What Do You Collect? Tinplate Toys

What Do You Collect? Tinplate Toys opens at the Finders Keepers? Gallery inside RAMM on 9 February 2027, and it's one that sticks around for a good while, running through to 3 October. It's a display of clockwork tinplate toys, all from a private collection that the RAMM's own collector started about 40 years ago.

There's a nice bit of personal history behind it. The collector trained and worked as a mechanical engineer, and that's where the interest came from — he was drawn to the different mechanisms inside, many of which need repair to keep going. The first piece he ever got was a helicopter, a gift from a colleague when he worked at Westland Helicopters. From there, the collection grew over four decades, with the bulk of it made in Britain and Germany between the mid-50s and the 60s.

The display shows the sheer variety of what these wind-up toys could be. It's not just one thing — you'll see helicopters and spaceships alongside a kangaroo and a circus monkey. Beyond the subjects, it's the look of them that stands out: the bright colours and the artistic detail they put into these small, mechanical things. It's a good look at a particular era of toy-making, and the engineering angle gives it a bit more to hold onto than just a row of old toys in cases.

Because it runs from February all the way to October, you've got plenty of time to fit it in whenever suits you. It's in the Finders Keepers? Gallery at RAMM in Exeter, and it stays open until 3 October 2027.