Toys aren’t just for kids. Collectors and other adults who want replicas of favourite automobiles or the equipment on the family farm are serious about getting detailed reproductions. In Meaford, they’ve come to the right place.

Back in 1958, Carl Jolley began selling used bikes from the driving shed of the family farm just outside of Meaford. His younger brother, Ralph, took a keen interest in the business, and took over in 1962. He was 14. Four years later he married Joanne Goff, and the same year opened Jolley’s Cycle & Hobby at the corner of Boucher and Sykes Street in town.

Joanne and Ralph Jolley

As the business grew, the couple needed more space for the store, and they built a new shop just west of Meaford. For a few years, they focussed exclusively on bikes, but Ralph had always been intrigued by replica toys, and farm toys in particular. “Farming’s in my blood and always will be,” he says. “I guess this is my way of expressing it.” He started building up the toy inventory once more, and by the late 70s, he’d also started to get serious about collecting. “I discovered some stuff that was discontinued back then, and some things I’d never seen before,” he says. “Actually, my wife said to me, ‘You should keep a couple of those.” He laughs. “Which she regrets to this day.”

Ralph’s excellent (and massive) collection of farm toys is worthy of a museum, and Jolley’s Farm Toys and Diecast now offers an unparalleled selection of replica vehicles and other toys.

When the couple’s son, Shane, took over the bike end of the operation, now called Jolley’s Alternative Wheels, and moved it to Owen Sound, they began to add more to the toy lines. “There were just that many more die-cast toys out there,” says Ralph.

The couple had always sold their collectible replica toys by mail order, and it wasn’t long before they saw the potential to increase this by launching a website. Today, their website sells farm toys and diecast replicas to collectors, parents and grandparents all over the world.

When Toy Farmer magazine profiled Ralph a couple years back, they recounted a time when Carl asked his younger brother if he’d begun to plan for retirement. Then he checked himself. “Even if you retired you’d be doing the same thing as you do now.”

Concluded the magazine: “That, added Ralph with a laugh, is exactly right.”

As for Carl, the brother that started the bike business way back when – he has a toy collection of his own just around the corner. Jolley Riding Toy Museum features more than 400 antique wagons, bikes and riding toys, including an 1868 bicycle known as the Junior Boneshaker.