Crescent Toy Company farm & zoo

The Crescent Toy Company started up in 1922, but didn't make lead toy figures until 1932, initially mostly from moulds they bought in from other companies, although they made plenty of their own figures later. Their lead figures range from quite nice, including some unusual items, down to the truly dreadful. When they changed to plastic in the late 1950s, their figures were of a better overall standard. Although they made both farm and zoo ranges in lead, they only did farm in plastic, a fairly limited but nice range of figures, plus some die-cast metal tractors, trailers, etc.

I'll start with my collection of plastic farm, which doesn't include all of the people.

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That is very interesting again

How old are the ones you show here ?

I love those little foals

SUSANNE wrote:

That is very interesting again

How old are the ones you show here ?

About 1958-68

Very nice, specially charging bull, dark boar, grazing donkey and horses.
I am eager to see their wildlife, Christophe has a crocodile, I guess!

Oh, i think i have the gooses and the foal as Hong Kong copies    

widukind wrote:

Oh, i think i have the gooses and the foal as Hong Kong copies    

Yes, a lot of this range was copied in HK.

Hey, I recognize those too! I have crappy copies of at least the bull and draft horse, probably some of the pigs too.

My modest collection of Crescent's very toy like lead zoo set, although I have bought one more item since taking this photo, a version of the bear at bottom left, but painted as a giant panda.
Collectors who like accurate representations of animals, look away now.

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As I said in the first post of this thread, Crescent didn't do a plastic zoo set.

Congratulation Dave and thank you for this topic    I remember having the Bull and lambs in my youth   

As Roger said I have the crocodile which I love so much for his crazy style! I also have the giraffas and the kangaroo.  I had also the tiger, lion and baby elephant but I sold them a few years ago   

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Kikimalou wrote:

As Roger said I have the crocodile which I love so much for his crazy style!
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Do you like crocodiles with crazy style?  
I do really like macaques with crazy style, do you know a vintage one?

Thanks for showing Dave. The Crescent plastic farm range had some interesting animal poses but the whole set was let down by the use of paint that easily flaked off. I had a cowboy set of figures for one Christmas in the mid 1960’s and was both surprised and upset when the paint literally dropped off simply by looking at them.

You mentioned their die-cast farm tractors and trailers and these somehow were made in zinc alloy that didn’t disintegrate from ‘metal fatigue’.

Chris Sweetman wrote:

Thanks for showing Dave. The Crescent plastic farm range had some interesting animal poses but the whole set was let down by the use of paint that easily flaked off. I had a cowboy set of figures for one Christmas in the mid 1960’s and was both surprised and upset when the paint literally dropped off simply by looking at them.

You mentioned their die-cast farm tractors and trailers and these somehow were made in zinc alloy that didn’t disintegrate from ‘metal fatigue’.  

With these old plastic figures, and the products available back then, we have to ask ourselves as collectors now, which is worse?
Paint that falls off? Or plastic with chalk powder added, which holds the paint better, but makes the whole figures disintegrate? As I've had with some Timpo 'solids' and Britains Eyes Right', which fall to pieces even when you're not looking at them.   

DaveScriv wrote:

Chris Sweetman wrote:

Thanks for showing Dave. The Crescent plastic farm range had some interesting animal poses but the whole set was let down by the use of paint that easily flaked off. I had a cowboy set of figures for one Christmas in the mid 1960’s and was both surprised and upset when the paint literally dropped off simply by looking at them.

You mentioned their die-cast farm tractors and trailers and these somehow were made in zinc alloy that didn’t disintegrate from ‘metal fatigue’.  

With these old plastic figures, and the products available back then, we have to ask ourselves as collectors now, which is worse?
Paint that falls off? Or plastic with chalk powder added, which holds the paint better, but makes the whole figures disintegrate? As I've had with some Timpo 'solids' and Britains Eyes Right', which fall to pieces even when you're not looking at them.   

A 'Catch 22' situation Dave. However, as a child I would prefer the paint to adhere! I think that it was accepted that through the wear and tear in the field of play that limbs would have dropped off! A friend showed me their Timpo ‘interchangeable’ models once and we noted that these had horses tail's missing and limbs from soldiers missing.

Nowadays they would not have got away with saying that their wares were made from ‘indestructable’ materials!

Those are all great, I really like the Crescent farm and wild lines both

Roger wrote:

Do you like crocodiles with crazy style?  
I do really like macaques with crazy style, do you know a vintage one?

I know one... He is living with my wife   

Kikimalou wrote:

Roger wrote:

Do you like crocodiles with crazy style?  
I do really like macaques with crazy style, do you know a vintage one?

I know one... He is living with my wife   

And here's a photo of the lovely couple on vacation...

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Many thanks for the great photos and very good informations, Dave!
It´s always good, learning so much new facts about so nice, old brands.

In addition to Crescent's normal 1:32 scale lead farm range (which I'll get to eventually, am doing new photos) they also did a modest small scale farm set to go with HO train layouts and 'Matchbox' brand cars. Britains did a rather nicer, and better known to vintage collectors, small scale farm range as well, called their 'Lilliput' range. I'll eventually get round to posting these too.

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The normal 1:32 scale Britains plastic farm girl with bucket is there to show their size.

Crescent were common in Sweden, so some of my absolutly first animals were of that brand. They soon lost their paint and the pink pigs became reddish brown with pink dots. Therefore I namned them, two years old, "smutsgrisarna" which means "the dirty pigs".

Lennart
Stockholm

Lennart wrote:

Crescent were common in Sweden, so some of my absolutly first animals were of that brand. They soon lost their paint and the pink pigs became reddish brown with pink dots. Therefore I namned them, two years old, "smutsgrisarna" which means "the dirty pigs".

Lennart
Stockholm