Wednesday, June 5, 2013
A Fine Hill-Climber Toy
from Randy's Toy Shop
Last November 22 (2012), I had written an introduction to Randy's Toy Store. Randy's store is located in Noblesville, Illinois, and he also has an E-Bay store. On E-Bay he is rated excellent, which is always good to know when buying items on E-Bay. However, what caught my attention about Randy's fine store, is that there are very interesting items always up for sale. Even more so, are the larger-sized images and numerous photos that he takes of each item up for bid. And he knows about toys, so when you need to find informative toy descriptions, his sites are the places to go.
My topic for today was to be the "hillclimber" toy. Basically, it's a self-propelled toy with a flywheel movement. If you search the word "flywheel" on my blog, you'll come to a post on the subject. So why write again about the same subject? Because, it's hard to find photos of the underneath of toys. Many sellers don't include that view in their listing, so you never really know what a flywheel is until you see one. I've sent an e-mail to a seller who takes the undersides of toys, and I'm waiting to here back from him.
Returning to Randy's Toy Shop, Randy does take the underside of toys. So I decided to present 1 toy illustrating the flywheel view and the numerous photos that typically are presented to potential buyers both at Randy's Internet website store, and his E-Bay store. I don't have an inside view of a flywheel, but it's a heavy duty geared mechanism with a large wheel. As such, as you push a toy on a flat surface, you store lots of energy that can then be released. Because of this, these toys will move up stepper surface angles by themselves compared to let's say a wind-up toy.
All of my images through each contributor are large-sized. If you press on any image, the view will change to a slide show. There you'll be able to magnify the image to see the finer detail than you can on this page.
What's interesting about this D.B.Clark toy is that it was built from 3 different materials - wood, tin, and cast iron. The seats are wood, the body is tin, and the 2 figures are cast iron.
The actual flywheel is under the chassis of the toy.
I like the varied camera angles and selective-focus that Randy applies to his photo. The images illustrate the toy exceptionally well, and the high and low camera angles, and the selective focus both make the images all the more interesting.
When you present so many photos to potential buyers, I would hope that they can see formthemselves the condition of the toy that Randy is selling.
A higher camera angle allows you to see the wooden seats, and the condition of the holes where the cast iron figures are positioned.
Here's a great photo to show you the large flywheel.
You push the toy to gather energy.The wheel is attached to a rod that is in between and in contact with the 4 wheels. As you move the flywheel, you build up energy.
You do that a few times, return the toy to the angled surface and the toy will easily rise up!
Here's another view of the flywheel.
The flywheel mechanisms are built differently and stronger than windup toys. As such they will normally last longer! In this toy's case, it's lasted anywhere between 111-113 years!
So, I was finally able to get a nice set of photos to show everyone what a flywheel mechanism is. That's it for today, since it's a great day to go cycling, and I need to start getting into better shape!
Thanks for visiting my Blog
and as always,
have a great part of the day,
wherever you may be.
Stacey
