The Beatles 1968 Corgi Yellow Submarine Toy

By 1968, merchandise for The Beatles has already been around for several years.  It was no surprise that when The Yellow Submarine movie came out that there was a yellow toy submarine available for sale.  What probably was a surprise was that the yellow toy submarine released by Corgi in 1968 was of such high quality!  This toy was made of a very solid metal with a good amount of weight to it.  The periscope spun around and there were two little hatches that could be opened up to see the The Beatles inside.

Although Corgi didn't start making toys that tied in with movies and TV shows until 1965, had been making high quality, metal, toy cars in the UK since 1956, so they already had a lot of experience making a solid toy by the time The Yellow Submarine was released in 1968.  Additionally, from 1965 to 1968 they crafted so many toys to tie in with movies and TV such as James Bond, The Saint and the TV shows The Avenger and Batman, surely by then it would have been a simple task to create a toy submarine based on a very stylized cartoon.