A Collector Shares his New Acquisition of Bell Gong Toys

Monday, February 22, 2016
Sunny and cold

A Collector Shares His New

Acquisition of Bell Gong Toys

   I was pleasantly surprised over the weekend, when I received some e-mails form a collector. He had recently purchased several Bell Gong Toys, and was wondering if I'd be amenable to sharing them with my readers. Of course, I was and immediately sent a reply saying that I'd be happy to write a post for these marvellous toys.

   For those who don't know, the Bell Gong toy company was the best and largest of them a lll way back at the turn of the last century and even late into the 1800's. These were pull toys that children would pull along the road or wood sidewalks, and they would "ding-dong" though the movement of the wheels.

   Mr. Sunny Mahant is the name of the collector and he sent me several e-mails with some of his most recent acquisitions. They were from the recent Sotheby's Auction of the Hegarty Collection of these fascinating toys. What's especially interesting is to see in what great condition these toys are after so many years!

Sunny

Mahant

Below:

Ding Dong Bell

Below:

The Captain and the Kids

Below:

Darky Watermelon Toy

Below:

Boy Scout Bell Toy

Below:

Very Rare Bell Toy from the Famed

Perelman Antique Toy Museum

Below:

Rastas and his Mother

As you can see from the photos, this certainly is a fine example of Bell toys.

I chose not to mention the final prices that Sunny sent me, but these toys certainly received high bidding prices at the auction!

I'm sure that Mr. Sunny Mahant will enjoy these toys for a long time to come.

And by the way, thank you Sunny four sharing them with us.

Thanks for dropping by,
and as always, 
have a great part of the day or night,
wherever you may be,

Stacey Bindman

Toysearcher@gmail.com

A Trio of Cast Iron Toys at Bertoia Auctions

Sunday, February 14, 2016
Clear and sunny, extremely cold!

A Trio of Cast Iron Toys

at Bertoia Auctions

   Bertoia Auctions is starting their new year with an upcoming auction on March 12, 2016. I've already written about several toys in previous posts, but I found a nice trio of rarer cast iron toys from the first half of the 20th century.  I thought I'd share them with you.

Please click here to visit this fine American auctioneer

CAST IRON HUBLEY COAST TO COAST BUS

circa 1930's, painted in stunning bright white body with gold highlights, cast iron wheels with red centers, cast driver, this white color bus has been known to vary from other Hubley white examples. Provenance: Bob Brady Collection. Length: 13"  (330 mm).

The interesting thing about the toy below is its' white colour. Since the Hubley company produced many toys, the white "colour" was sometimes known to deviate from the standard colour on file in the warehouse.  I don't know how "rare"that this factor made this particular toy, but some collectors might think so!

 ARCADE DOUBLE DECKER YELLOW COACH

circa 1920's, classic cast iron toy bus, painted in green body overall, black fenders, silver grille and gold side trim, features pressed steel upper deck seating, rear stairway done in black, white rubber tires, stenciled "Yellow Coach," on front and sides. Provenance: Jay Schoedinger Collection. 13" l.

HUBLEY PACKARD STRAIGHT EIGHT SEDAN

Color scheme of red and black, hood sides designed to lift allowing full engine reveal, features seated driver, rear spare wheel, nice detail to matching red painted disc centers, a well detailed classic and sought after toy example, one of two or three known. Provenance: Bob Brady Collection. 11 1/2" l. Spare wheel repainted, (Near Mint Cond.)

All 3 items are in very good shape considering how old they are.

 It will be interesting to see how high this fine set of toys yields at the auction coming in March.

I hope everyone living in the North (USA & Canada) 

are protecting themselves again this extreme cold wave. 

The good news is that there are only 37 more days to March 22, 2016 >>>> Spring!

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com

Jay's Models Revisited

Saturday, February 13, 2016
Cloud, wind, and extremely cold

Jay's Models Revisited

Please click here to visit my original post on this exceptional website

Please click here to visit this most exceptional website

   If you've filled this blog over time, you'll know that I almost exclusively dedicate the blog to old (Pre-1940) and antique (True 100 year old) toys. 

   However, on occasion, I have "broken the rule" and written about toys, and in this case, models.

I had thought above this when I first posted about Jays Models, but the website and content was so excellent, I just had to share this "great discovery" with everyone.

   I did a fast selection of items to present, but I hope you'll venture over to Jays Models to actually see the plethora of models that they have. For some reason, Jays Models is one of my most frequented posts, and so it must really  known around the world!

   THe website displays size in terms of scale. So when you see a 1:50 scale, this means that the toy is 50x smaller than the actual real machine that it is modelled after.  On the website, there are some very large-sized cranes that sell for thousands of dollars. Some stand more than  1.5 meters

 ( 5 1/2 feet) tall!

So that's it for this very cold day. It's the coldest day so far for 2016, and I hope it will be the last!

