Arnos Weltens (1 results)

Hardback. Condition: Good. Wind the key, tilt the hat, and prepare to be out-charmed by small machines with very large personalities. Mechanical Tin Toys in Colour (1977) by Arnos Weltens (Blandford Press) is a parade of painted mischief, a museum you can put on your lap, and a reminder that once upon a time the future ran on springs, not software. It?s the coffee-table carnival where robots moonlight as butlers, motorcyclists defy scale and common sense, and clockwork birds insist they are real and would like crumbs. Weltens is your ringmaster with a loupe, ushering you through bright plates and brisk captions that treat each toy like a tiny celebrity: house-brand megastars from Japan, Europe?s pre-war aristocrats, and post-war optimists with eyes that go ?ping? (technically ?oscillate,? but we are among friends). You?ll learn why lithography is basically tattooing for metal , how tinplate was the Instagram filter of 1930, and what happens when coiled steel decides to express itself in the shape of a moon-walking astronaut who occasionally veers left. Inside, expect delights that click as they turn: Full-colour plates so vivid you can hear the zizz of a mainspring and the faint bragging of a tin policeman. Makers and marks decoded?Masudaya, Schuco, Lehmann, Nomura?plus the odd unlabelled wonder that insists on being mysterious. Mechanisms explained with gloriously practical diagrams: ratchets, cams, pawls, and that eternal romance between gear teeth and gravity. Design gossip : why some robots have antennae like optimistic tridents, and why a racing car would choose red when destiny clearly said green. Collector?s counsel that doubles as life advice: avoid dents, beware repaints, keep your keys, and never overwind optimism. There?s a special joy in how the book handles scale. Tin toys make the world make sense: men become three inches tall, ambition fits in a shoebox, and motion is a promise kept by springs and stubbornness . Weltens photographs them like movie stars and writes about them like old friends who still owe you a nickelled wind-up key. Why this copy? It rolls in from the refreshingly candid emporium Crappy Old Books , wearing Condition: Good with the confident patina of a toy soldier who?s seen a mantelpiece or two. Translation: sound binding, clean pages, a whisper of shelf-rub ?no crumpled corners, no tragic coffee tide-marks, just a properly kept picture-book ready to make your inner eight-year-old applaud politely before demanding to play. Vital stats for the mantel marshal: Title: Mechanical Tin Toys in Colour Author: Arnos Weltens Publisher: Blandford Press , 1977 ISBN: 0713708484 Condition: Good (bright, tidy, keen to demonstrate) Vendor: Crappy Old Books ?the name scuffs its shoes; the stock shines its tin. Buy it for the pictures; keep it for the mechanical common sense . After a few pages you?ll catch yourself ranking toys by attitude, diagnosing cam followers at dinner, and feeling a sudden desire to build a city where the buses tick, the rockets scoot, and everyone turns a small key before beginning work. In an era of invisible algorithms, this book is a love letter to visible wonder ?colourful, audible, and delightfully wound.…