New sightings at the Mark TwainToy Show

The Mark Twain Farm Toy Show is one we used to attend all the time, but we have missed this for probably the past decade because we usually go to the Florida Flywheelers. This year we headed instead to lovely Jacksonville Beach and we were back in time to go to the 31st show in this fun river town.  The show was held the last weekend in February.

I saw a few unusual items at the show and that makes going to shows interesting for me. While I love seeing people I know and meeting new ones, it is finding that different thing and learning a bit about it that keeps me coming back.

One of the toys I saw at this year’s show was a cool Sheppard farm tractor toy. Believe it or not I saw three different spelling for this company, but I think this is the right one for this cool tractor that has very few models in toy form.Collector Dave Copple had this and also a boxed Massey Ferguson with a shovel tractor built by Corgi, a company that I had not heard of before. The company was funded in 1933 and the Corgi toys were Introduced in 1956.  The Corgi toys were built by Mettoy Playcraft LTD in United Kingdom. They were manufactured in Wales for 27 years before they went into liquidation.

Prior to the introduction of Corgi Toys, Mettoy mainly produced tin plate toys. However, in the early 1950s, they began producing a few products in cast metal.

While this Scout is not new, since I am talking about things I really liked, this is one of them, only instead of just wanting a toy one, I would like my own baby blue real one!  Enough day dreaming for one blog, the Mark Twain Toy Show offered a fun Saturday with BBQ at the River Side Smoke House & Grill  who could beat that?

Stay tuned for a column about the show in an upcoming issue of FarmWorld!