Here's a Tomica catalog from 1982, found during some Christmas break cleaning. It's also a nice survey of Japanese vehicles from that era. The small-scale range, comparable to Matchbox, was available in the US in the late 1970s. Or least in stores around Minneapolis, MN, such as a five-and-ten store in the nearby town of Wayzata. Tomica Dandy was the range of larger-scale models. The Hino aerial ladder on page 13 is a gem, with "working" ladder, outriggers that auto-extend, and a booster reel hose that auto-retracts. High play value, there! Click to see the entire catalog:

See this site, for guides to Tomica emergency vehicles, http://www.legeros.com/toys/guides/

I have a lot of those Tomica cars, both fire and non fire. I used to buy them for use on my HO scale layout when I had it. I wish you could still get them is the stores here.

Location: Baltimore

Mike - many thanks for posting the Tomica catalog. They produce some very nice little models. I wish they would do a couple US fire models like the ALF units they did. Thanks again, it is very interesting.

Location: Coral Gables, FL

YOUR RIGHT BOB ESPECIALLY THE TOMICA L10 TRACTOR TRAILER ALF LADDERS.IN THOSE DAYS THAT WAS REAL DETAIL

Location: BUFFALO NY

In the mid to late 1970's, the regional 'Coast-to-Coast' Hardware stores in the midwest stocked them on a regular basis. You just selected the models you what you wanted (in the blister card packaging) from the revolving 'peg' display and away you went!

Those were the days!

Location: Jamestown, North Dakota

In the 70's the Richway discount stores chain carried the Tomicas here in Atlanta. Picked up a lot of them on the blister cards for 99 cents each including the ALF rearmount red & white. Have a lot of dupes if anyone is interested, e-mail me.

Location: Jaw Jaw

Paul...

The only Tomica ALF Rear Mounts I've ever seen have been either red or yellow; yellow was the first, followed by the red...

If you've got a white one, I'd love to run pictures of all three in my column!

Larry Phillips
TOY TRUCKER Magazine

Location: Jamestown, North Dakota

...Anniversary editions of the LaFrance ladder in 2000 were produced in red, yellow, white, dark red, etc. See http://legeros.com/toys/guides/tomy.pdf

mjl

mjl...

Do you have any source at the present time for the ALF Rear-Mount in colors other than red or yellow? Besides myself, I know about six other collectors that would love to get them...

Was there any special packaging for the other colors?

Thanks in advance for the info...

Larry Phillips
TOY TRUCKER Magazine

Location: Jamestown, North Dakota

Larry,

The anniversary ALF models did come in a special box. The last place I saw them available was at Toy East. www.toyeast.com

I got them in 3 different colors.

Jeff

Location: PA

Just checked the toyeast.com web site and it looks like the yellow one is still available. Do a search using 'fire' as your key word and you should find it.

Jeff Webster please contact me at Ronbocop55@comcast.net ASAP. This is
like the 3rd request and email and I
do have other things to do besides this??
Ronbo

Location: Lady Lake, Fl