Wednesday, April 24, 2013
Emerald City Toys
A few days ago I was looking for toys through a Google Image search, when I came across EmeraldCityToys. I saw an interesting item that I had not seen before, so I decided to select that site to visit. It turned out to be EmeraldCityToys. The more I looked,the more toys I found that I had not seen before. Of course, there's probably 1,000,000,000,000 toys out there, so I haven't yet seen them all. However, many of the toys at EmeraldCityToys were different, albeit the fact that I was familiar with their manufacturers.
I received a fast reply from the owner - Brooke, letting me know that I had his permission to go ahead and write about his fine website and merchandise.
What I immediately liked about EmeraldCityToys was the well-structured website design. The graphic design was neat and clean, and maneuvering through the site was easy to understand and fast to get where I wanted. The site is subdivided into 9 toy divisions, and a miscellaneous area for parts.
I've taken samples of the 5 different area of toys below.
1. Racers
I'm always searching for toy manufacturers, so finding Chad Valley was great!
WHat I also liked about Brooke 's site is the fact that he has many photographs. Moreover, Brooke also has the underside mechanical photos that I always like to see.
2. 2. Cars
I have seen this 1930's Wyandotte limousine, but had never been able to show it because I had not seen it from the many dealers, collectors, and auction houses that I've dealt with before. However, as usual, if I did now do a search now, I would find it!
It's not that common that I see a Canadian old or antique toy on the Net. So here's a real beauty from the General Toy Product company. By the way, I'm Canadian, eh!
The above car is described as a Deco car from Japan, circa 1930's. It reminds me of the cars that I used to see in the Dick Tracy comics in the newspapers circa 1950's.
How coincidental that I just wrote briefly about the "Little Jim" brand of toys from J.C.Penny. In the 1920's and 1930's and even later, the large American department store had their own brand of toys that were manufactured by the big toy makers of the time. 2 of the companies at the time that Brooke mentioned in her description of this toy could have been attributed to Schieble or Dayton.
3. Trucks
The 1937 blue Kilgore plastic was certainly an "eye-opener" for me. Kilgore was a very famous and successful cast iron toy manufacture in the 1920's and 1930's. Finding out that they made a plastic toy in 1937 was a real discovery!
I rarely write about 1950's-1960's toys, but this "cute" truck made by Lima of Italy caught my attention. Again, I never heard of this company. However, I liked the design of the truck, and I especially liked what appears to be plastic gas cylinders on the truck bed.
4. Airplanes
Airplane toys form the 1920's and later are some of my favourite toys. Below is a Hubley cast iron airplane, circa 1930's(?). I added the "?" because I did not have the time to check the specific period of manufacture. However, the toy might even be slightly later than the 1930's.
Here's a beautiful toy manufactured by the Girard toy company of the USA. In 1934, the hughly-successful Louis Marx toy company (USA) purchased the Girard Toy Works Company. I've never seen such a different design for a toy airplane. The lithographed graphic on the front and top of the toy is outstanding, and the disproportionate wheels and propeller compared to the body are interesting.
By the way, that rounded black object under the tip of the right wing is the wind-up mechanism for the airplane. I would assume that the airplane both moves and has the propeller turn at the same time.
That's it for today, and thanks for dropping by.
As always, have a great part of the day,
wherever you may be.
Stacey
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