Gaiety Toys was a trading name used on a small range of toys produced by Castle Art Products Ltd., a die-casting company. Castle Art Products Ltd was incorporated on 05 Mar 1946. The company's current status is listed as "Dissolved" and it had one director at the time it closed. Castle Art Products Ltd does not have any child companies. Its trading address was given as Prospect House, Tyseley Industrial Estate, Seeleys Road, Birmingham, England but such an address apparently does not exist. Its registered address is given on the company check details as 97-117 Lombard Street, Birmingham B12 0QX.
At this stage I have only come across a few items by the company. The range of vehicles appears to have consisted of three different sized "Brooklands" racing cars, a Morgan 3-wheel sports car and, possibly, a fire engine which I found reference to on the internet.
The Brooklands Racing Car models are a nicely detailed, one piece casting, with holes drilled through the body for the metal axles onto which are fitted the metal wheels. I have seen auction listings (Vectis and eBay) showing these race cars with two different types of plastic wheel and with and without clockwork mechanisms. They had no baseplate and most items I have by this company, have "Gaiety Toy — A Castle Art Product" cast into the underside of the body together with the company's castle trade mark image. Produced in 3 different sizes, they are something to look out for when trawling through the boxes at the nearest junk shop!
- Large: 130mm in length, with windscreen, steering wheel and head and shoulders of the driver cast into the cockpit.
- Medium: 100mm in length?, driver and co-driver cast into the cockpit?
- Small: 82.5mm in length, windscreen, steering wheel and head and shoulders of the driver cast into the cockpit.
The Morgan sports car was produced at 120mm in length, without driver within the cockpit and it came in various colours as well as chromed.
I also have a small cast locomotive and railway carriage buried deep somewhere that I believe to be a Gaiety Toy also. From memory it is much too small to be one of the electric items mentioned below. The following photos of items in his collection were provided by Ewan Cameron for use on the site. Please Note copyright on the photos remains with Ewan and they should not be copied or used in any way without his permission.
The racing cars and the Morgan 3-wheelers, were produced in both free running and clockwork models and were sold in a simple thick "grey" cardboard box with a coloured line-drawing label.
Also produced under the Gaiety name by Castle Art Products was a range of electric “OO” gauge railway locomotive models which came in a plain card box with a simple printed black and white label. Apparently you could also purchase the locomotive body shell only and fit it with your own chassis. The body shells had "British Railways" cast into the side tanks and came in a plain, thick grey cardboard box.