Early toys were miniature copies of real-life aircraft

Antiques & Collecting
Unlike Easter eggs, these Victorian peep eggs aren’t filled with chocolate. The treat inside is a photographic view enhanced by the light passing through the alabaster shell. Photo Credit: Austin Auction Gallery (c) 2026 by Cowles Syndicate Inc.
Unlike Easter eggs, these Victorian peep eggs aren’t filled with chocolate. The treat inside is a photographic view enhanced by the light passing through the alabaster shell. Photo Credit: Austin Auction Gallery (c) 2026 by Cowles Syndicate Inc.

Today’s toy companies might be fueled by flights of fancy, but, in the early days of flight, real- life aircraft were imaginative enough. Many toy airplanes of the early 1900s were miniature copies of existing airplanes, like a windup Bleriot airplane by Gunthermann that sold for $1,080 at Bertoia Auctions.

It was modeled after the Bleriot XI, which, in 1909, became the first airplane to fly across…