Lesser Known Freidag Cast Iron toys

Sunday, August 17, 2014
             Cloud and light rain

Lesser Known Freidag Cast Iron Toys

   Earlier this week, I wrote about yellow and black cast iron taxis produced in America. I presented two Freidag models. The Freidag Manufacturing Company was located in Freeport, Illinois (USA).

I couldn't find much history on the company, but  it produced cast iron toys in the 1920's and later.

You don't see too many of the Friedag cast iron toys relative to the other American companies such as Arcade, Dent, Hubley, Kilgore, Kenton, and Dent.  As a result, I decided to present many of their toys, that I was able to find through Bertoia Auctions.

Please click here to visit this fine American auctioneer's website

I haven't seen many  cast iron, open flatbed trucks,especially one like this.

What's interesting about the Freidag toys is that when a driver or passengers are included in the toy, the figures are part of the casting to the toy.In most other toy manufacturers, the figures are separate and are screwed in. Also many other manufacturer's figures will be nickel-plated.

Here again (below), we see the driver having been cast as part of the truck. 

He's painted in a nice grey and gold.

Once agin, we see the Freidag fires cat as part of the toy. The passengers would have had to be hand-painted,which took a bit more time than perhaps the nickel-plated figures that would have been screwed into the bus, as other manufacturers did.

In this case the figures are separate and nickel-plated.  What's interesting to note is that when long-distance races occurred, there was a second person in the car. The passenger (mostly males) would either be the navigator or the mechanic.

The  simpler design of the car below leads me to believe that perhaps, like the first model which is simpler in design, the tow were probably made earlier in the history of the toy company.

 What's different about the tractor below is the name of the company on who the toy is based. I've never heard of the Wallis tractor company,but I'm sure any collector of farm toys would be able to inform me of the company's history.

There are probably at least 12 -18 more toys that the Freidag company made.If you venture over to Liveauctioneers, and search for Freidag or Freidag toys, you'l be able to see the Taxi cabs that  I wrote about in earlier posts, as well as several other toys. The toys are "scattered" among several manufacturers, so I didn't post them. For those who know my blog, I prefer to give exclusivity to each and every contributor, whenever I can, which is  most of the time - everyone deserves that!

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey.

toysearcher@gmail.com