Mini Auto Club of Japan Posts

Hideaki Tanaka, Director of the Nostalgic Toy Cars Museum and Secretary of the Mini Auto Club of Japan joins our Advisory Council (and you have to see his collection!)

Hideaki Tanaka, Director of the Nostalgic Toy Cars Museum and Secretary of the Mini Auto Club of Japan joins our Advisory Council (and you have to see his collection!)
Written by
Musings By Joschik

Since 1998 Hideaki is the director of the Nostalgic Toy Cars Museum.  He is also a co-founder and Secretary of the Mini Auto Club of Japan (MACJ).  He has always been more than willing to engage in dialog with other model car collectors around the globe.  He already wrote a number of blog posts about […]

Wood or Zamac – only the very best for Hideo Shibahara

Wood or Zamac – only the very best for Hideo Shibahara
Written by
Hideaki Tanaka

Hideo Shibahara, a collector of vintage mini-auto-models and a craftsman of tin toy robots. Shibahara has been collecting antique and vintage mini-auto-models for over 60 years  – since he was a boy. In addition, since around 1990, he has been making handmade wooden model cars. All the works are nostalgic for Japanese people. His models […]

Yoshiki Segawa has been studying model cars for half a century and is still learning

Yoshiki Segawa has been studying model cars for half a century and is still learning
Written by
Hideaki Tanaka

For more than 50 years Yoshiki Segawa has been corresponding to collectors around the globe asking questions, trading models and slowly filling gaps in his collection.  Dinky Toys, Märklin, Tootisetoys from the 1930s onwards, he has 1,000s of them!  Besides that, he is the world record holder for owning most models of the Honda Monkey […]

Takanobu Ochiai’s Collection is a Trip Back into Early Diecast History

Takanobu Ochiai’s Collection is a Trip Back into Early Diecast History

Hideaki Tanaka is an enthusiastic model car collector and manages the Mini Auto Club of Japan (MACJ).  In a series of blog posts he will tell us more about models made in Japan, the Club and its members.  Read them all here.   Takanobu Ochiai One of our members, Takanobu Ochiai, had one of the […]

Takanobu Ochiai’s Collection is a Trip Back into Early Diecast History

Takanobu Ochiai’s Collection is a Trip Back into Early Diecast History
Written by
Hideaki Tanaka

One of our members, Takanobu Ochiai, had one of the best starts in life, an uncle that gave him what are today very rare Japanese models when he was a very young boy!  And he has been collecting mini-auto-models ever since, for nearly half a century. He owns thousands of rare vintage models, including British […]

An introduction to Japanese Model Cars and the Mini Auto Club of Japan

An introduction to Japanese Model Cars and the Mini Auto Club of Japan
Written by
Hideaki Tanaka

Model Cars in Japan Before introducing the MACJ, I would like to touch on the Japanese metal die-cast mini-auto-model industry. In October 1959, the first full-scale model in Japan was released by ASAHI-TOYS in downtown Tokyo. It was a 1/42 scale with the brand name “MODEL PET” under the trademark “ATC”, and its No. 1 […]

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