Two Private Collections of Toys have been sold for over £100,000 each!

We were approached by an Exmouth vendor who had just inherited and massive collection of Dinky from his cousin John Kinchen. Having mentioned a previous collection which had been sold over five sales and made over £120,000 we were invited to travel to Portsmouth to pick up this nationally recognised collection. John Kinchen had appeared twice on Blue Peter in relation to his collection.

The first collection had been kept in a four bedroom house in fruit boxes stacked to the ceiling with little access to the rooms themselves. The gentleman had spent between £200,000 and £300,000 often with thirty or more examples of the same model including die cast, trains, tin plate and plastic kits.

Early one morning in December we set off in our van to Portsmouth to John Kinchen's flat and on entering his bedroom found numerous Dinky shop display cabinets filled to the brim with models. The scale of the collection was astounding and it seemed condition was not all important to him, more trying to have an example of as many models and variations as was possible. Some items were mint and boxed, others playworn and some had been 'enhanced' (where the owner customises models with a number plate or a coloured stripe: usually making the car worth far less). Sadly the models had also often been left with direct sun which had affected many models.

To make our job far more difficult many of the models had boxes, but these were stored separately and randomly.

Over the next five months models were put in order, boxed, photographed and catalogued ready for sale. The two day live event saw interest in the room, on the phone and online with bids coming in from all over the World. Highlights were numerous with rare South African models taking premiums (194 Benley Coupe £1100), a pink and cream 408 Big Bedfrod Lorry made £1800, 935 Leyland Octopus at £2300, 121 Goodwood Sports Gift Set (selling to the Goodwood Group) made £1800.

Since this sale we have had other collections in from as far away as Surrey and toy sales have now made well over £1/3 Million.