MAC Forum

In honor of our newest member of the Helicopter Forum, Hélicotoys, I thought I'd start a post of helicopter toys and other rotorcraft manufactured in France.

There are already a number of French rotorcraft featured in other posts. I suggest you go find the AR France autogiro, the Solido diecast helicopters, the early plastic helicopter toys manufactured by BUT, as well as the Dinky France No. 60f Cierva Autogiro. They are all terrific examples.

You really can't think about French-made helicopter toys without thinking about the Joustra line. I have around 25 Joustra helicopters, and there are still quite a few I've yet to acquire! The Joustra toys really deserve a post of their own someday, so I'm going to steer away from them here.

I'll start with one of my absolute favorite French helicopter toys. I actually have no idea who manufactured this toy - the name is not featured on the original box. I've been told Jouef Hornby, although I've seen no data to substantiate that claim. I've also heard FJ (France Jouet). This toy also came in an airplane version which had small triangular wings and a large propeller on the nose (there was no rotor on top of the airplane version). Can anyone out there help with the manufacturer?

It is primarily tin with a clockwork motor and a super-cool design. I'm lucky enough to own the only complete helicopter version I've ever seen. The plastic rotors just don't seem to survive because they're very fragile in construction. And, this is also the only original box I've ever seen for either the helicopter or the airplane version.

I'll let the photo do the talking:



Next, is small but nice SN 490 helicopter by La Hotte Saint Nicolas:



I'll end this initial thread with a battery-operated toy by R.C.P. (Richard & Co. of Paris). It's the Meeting Et Aviation and features three looping aircraft as well as a lighted terminal building:



Can you add some more great helicoper toys manufactured in France?

well, you asked for it: this one

and this one


are familiar from Mettoy (UK) and the same plastic toys from the US.

This is an old Joustra (do you have this one, hovermd?)


and the big brother of the lovely tiny specimen above:



I especially like this Bell from Tintin, very detailed, the Chrysler too:

ALAS is showing a lot of the diversity in French helicopter toys that's out there: Punch, Selic, Joustra, MIC, BUT...

I also have a Arnold toy (typically made in Germany) that is French-made.

Solido released a super-cool flying helicopter for JETEX.

Here's a nice whistle novelty toy by EC Depose - it could just as easily go in the Autogiro post, but I'll incude it here since it's one of the nicer French-made novelty toys:

Here's an interesting toy made by Mont-Blanc Jouets:

This lovely specimen by JEP is offered on ebay.fr... for € 500!
JEP started as Jouets de Paris in 1902. Its logo JP changed in JeP in 1929. After 1948 they became well known for their toy trains (OO).

F. Marchand (in his book) loves that one, it's made entirely of Bakelite, a material peculiar to the 30s! It was also an electric, remote-control toy.

He notes that Joustra made a whole pile of different choppers, lots of different model numbers, and lots of different variants of each!

I like the Frélon with that 6-blade main rotor, a detail feature not usually found on toys.

Tone, if you like multibladed rotors check out this siku (Germany) beauty!

More recently, it was Majorette that sold a very nice Gazelle and a mostly plastic Dauphine. These were very common in the retail market in the '90s, but I haven't seen any in years and years.
Sorry! ...my collecting area...typical dime-store die cast stuff...but, like I said, now apparently long gone from the market seemingly swept aside by the wave of Chinese imports.
Michael

I'm very proud of this (about) 19 cm long 'Helibaby' from France, which I just bought.. MIB, never-played-with condition, if ever I saw one!

The box gives 'MIC' as manufacturer.

Yes "Mic" is a name of an obscure French toy manufacturer. There is a photo of a Mic brand jet plane in Frédéric Marchand's 2004 book Avions-Jouets Tome II 1945-1970. Boy, is it funny-looking.