Some Hoge Manufacturing Company Toys

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Some Hoge Manufacturing Company Toys

History

   The Hoge Manufacturing Company was established in 1906 in Manhattan, New York (USA) in 1909, by Mr. Hampden Hoge. The company initially produced office supplies, and Mr. Hoge had left the company in 1919, some 10 years later.  In 1931, the company decided to stop producing office supplies and produce toys - a bold move considering the timing! A few years later, the Great Depression would occur. The actual toy designs were contracted out to be manufactured by the Mattatuck Manufacturing Company. Products included pressed steel passenger and animated circus cars. There were also electric and clockwork (wind-up) locomotives and trains. Production stopped in 1939, and Hoge was bought by Mattatuck, and eventually dissolved (closed down) in 1958. *

 History written from* :

http://www.antiquetoys.com/info.php3?lstCity=&value=Toy~Companies~A~-~J

   I've written about the Hoge Manufacturing Company before, but just about the fire chief's car. As was browsing through Liveauctioneers website, I got a glimpse of another Hoge (pronounced Hoagy) toy. Most of the time, that fire chief car seems to be the only Hoge that you can find, but I was luckier this time. From there I did a search,  and found more Hoge toys. 

   For today, I decided to limit the post just to 3 of their toys. The reason for my decision is simply to illustrate how looking at several listings of the same toy, can better help you decide on what you might want to bid or purchase a toy for. The condition is but 1 factor that determines the final price of a toy at auction. Sometimes, if you look on E-Bay or on Liveauctioneers, you'll see higher and lower prices for same toy. Obviously, other factors come into play in bidding, such as the time of the day, the auctioneer, how many people are interested in the toy and so forth.

Please click here to be redirected to Bertoia's fine website

I bought and sold a Hoge fire chief's car, but not in such excellent condition as the one above!

It's a beautiful car, and there were even some rival companies that produced a similar model (e.g. Louis Marx).

Another factor in determining the final bidding price is whether or not the original box comes with the toy. Collectors like to have the original box. For myself, I'd just like to have the toy, and pay less, if I could!

The "Popeye the Sailor" toy  was licensed from  King Features Syndicate in 1935. Comic books and the "funnies" in newspapers were very popular the, so having toys made after the comic characters was very popular and sold toys! LAter, the Hoge company would stop licensing the Popeye character, and make their own sailor rower. I'm wondering how sales went without the Popeye character.

By looking at several different listings of the same item, you can learn to better set your pricing ceiling when bidding. The Popeye rowboat and Popeye were quite sophisticated in terms of reproducing the actual "realistic" movements of the rower.

By the way, the pipe in Popeye's mouth was made of brass. This is a small detail, but worth noting in terms of the actual material for the toy.

Here's another Popeye toy, but this time it's a speedboat wind-up toy. The actual toy was meant to move on water. As far as value goes, the motor boat  brought higher prices at auction that the rowboat.

 What's interesting above is that the above box is a reproduction. About a year ago, I write about a fine store who actually makes high-quality reproductions of boxes for original toys. I keep thinking about this lady, and will try and contact her to write again about her fine company!

The series of photos above were photographed by Bertoia Auctions on a green foundation or seamless paper (what the object rests on in photographic terms). I though the sides of the car might have been green from light of the green foundation reflecting up tot he sides. Therefore I removed the green. I'm unsure what the exact colour is, since the other series of toys are green or slightly green on their sides.

It's too bad the Hoge company closed down, as they did produce some fine toys.  However, that's the history of most  older toy companies, and that's how history goes.

It's raingi n again here in Montreal, as it seems to have for most of May and June. I hope that July will fare better. On the bright side, our flowers and lawn are great!

Thanks for dropping by,

and have a great part of the day,

wherever you may be.

Stacey