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It's hard to be in a bad mood when there's ice cream around. Whether it's a sign on the highway telling you there's a Baskin-Robbins at the next exit or [...]

George Romney, the president and chairman of American Motors Corp. from 1954 until 1962 (and father of 2012 presidential candidate Mitt Romney), once famously said, 'Nothing is as vulnerable as [...]

When it comes to miniature cars, the word 'model' has more than one meaning, depending on geographic context. Here in the United States, we tend to use the term to [...]

Frank Hornby was not the first to produce a line of die-cast metal toy cars; that distinction belongs to Chicago-based Dowst Brothers Co., which offered a toy Model T Ford [...]

There are few kinds of antiques that lend themselves to everyday use in our modern world. Factors such as obsolete technology, fragility, and, of course, historical and monetary value tend [...]

The next time you have 10 or more British men in their 60s and 70s gathered in one room, ask them about the toy cars they had when they were [...]

If you've been on the bridge of any ocean-going vessel in the past 10 years, you've seen them: computer monitors, keyboards, and enough high-tech gadgets to keep an IT department [...]

Just in time for April Fool's Day, our contributor delivers an essay on vintage gag and prank products. Hot pepper gum and dribble glasses have been around a lot longer [...]

It's hard to overstate the importance of Henry Ford's Model T in the overall scheme of things. Widely credited with being the first automobile to be built using true assembly-line [...]

There isn't much you can buy for a penny anymore. In fact, if it weren't for 'strength in numbers'--using a penny along with nickels and dimes to come up with [...]

Let's face it we're picky. We're collectors, and we like what we collect to be in the best condition possible, whether an item was made in 1746 or 1973. The [...]

Movies and comic books have been closely connected for a long time. Beyond the obvious (both are visual mediums that tell stories sequentially), recent technical advances enable moviemakers to show [...]

Anyone with even a passing familiarity with antiques knows that it often is the story that makes the item. Where an object was made, who owned it through the years, [...]

Doing the math is easy. When a child was given a Knickerbocker Snow White doll as a birthday present in 1938 or a toy police car for Christmas in 1954, [...]

Mr. McGuire was right. In the 1967 film The Graduate, he gives Benjamin, Dustin Hoffman's character, a piece of advice in the form of a single word: 'Plastics.' Benjamin responds, [...]

Finding 1920s through 1950s gags is very much a hit-and-miss affair at antique shows and flea markets, but as with most things, there are generally a number of items available [...]

Fans of antique gags are in luck, as two books have been published in recent years covering the category. Mark Newgarden's Cheap I Laffs (2004) is a wide-angle lens look [...]

Unlike some other toy categories, there haven't been large numbers of reproductions made of classic plastic toys. But there have been 're-creations,' some of them detailed, high-quality pieces. From 2000 [...]