Wednesday, December 31, 2014

A Beautiful Hood Ornament - Not a Toy!

Wednesday, December 31,2014
Sunny and very,very cold!

A Beautiful Hood Ornament
(Not a Toy!)

   Yesterday, I had presented a toy that was given to clients of a car accessory company. The name of the company was the Faith Manufacturing Company of Chicago, Illinois (USA). Naturally benign very inquisitive, I had to research out the company,and I did. What I discovered was that the company produced outstanding car parts (handle hood ornaments, and running board parts). I received the go-ahead from 2 ebay sellers to use their photos, but somehow, I wasn't able to find the second person's listing.  I sent  London007 another e-mail asking for the listing, but I was able to found it again today. Needless to say, I don;t like to bother busy people, and I was very embarrassed!
The ebay seller prefers that I don't use his/her name,and so that's why I'm using their ebay name.

  I decided to add a separate post for this item .It's a very interesting and rare item albeit,"it's not a toy" in my title. If I had more time (and wanted to,I'd be writing 10 blogs about all kinds of diverse topics. However, just writing about toys keeps me busy enough.


I've you're a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that I like old type, old graphic design layouts, and of course old-style illustrations. I'm sure any museum curator who is responsible for posters or anything relating to artwork with type would be able to approximate what year the box was designed.

Description

Vintage Car Mascot/Hood?Radiator Ornament
Girl on Sled
Faith Manufacturing Company

Very rare hood ornament. In its original box. It looks new (Unused).
It was made in the 1930's? I can;' see any hallmarks on the ornament.
( I think London007 meant identification impressions 
of the name of the manufacturer for the worked "Hallmarks".)


I walked Buddy, our Poodle this morning,and I realized how much there isn't on cars anymore.
In the 1950's when I was under 10 years old, cars had chromed steel numbers, lots of side chrome, chrome on the wheel wells, small windows to let in air on each side of the front seat (driver and passenger) And earlier than the 1950's car had hood ornaments, and not just the expensive cars.
Nowadays,all of that is gone. Of course Rools-Royce has it's lady hood ornmane , as does jaguar, it's jaguar. However the Rolls, has an elaborate mechanism to hide the lady when the car is parked - too many were being stolen!


Amazingly, even the box and wrapping paper are intact. 
If you're a collector these make the collectible all the more valuable.







This hood ornament is truly a majestic and angelic piece.
Imagine that back in the 1920's and 1930's most cars had hood ornaments, and they weren't just the name of the car manufacturer.  They were true "hood ornaments" in every sense of the word!




Tuesday, December 30, 2014

The Faith Manufacturing Company

Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Sunny and very cold



The Faith Manufacturing Company

  I had seen a nice aluminum toy car on ebay and wrote to the seller to ask for permission to use the photos.However, I didn't hear from the person, and knew from experience to check Liveauctioneers. If it's on ebay someone on Liveauctioneers will most likely have it.   Sure, enough, Bertoia Auctions  had two of them. 

  Bertoia Auctions didn't have much information, so I returned to ebay and found information  on the company. It turns out that the Faith Manufacturing Company located in Chicago, Illinois (USA) manufacturers certain car parts. These included hood ornaments, gas caps, door handles and fender guides. 



The toys that you see on this page would be given or sold to customers of the company for their children. I found these nice toys that were sold by Bertoia, but did find a few other variation that were different in the toys having been painted red over the aluminum. 

The company made nice hood ornaments and I did find some. I wrote to one ebay  seller to ask if I 
might use his photos of a beautiful swan hood ornament. We'll have to see if he/she agrees. If not, 
I'll try other sellers.  I'll be looking for more parts from the company, because it would be vert interesting to see exactly what else they made and the quality. If it's anything like the aluminum swan hood ornament, that would be great to share with everyone.


So that's it for today -  just two fine toy cars made by a company that sold fine car parts in the 1920's and later. Sometimes, the story is not always about the toys,but the association of toys to other types of companies.  If you have the time, check out ebay  for the Faith Manufacturing Company.
promise that you won't be disappointed when you see the beautiful hood ornaments that they made. Be sure to not only to search for active listings, but also completed listings.


Part II
I was able to hear from Mr. David Mulholland later in the day that I posted the fine images from Bertoia Auctions. David had several nice hood ornaments on  ebay , but  I asked for permission of a beautiful swan hood ornament from the Faith Manufacturing Company.

David took lots of nice photos,and I decided to do my white background presentation and leave one of David's photos "as is", but I darkened his background even more. All 3 photos are beautiful. 







It's hard to imagine that hood ornaments like this could be purchased as add-ons to cars. Also, many of the fancy cars of the time came with beautiful hood ornaments. I mentioned that you should visit  ebay  and check out hood ornaments.They're truly majestic ,and you will not be disappointed. 


