No, they're not toys, they're Harp-Mandolins, circa 1910-1920. The "true" harp-mando is the Knutsen on the left (with its 4 tunable bass strings), and on the right is one made by Dyer.

But until we can conclusively date the instruments in question, we're stuck with various scenarios: Whomever designed Dyer's instruments based the body on Knutsen's "Double Point", simply moving the points to the same side, or Knutsen copied the points from the Dyer mandolins or the two parties somehow worked together to come up with these ideas.

Ideas which they fine-tuned as desired. Like the Dyer Symphony harp guitar, the designer of the harp mandolin family is unknown, but is presumed to be one of the Larson brothers.

What we do know, is that there is no need to explain the smile on Gregg Miner's face-- he owns them both!