Category:The Farm (display)

Display Area


08 - The Farm (display) Arch Two

–– 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 –– 57 58 –– –– 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 –– –– –– 71 72 73 74 –– 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 –– –– ––

A two-level display of farm and agricultural playsets and pieces, mostly in painted hollowcast lead, and mostly made by William Britain.

Below the "farm" display shelf is another display area for other farm-and animal-related toys. At the current time (early 2016), most of this display does not yet have online listings.

Britains Farm

William Britain was founded in the early 1890s and invented the hollowcast method of making cast lead models.

The company initially focused on lead soldiers, but World War One (1914-18) generated such significant groundswell of anti-war sentiment that Britains realised that they needed to branch out into producing other types of toy, and in 1921 they released the first of their farm and farm animals range, in 1/32 scale.

Subsequent developments

Britains continued the range after World War Two, but it became clear that they were going to have to move to plastic rather than hollowcast lead. The first Britains Farm pieces to be recreated in plastic appeared in ~1957 as a response to Herald starting to produce 1:32 plastic farm animals, in 1955. By 1959 the two companies had hooked up, and the two ranges were presented as a single set of products, with the combined range being further tweaked and rationalised through the 1960s.