Thanks for dropping by and as always,
have a great part of the day or night,
wherever you may be,
Stacey
toysearcher@gmail.com



Monday, December 29, 2014

Already Prepped for the New Year

Tuesday, December 30, 2014
Sunny and very cold


Already Prepped for the New Year

   It's almost the end of 2014, and the Lloyd Ralston Gallery auction company are presenting their next listings for their January 15, 2015 auction. Do these 2 brothers ever take a vacation? 
I guess business is business, and everyone has to be prepared and working. When you go to Liveauctioneers, you can see auctions that will be happening for months ahead of the current date. Not all of the auctions will have their merchandise displayed,but the auctions are scheduled for the viewers to take note of.

  The Lloyd Ralston Gallery has lots of items for the upcoming auction,and I though that I'd "breeze" through the 517 items listed on both Liveauctioneers, and  the Lloyd Ralston Gallery website,but I only managed to stay on page 1 of the Gallery's website! There were many toys that I had not seen before.


Not all the items in the auction are pre-1940 or antique (my area of writing). Nevertheless,there were some after 1940,anymore closely to the 1980's and after that interested me.I don't know the date of manufacture of the trio of Soligo toys below, but  I have to admire the person or collector who "customized" the trio. He (or she, changed them into "Woodies" - an American type of car that had wood panelling. The trio is excellent!

Tootisetoys are my favourite small-sized toys, although most people would prefer the Dinky toys.
I know I must have seen the top ca before, but it caught my eye. If you enlarge the photo below, you'll notice that "excess" metal was left in the original toy. I've seen these before, and collectors don't seem to have minded. I probably would have filed down the excess if I had purchased the toy in the 1930's, or would have returned it! 

Britains, the British company famous for their toy soldiers, also made non-soldier toys. 
I've never seen this toy before, and what I like about it is the fact that the outside blue part could be removed to expose the interior.
Nice!

This trio of "Woodies" is probably from the same collector who made the trio that I presented at the start - great job!

The convertible caught my eye.I'm sure I've seen it before, but I liked the colour combination of the convertible and the van.

WHen I bought and sold on ebay, I  purchased most of the Tootsietoy Grahams. The Grahams and the Tootsietoy LaSalles are always in demand. There are even several toy parts manufacturers, including Thomas who make parts for these fantastic small-sized toys.

What caught my eye though was the modern-made trailer by Mr. Armond Montandon.
I'll have to do more research to find out where I can contact him. There was also 1 other trailer and Tootsietoy combo in this auction.

Another nice pair of Tootsietoys.
Notice how the dark brown car has its roof painted tan.  The tan colour represented the Tootsietoy "convertible" toys. Any toy with that tan colour was a convertible!

What's nice about the Hubley die cast quintet is that you get to see the relative sizes of these toys all at once. They're larger than the Tootsietoys which measure about 4" (102 mm) in length. 

Here's a Kosuge that I never heard of until yesterday.
Matsuzo Kosuge was a Japanese toy maker who eventually formed the Marusan toy Company.

What I like about the Minics (Great Britain) is that the company  made wind-up toys that could move on their own. The green racer is probably a post-1940 toy,while the ambulance is a bi older. 

What you might have noticed is that most of the today's on today;s post are small-sized. The Lloyd Ralston Gallery does have larger toys,but you have to spook at the written descriptions to know their sizes. Overall, there is lots of diversity in this upcoming auction. If you look enough, I'm sure you'll find something that is a favourite of yours.

Thanks for dropping by and as always
have a great part of the day o right,
wherever you may be,
Stacey
toysearcher@gmail.com

A Reader Sends Me Photos of His First Collectible

Monday, December 29, 2014
Mostly sunny, some cloud, and colder


A Reader Sends Me  Photos
of His First Collectible 

   I took the day off yesterday from posting. I had no reason but I just didn't feel much about writing. I did check out my usual haunts and I had received some nice photos from a collector. His first set were out-of-focus, and so I asked him to reshoot. He did, and 3 out of the 5 were excellent.  When I looked at the first one, I didn't know how to present it. It was very nice with the foundation (what it was resting on), and the background (what is behind the object), I didml;t know what to do.  Should I just show the toy "as is", no photo-editing, or have some fun. I chose the latter, and made 4 variations of the toy. All 4 images are great!


This photo is what Dwayne sent me.
I did adjusted the exposure a bit, nothing else.
For the photo below, I removed some of that nice granite or quartz tabletop.
Doing this makes the truck take up more area in the photo,and thus emphasizes the truck more. 


For this photo, I simply removed the colour of the foundation and background, 
and lightened up the tones, which were now black and white. I probably could have lowered the contrast and lighted the background and foundation more.

