Boxed battery operated toy train set made by Sankei for Cragstan ca. 1955 in Japan.

Battery-operated train set comprising four cars and twelve pieces of track that make up a round circuit, and an original printed box. The train is made mainly from tin-plated mild steel, and is colour lithographed with bright colours and details, mainly in blue and silver with red and yellow elements. Each car has a special element on top: an aerial, a wind sock or antenna, a satellite dish and a missile. The box has a plain card bottom and the top is printed with an artist's impression of the toy, showing it as part of a lunar scene.

This object was acquired for the V&A Museum of Childhood's exhibition Space Age: Exploration, Design and Popular Culture, which opened on 22nd November 2007. It was bought at Christie's in November 2005 as part of a collection of robots and space toys. The collector, Paul Lips, ran an antique toy shop in Milan from the early 1990s, where he became particularly interested in space toys. The collection covered what he believed to be their golden age: 1955 to 1965.


After the Second World War, Japan became the pre-eminent manufacturer of tin toys through direct financial support from the United States for its toy industry, and through preferential access to US toy markets. Importantly, Japanese manufacturers were able to perfect small battery-powered motors, which gave Japanese toys a superior range of movements. One of the most celebrated subjects expressed in tin toys is space and space travel. Many highly imaginative toys were produced in the era of the Space Age (1957-1972), inspired by the widespread optimism of the times, and by a fresh public appetite for all things space.

Made in Japan for Cragstan, an American toy company

B.59:1 to 7-2005