
Now Zhang Yang has a new collaboration project under his name with China Cartoon Art Museum: part of a 13-million US dollar investment in the cultural and creative industry by Beijing's Chaoyang District. Part of his collection has been relocated to the new exhibition hall in the museum, and this has given him some room to think about what to do next.
Besides his daily job as a television programme producer, Zhang Yang's first and foremost ambition is to thoroughly catalogue his collection, writing down all the stories behind the toys. That document would reflect the bygone era in the history of the tin toys, and a decade of his own life, dedicated to collecting tin toys at any cost.
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