Farm Toy Show remains popular with local families
Wayne County Farm Toy Show is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 2 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Smithville High School. A $2 admission allows participants to browse more than 50 long tables of toys ranging from the antique to the latest releases by major manufacturers.
A long-running farm toy show is prepared to help find uses for Christmas gift money. The Wayne County Farm Toy Show is scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 2 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Smithville High School.
A $2 admission allows participants to browse more than 50 long tables of toys ranging from the antique to the latest releases by major manufacturers. At the same time, a pancake breakfast will be hosted nearby by the local Ruritan group, and proceeds from each event will benefit the Smithville FFA. The breakfast is scheduled from 7-11 a.m.
“The show will feature items that go beyond the usual farm toys,” show organizer Bob Platt said. “Ertl, of course, has made farm toys for decades. But there will be a lot of related stuff as well.”
Platt gave several examples. “One vendor crafts these really amazing, detailed wooden barns in scale. You can remove the roof and inside are places for machinery storage, tools, animals and everything else. The barns are one of the highlights of the show. Another vendor is a retired gentleman who creates toys out of pieces of 2-by-4 as a retirement hobby.”
Platt explained that some of the larger companies will have seven or more 8-foot-long tables set up with interesting farm toys with miniature versions of currently manufactured full-scale implements. “Then there are smaller one-table vendors with equally amazing things for sale.”
Of course there also will be Tonka trucks, and Platt said a few NASCAR scale racing replicas will be seen as well. “We try not to exclude anybody who can claim some kind of connection to farming, transportation or related fields.”
Platt said some of the most interesting items at the show are generally not for sale. “One of our participants every year crafts scale models of oil-well rigs that are quite detailed.”
There will be some antique toys on hand. “Trucks from the 1950s are often there alongside the new offerings,” Platt said.
The Wayne County Farm Toy Show has been an annual event for many years and has changed locations several times. “Early on,” Platt said, “we thought that an area with so many families involved in farming would be interested in collectible farm toys, and it was a success.”
The show landed at Smithville High School in 2010 and has been there since. During the run of the show, collecting has changed a bit.
“Young people actually do still collect farm toys a good bit,” Platt said. “Families come in, and maybe the parents are looking for a particular thing, and the kids get excited also. It’s still something that’s very affordable to buy, either to collect or just play with.”
The Farm Toy Show will be buy, sell and trade. “Sometimes a relative will pass away and the family has no interest in the collection of toys left behind. The show is a good place to find a buyer for those things,” Platt said.
All in all, collecting scale model toys is still quite popular, according to Platt.
Table rental fees for the show benefit Smithville FFA, as does the Ruritan pancake breakfast, which will be held at Smithville Brethren Church, 193 E. Main in Smithville.
“The Ruritan creates scholarship funds for the FFA, and the breakfast helps to fund that,” Platt said. “The show is always popular, and there’s a big variety of things to see.”