New Materials: 10 Hard-to-Find Plastic Toys

Image Gallery Strombeck-Becker made a D-Series Allis-Chalmers kit, the first ones in the tractor line.

Many plastic farm toys became rare for an obvious reason: They couldn't stand up to hard childhood play. Some of the most difficult-to-find plastic toys include:

1. Allis-Chalmers D-14 tractor (right) in kit form. Dale Swoboda, Two Rivers, Wis., says this 1/25-scale model was the first farm toy to come in a kit form, in the late 1950s when car kits were all the rage. "It's hard to find it in a kit that isn't set together," he says. Finding these older toys at a toy show nowadays is almost impossible. "Usually you have to get it off the Internet," he says.

2. Case 800. These 1/16-scale tractors came with or without numbers on the side of the grille.

3-5. A trio of Ford tractors made by Product Miniature Co., Milwaukee, in the mid-1950s in 1/12 scale, including the Ford 600, Golden Jubilee and Ford 900. Collector Rick Campbell, Apple River, Ill., says he's seen one or two of these in collections, but never all three. "The 900 is the hardest to find," he says.

6. Ferguson TO-30. These 1/12-scale plastic models were made in 1954 by Topping Models with a 3-point hitch, with or without the model number. "Even though these were plastic," Rick says, "they were really, really well made."

7. Allis-Chalmers HD5 crawler with adjustable Baker blade. "This was another Product Miniature piece," Rick says. "Either the track broke apart or the blade. I wore one out as a kid. It just didn't stand up at all, so today it's tough to find one that's whole."

8. International Harvester TD-24 crawler. This 1/16-scale model made by Product Miniature came with or without a blade or with an electric motor.

9. Farmall M kit (right) made by Product Miniature. Finding one with all the pieces in the kit, unassembled, is difficult.

10. Allis-Chalmers WD tractor by Product Miniature. This is a fragile model.