What Was A Toy Like 80 Years Ago?

Monday, April 16, 2011

What Was A Toy Like 80 Years Ago?

     Hello, and no you're not confused about the date that I placed here. Toy selling haas been slow, and I tried not to be sad or let the weak market affect my blog. So between yesterday, and today, I wrote 5 instalments. Phew, I'm actually ahead by 3 days!

     Have you ever bought a toy on E-Bay, at a local fair, or from an antique store and wondered if what you purchased is what the toy was like so many years ago?

     I was able to purchase 2 Arcade Cast Iron Desoto 1938 Toy Cars 2 weeks ago. Together with the other one that didn't sell, I now have 3 that will be for sale whenever E-Bay "treats" us to some extra "free" listings. I got to wonder if I'll be able to sell the 3 of them, but I digress, and I should "think positive"!

   The bare-metal Arcade was in terrible condition when I purchased it. It had been repainted years ago, but very badly. It also came with only 3 rubber tires. I stripped (removed the paint) the car of the old paint and tried to sell it. So far no takers.  However, what interested me was the fact the rubber tires have no wooden rims.  I didn't think much of this, thinking that perhaps someone had replaced the wooden rims and tires, with all-rubber tires, and then painted the tire red in the centre. The red would  replicate the wooden rims.

   When the other 2 cast iron Arcade Desoto cars arrived, they too had all-rubber  tires with their centres painted red. The dark-blue car had the tires replaced as the steel pin holding the 2 halves of the car together are much too shiny! Also, the rubber is quite soft, and the paint has no chips missing. Whomever replaced the tires did an excellent job!

  The robin egg blue (light blue) coloured Desoto has hard tires with pieces of paint missing from the centres, So perhaps this car is all intact (all original from a long time ago). Also, the centre pin holding the 2 parts together was cut off and then flattened, rather than hammered round at the cut end with a peen hammer. A peen hammer is a hammer that has a semi-circular head. This allows for the "rounding off effect".

So let's take a look at the 3 Desoto cars and see what deductions I can come up with.

What I can safely say is that the front grill and the 2 halves of all 3 cars are authentic!

You can see that the steel pin holding the 2 halves together has been cut off and left in a "roughened condition"

Notice that  both sides of the holding steel pin have been hammered round with 

a peen hammer. 

My conclusion is that this is not an original part. I also mentioned before that the rubber tires are soft, leading me to believe that they were replaced.

The only way to replace the tires would have been to cut the holding pin and then separating the 2 halves.

The left side is round (like the first paint-stripped car), and the right side is cut off with a rough finish.

So my conclusion here is that this one is also an original.

Now I'd like to look at the axles of the 3 cars.

1. The front axle is the same on all 3 cars

2. The rear axle has 2 flattened areas to keep the rear tires in position and not move.

1. The front axle is the same on all 3 cars

2. The rear axle has 2 flattened areas to keep the rear tires in position and not move.

However, the axles have had the rust removed, but excellently done.

The owner probably knew to use a 600 grade sandpaper 

or a very fine polishing powder with a buffing wheel.

1. The front axle is the same on all 3 cars

2. The rear axle has a central tubular spacer to keep the rear tires in position and not move.

Could the Arcade factory have run out of the flattened rear axles,

 or did this car have the tires replaced at one time?

So what's final conclusions and summary?

1. All 3 cars are original and not "reproductions".

2. The car bodies and front grills are also original.

3. The dark blue car and the paint-stripped car have original axles.

4. The baby-blue car has a spacer part on the rear axle.

I can'y authenticate of this was a factory "substitute" or  the tires and rear axle 

were replaced at one time in the life of the car.

5. Rubber tires were solid at the time with just a small hole in the centre to place them on the axles.

Also, the centres were painted red to create the effect of hubs.

So thanks for dropping by, and I hope 

that you have a nice start to the week wherever you may be.