Sunday, June 16, 2013
A Bit of Detective Work
I didn't post yesterday. Some days you just don't feel like it. However, I made the best of a great day. I cycled about 26 miles or 47 kilometres. Of course, I rest after half the distance is covered. If you ever want a great city to visit with European flavour, and you're a cyclist, this is the place. I try to cycle just on bicycle paths, and Month has lots and lots of this!
For today's post, I decided to present toys that certainly are similar, and were in fact made by 1 company. The differences are that the company changed names. In the beginning, the company was known as the Wilkens Toy Company (Founded 1886). The company was later purchased by Harry T. Kingsbury, but he didn't change the name until after WWI. Thereafter, the company was known as Kingsbury. They produced fine-quality pressed steel toys, and one of their more famous toys are the land-spped cars from the 1930's. Production ceaed in 1942 for toys, but the company is still in business today. Just type in Kingsbury and New Hampshire (USA) and you will find out what they do today.*
* One of my fvourite resource pages for company history is Jody's Attic:
The above images are from when the company was known as The
. In those times, the link tracks were positioned on wooden wheels. LAter, the wood was replaced with metal. Also the "engine compartment was first open, then it was enclosed in a pressed steel cover.
Keep an eye out for the driver and that extra-large-sized crank. These 2 will stay the same as the company becomes known as the Kingsbury Manufacturing Company.
Another thing that you'll notice is a small decal on the sides of the tractor. The name on the decal is "Little Jim". The name if from the J.C.Penny Company, and many toy manufacturers wouldmake toys for J.C.Penny under the brand "Little Jim".
As time advances, you'll notice that the basic tractor is the same. However the cart wheels will change. There are spoked wheels, then metal rims in black (for simulated rubber tires) and red (the rims or hubs) , and later , rubber tires mounted on metal rims.
The above is a straightforward Kingsbury toy. Notice the embossed and raised lettering on the company and the word tractor.
Notice also how the size of the car changes. It gets shorter, and also loses 2 wheels and an axle.
However, the basic nature of the toy remains the same, and is most readily recognizable with a little bit of detective work.
If you've been to my blog before, you'll know that I prefer to post with only unique seller, collector or auction house. What's best of course is to check out at least 3 different sources just to cross-reference and ensure that everyone's data is the same. It's very, very, rare that I find any deviations from 1 seller or auction house from the other. These fine people know their toys and have to! Also after many years of experience, and in this day and age of digital, building up huge data bases of toy information and photos is for the most part "easy".
Of course, I need to do that. My problem is that I have hard drives from Western Digital for my IMac. They're great, but they come with annoying software that is impossible to remove from the hard drive. This software likes to make back-up copies, so unfortunately I have a dozen copies of every toy that I've worked on! And that's on 2 hard drives - you can never be too safe when it comes to backing up files - that's 24 duplicates in total!
Thanks for dropping by,
and have a great part of the day,
wherever you may be.
Stacey
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