This page is a brief overview on some of the Models of Yesteryear Giftware items produced by Lesney over the years. It will both surprise and amaze you at the vast amount of products produced. The most obvious are the Yesteryear cars on such things as jewelry boxes, ashtrays, pin trays, pipe racks and pen sets etc.. These were very popular as a Fathers day present or for Christmas or dad's birthdays.

To keep it simple I have divided this section into 3 separate listings:- Painted Yesteryear giftware, Plated Yesteryear items and finally some Other items deemed as giftware.

Although described as silver or gold plated, neither of these metals were used. The process involved the castings being placed into a rotating drum with a pellet of Aluminium added and a high electrical charge inputted which effectively vaporized the pellet and coated all the castings with a very thin layer of the metal. This was then coated with a clear lacquer for silver or a tinted one for a gold finish. Some gold finishes can be pale whilst others are a very brassy gold colour. A peculiarity of this side of production was that a lot of models had different coloured plastic components to the normal issued models, the main one being a very bright red similar to the rear tonneau on the Y5 Bentley.

The plated models are very hard to photograph, especially the difference between silver and light or pale gold which do not show up well. I have tried to use the best pictures I could find. Any better pictures will be welcome.

A lot of the giftware is still freely available all over.