Tomica
Tomica is most easily divided into vintage, made in Japan from the 70's through the late 80's and early 90's, and modern, which is made predominantly in China, with some Viet Nam production.
For us here at the Hoard, our focus is Japan production vintage pieces from the era that Tomica was shipped to the USA, so the late 70's through the late 80's. Tomica cars are labeled on the bottom with a collector number, which is helpful in organizing them, but far from perfect, as the numbers get reused over and over. Also, in the case of some of the more generic trucks, they numbered the base with two or three collector numbers if the casting was reused.
Early on, Tomica used an "F" prefix to denote cars from foreign countries, so there is an "F series" separate from what might be considered the mainline. It's all pretty confusing, but ebay has helped tremendously for the average collector to find boxed examples for identification purposes. There is not a lot of good english language web info out there, but we feel like it's getting better.
On this page we will post a downloadable collector number checklist for the vintage models as we research those models. If you don't see it here, it might be being edited. Just go to the contact area and request the most current list via email.
For us here at the Hoard, our focus is Japan production vintage pieces from the era that Tomica was shipped to the USA, so the late 70's through the late 80's. Tomica cars are labeled on the bottom with a collector number, which is helpful in organizing them, but far from perfect, as the numbers get reused over and over. Also, in the case of some of the more generic trucks, they numbered the base with two or three collector numbers if the casting was reused.
Early on, Tomica used an "F" prefix to denote cars from foreign countries, so there is an "F series" separate from what might be considered the mainline. It's all pretty confusing, but ebay has helped tremendously for the average collector to find boxed examples for identification purposes. There is not a lot of good english language web info out there, but we feel like it's getting better.
On this page we will post a downloadable collector number checklist for the vintage models as we research those models. If you don't see it here, it might be being edited. Just go to the contact area and request the most current list via email.