About Toy Trucksmith

Growing up in the 1940s and 1950s, I lived with my parents, a brother and sister on a farm and ranch operation in South Central Kansas. We raised winter wheat and purchased calves to graze on grass for the summer months to be sold in the fall as 800 lb feeder cattle. The feeders would be purchased by cattle feeders that would pen up the cattle and feed them grain, growing them to a finished weight of 1,000 to 1,200 lbs for slaughter.

There wasn't a lot of money in those years to spend on toys. I do remember one Christmas when I got a Nylint Tournahauler. That was a really neat toy! I built many highways using the Nylint. My dozer was an empty spam can and my grandpa made a road grader out of a piece of lumber. I remember getting the catalogs in the mail and looking at the toys, knowing I could never have anything like the Smith Miller trucks or a Doepke Dozer. Those toys cost $12 to $20 in the early 50's.

I moved with my family to town in 1955. We were excited to have electricity, indoor plumbing, television and not getting on the school bus in the dark and getting home from school in the dark. I started high school soon after moving to town and toys were somewhat forgotten.

After serving in the U.S. Navy and spending four years at Kansas State University, my wife and I moved to Garden City, Kansas to start our careers in banking. We worked in banks for ten years and finally decided to go back and manage the family farm. We worked the farm for about 20 years and then eventually went back to the banking business. We have been in the Garden City Area now for about 10 years with about 2 to 3 years left before retiring.

I got introduced to the computer world with my banking job and soon found myself at home surfing the internet. I got interested in the toy trucks again, after about 50 years. I started collecting Tonka trucks and some Buddy L and Structo. Then I found the Smith Miller trucks and have been working very hard on collecting about everything in the Smith Millers including the Fred Thompson collector trucks. I have several duplicates of trucks I will be offering for sale and will be doing some custom trucks using NOS parts from Smith Miller. My website will be my primary method for selling trucks although some will be offered on eBay from time to time. This is a great hobby and I hope to buy, sell and trade trucks for many years to come.