WILLOUGHBY, Ohio — Japanese tin toys from the postwar period were the top earners at the first Elmer’s Toy Museum liquidation event at Milestone Auctions October 28. Complete results are available at LiveAuctioneers.
As documented in LiveAuctioneers News’ presale coverage, Elmer’s Auto & Toy Museum was a popular destination for hundreds of thousands of visitors from 1994 to 2002 in Fountain City, Wisconsin. After founder Elmer Duellman’s passing in 2019, his children elected to auction the collection with Milestone, bringing an amazing 20,000 lots to market during the next few years.
As predicted, the postwar Japanese tin performed best with collectors bidding live and through LiveAuctioneers and they sent some key toy motorcycle lots skyrocketing.
The sale’s top seller was the ‘large’ version of the I. Y. (Japan) Romance cycle, featuring a male and female rider atop a friction-drive bike with a single headlight (other, less valuable versions have a three-light array). It sold for $21,000 ($25,200 with buyer’s premium).
Marusan’s Indian tin-friction motorcycle features ‘authentic’ Indian-brand markings on both the bike and the rider, and it comes with a tough-to-find original box. Bidders on the floor and on LiveAuctioneers battled it out for the toy, which ultimately sold via LiveAuctioneers for $15,500 ($18,600 with buyer’s premium).
Tipp & Co. of Nuremberg checked in with its 12in wind-up motorcycle with sidecar. This time, the floor beat out internet bidders to win the toy at $11,000 ($13,200 with buyer’s premium).
Always a hit at auction is Yonezawa’s Atom Jet Racer, a monumental friction-drive space-themed vehicle toy that clocks in at an amazing 26in in length. The tail fin was a replacement, but that didn’t stop bidding from reaching $11,000 ($13,200 with buyer’s premium).
Postwar American brands made a showing with the highly anticipated new-in-box Tonka no. 210 Road Builders Set. The five-piece set with pristine original packaging ended up selling above estimate at $16,500 ($19,800 with buyer’s premium).
