Post-World War II Japanese tin toys on display in New York

During the rebuilding of Japan after World War II, a Japanese toy designer took a discarded tin can and molded it into an intricate model car.

Just inches in length, it created a phenomenon in the 1940s and '50s in Japan called “buriki.” Buriki is derived from “blik,” which is Dutch for "tin toy."

A collection of 70 tin-toy vehicles manufactured in Japan is currently on display at New York's Japan Society Gallery. The exhibit, called “Buriki: Japanese Tin Toys from the Golden Age of the American Automobile, The Yoku Tanaka Collection,” runs until Aug. 16.

The toys include sedans, convertibles, station wagons, delivery wagons, buses, trailers and racing cars.

Tanaka is a Tokyo-based businessman who began collecting the toys in 1961.

A toy Chrysler New Yorker four-door sedan from 1957.

The toys on display range from small cars such as a bottle-green Cadillac sedan that reads “made in occupied Japan,” to elaborate models made for the high-end American market.

Joe Earle, Japan Society Gallery director, said more than half of the metal toys made in Japan went overseas to help pay for vital imports such as rice.

Besides automobiles, the collection includes jets, helicopters and speedboats. Many of the tin toys are in their original packaging, including a model 1959 Ford Fairlane 500 Skyliner convertible.

The Japan Society is a nonprofit organization located in New York that presents programs in arts and culture, business, education and public policy in an effort to expand the Japanese culture. For more information, visit www.japansociety.org.

By Angie Favot