However, this version is very nice!


And my "usual" version - the toy just on white.
Very nice, but as you can see, any one of the 4 would do nicely!

Mr. Dwayne C.  had sent me the photos,and explained that this was a New Era toy made by Mr. Bud Kraus of BuddyK fame. However, I am a bit confused. I had written about Mr. Marv Silverstein who went under the name of New Era Toys. So who was (Mr. Kraus passed on in 2006) Mr. Bud Kraus? He too also did what Marv Silverstein did - take old toys, and restore and restyle them. I did  do a search for Bud Kraus of Buddy K toy fame,but I couldn't find much material. I'll have to research some more unless someone out there can hep me out - please!


Dwayne said he was tired and would send more photos in the future. However his 3 sharply-focussed photos are great! I like the camera angles that Dwayne chose for all three photos.


Dwayne ask send me an additional photo after the nice minivan above. I told Dwayne that it reminded me of those British trucks (lorries) On e sad in the 195-'s and 1960's (in photos).

Dwayne also sent me a nice photo of some of his other toys in his collection.
Very nice!

Dwayne has some nice Wyandottes and some nice wind-ups Marx toys.
I also like the very young big on the tricycle. I can't remember who manufactured,but I didn't realize it was so large, relative to the other toys.

I'll have to thank Dwayne, and ask for some more photos.
I like his style of photography,
 and of course his toys!

Thanks for dropping by and as always,
have a great part of the day or night
wherever you may be,
Stacey
toysearcher@gmail.com





Saturday, December 27, 2014

Canadians to the Rescue-Part II

Sunday, December 28, 2014
Partly cloudy and mild



Canadians to the Rescue
Part II

 If you read yesterday's post, I had written about a Manitoban (Canada Province) by the name of Mr. Gary Nerman. I did mention that another Canadian  had also offered his help, and this is whom I am posting about today. He's an Ontarian (Canada Province), living next to my Province of Quebec. Most people don't realize just how big Canada is. For me to visit Mr. Peter de Bruyn, it would be about 1 1/2 hours by car. To visit Gary in Manitoba it would be about 4-5 days in the summer - nobody would dare fave the brutal winters in Canada.

  Peter's full name is Mr. Peter de Bruyn and he's a collector of Lincoln toys.  I had asked him if he's a seller on ebay,  and he said yes, but not for his Lincoln toys. These he sells to upgrade his fine collection. I hand't known that he had a collection, until he offered me several fine photos. 


I left Peter's nice foundation in the photo instead of placing the toys against white. The tones are neutral gray, and they work well as a base of foundation for these nice toys. 

What I'm amazed at is how these rubber tires have lasted so long!


 I like how Peter is making excellent use of using all 12 photo spots on ebay.  ebay's  fees have gone up a lot, and so it's to the seller's advantage to present his or her merchandise in the best  possible way. Not only that, but if you're canadian, the Canada Revenue Agency (tax department)M now requires sellers to collect taxes from Canadians. And to make matters even worse, American's  are required  to use ebay's Global Shipping at an even higher cost.

Peter's  trucks were not for sale with the double decker transport. He simply used them to illustrate the relative size of the carrier and to show how the vehicles would load on to the carrier.

His small -sized tow truck (above) and the  mid-sized stake truck (below) were for sale separately. 
Thjat nice small dump truck remained in his collection.



As you can see, this toy is excellently presented for all viewers to see. 




I "saved the best for last" as the expression goes.Peter also likes to collect tobacco cans as you can see on  the top shelf.  But the collection of Lincoln toys is to marvel at. I visited the MUseum of Civilization in Ottawa when it opened up years ago. The place was not very full of Canadiana because the museum is new.  I'll have to visit it  again. Anyway, about a mont ago I decided on a whim to check if the Museum had Canadian toys, especially Lincoln toys - they had 3. 
I'll be polite and not give my opinion.

Fntastic set of Lincoln toys. Peter also mentioned in one of his e-mails to me, that  for the Lincoln car carrier transport, plastic cars made by another Canadian company, Reliable Toys, came with the transport.

I like that orange and black cement truck mixer in the upper left corner, among all of the other toys that I like. The colour are great,and you get to see the many different toys that this fine Canadian company manufacturers at the time.


I was surprised to see that Lincoln toys are in very high demand on ebay, and that bidding was quite high. It's probably all those Canadians and a few others bidding for these rarer toys. It's great to see that this collection.Now if anyone at the Canadian Museum of Civilization is reading this……….

Of course, as a collector, I doubt if Peter would  let this collection go to the museum!

 Thanks for dropping by and as always,
have a great part of the day or night,
wherever you may be,
Stacey
toysearcher@gmail.com