There are some collectors at
http://www.danefield.com (Alphadrome-Home of the Robots) who have written that Alps was not a manufacturer but a toy distributor. They write that its founders headed another Japanese toy firm in the 1930s which did not resume production after WWII ended.
Though I do not know the exact year, there is no doubt that this tin toy first appeared in the early post-war period. When I started collecting, I saw one example, in its box. The plane had an "Occupied Japan" stamp under a horizontal stabilizer (asking price: $500 in 1988). This is the pale beige version with red and dark blue Pan American markings #N-77. Kitahara, the famous Osaka toy collector, agrees that this plane dates from the 1940s.
The four-engined bomber/airliner toys have the long, rounded nose of the B-17 that is a design feature that influenced other "generic" toy planes. The wings have trailing edges that sweep forward slightly, suggesting the DC-4. The toy's triangular fin is not like that of a B-17, a B-29 or C-97, nor DC-4. The streamlined fuselage that tapers toward the tail section is like that of the DC-2 and DC-3; again, it is not like that of a B-17, a B-29 or C-97, nor DC-4. Nor does this toy look like any Japanese indigenous design seen in
Jane's Fighting Aircraft of World War II.
The candidate that combines the features that match the toy best is the Savoia-Marchetti SM95, a 1940s airliner that is so obscure that I find it easier to believe that the tin toy is a mixture of familiar airplane styles.
In these photos one can see the lithography from the famous Tomiyama B-50 Superfortress copied exactly onto this smaller toy.
Here are some close-up shots of the colorful Pan American livery showing the winged globe logo, compass, the name "Southern Cross" and the window frames.