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com

The "Buddy L" Outdoor Railroad

Saturday, February 6, 2016
Cloudy with snow

The "Buddy L" Outdoor Railroad

   It's always surprising to find new discoveries, and the Bertoia Auction for March 16, 2016 is no exception. Up to now, I did not know that the "Buddy L" company had made railway cars. But today, I found out. And these are large, such that they would be played with outdoors.

The provenance (where the train comes from) is from the Jay Schoedinger Collection. What's interesting to note is that these toys were built approximately near the time of the "Great Depression", so they must have been expensive to purchase, especially during such hard times.

The locomotive and tender below are rare  and measure 43" (1.092 M) in length, and were meant to be played with outdoors. 

Please click here to visit Bertoia Auctions

The caboose below are rare  and measure 18 1/2" (470 mm) in length,

The railroad flat car below measures 20" (508 mm) in length,

The Outdoor Railroad yellow tanker car # 1003 below, measures 19" (482mm) in length.

 The Outdoor Railroad orange box car # 1002 below, measures 20 1/2" (520mm) in length.

It was manufactured circa 1925-1931.

The black railroad car (gondola) below has decals that read "70826", 

and the length is 20 1/4" (514 mm). The manufactured time was circa 1927.

It's certainly good to find a new toy after having written over 1100 posts, and today was no exception. If you take a look at the actual listings, I'm sure you'll find some toys that you haven;t seen either.

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com

2 Rare Train Parts come to a Bertoia Auction

Friday, February 26, 2016

2 Rare Train Parts come to 

a Bertoia Auction

   I've been starting to look forward to a new season of auctions. It takes time through the fall and winter for the auction companies to put out "feelers" and information for potential sellers. 

Usually the larger auctions will select or invite famous collectors to have their items go to auction. Another alternative is to have several. Having an already formed collection makes potential buyers more likely to come to the auction, instead of having an auction will too many different types of toys.

Please click here to visit Bertoia Auctions

The first item coming to auction is a very rare and very old Carlisle & Finch freight shed.

THe company existed at the end of the last quarter of the 19th century and into the beginning of the 20th century. Being the only known reported shed makes this item all the more valuable.

CARLISLE & FINCH FREIGHT SHED

Only known reported example, this rarity has a brown painted tiered roof and supported by six brown cast iron columns with ornate arch extensions to support roof, winch stands at one end of shared base, a great first time offering. (VG Cond.)

Estimate: 25,000.00 - 35,000.00 USD

Below is another very,very old American toy - a trolley. At one time horse-drawn and later electrically-powered trollies could be seen all over the USA.  DUe to the trolly's rarity, you can see just how high Bertoia Auctions is expecting this toy to sell for.

MOTOR MECHANICAL BANK

Kyser & Rex Co., Patented 1889, a very scarce cast iron trolley inspired example, this rarity is clockwork driven making it an exceedingly desirable find of which few are known, the interesting key wind action allows forward motion as coin is deposited, very colorfully painted in bright yellow, red and blue body, sides have embossed lettering. Provenance: Clive Devenish Collection. Minor crack at roof, replaced platform and door panel.

Estimate: 22,000.00 - 28,000.00 USD

I'll be adding more posts about this upcoming auction, but by all means everyone is invited to the Bertoia website to see what fabulous toys are being offered coming this March 12, 2016.

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

toyssearcher@gmail.com

Beautiful Marbles

Thursday, February 25, 2016

Beautiful Marbles

 Dan Morphy auctions will be having a toy auction on March 4-5, 2016. There are the usual toys, but also on hand will be a fine collection of marbles. I don't know anything about marbles, expect that we all played with them as kids. However for the connoisseur collector, these marbles are serious toys with some hang very high prices!  

 I selected a small grouping of 6 times going up for bidding, but you might want to visit the Dan Morphy website to see the rest. These are really quite interesting collectibles when you read the descriptions of them.

Above and below: 

Marbles hand-made from natural stone, then painted or sponged.

The marble below has an estimated final price at auction of between A$ 800.00 - $ 1200.00 US.

The marble below has an estimated final price estimated to sell at between $ 1000.00 - $ 1500.00 US.

The marbles below are handmade.What always fascinated me is how the maker got the

sheep inside the marble, centred it and then was able to create a round marble!

 I had (I think), several of these types of marbles called onionskin. I assume they're called that because of the fine layers of colour throughout the marble.

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com

A Surprise from a Lincoln Toy Person

Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Snow, rain and seasonally warm

A Surprise from a 

Lincoln Toy Person

   I forgot to check my Google gmail today, so I just did that. I had a surprise. Mr. Joseph Katzenback  had written to say that he had inherited a play set of Lincoln toys from his late father. Would I be interested in adding this to my blog?  I wrote back right away and said yes, of course.

   Lincoln Toys was a Canadian toy company in the 1950's and early 1960's and produced well-made trucks and farm toys. The toys were produced by a company called Milner Metal Products of Windsor & Tilbury, Ontario, Canada. For those who don't know, Windsor Salt (A large salt company in Canada) is in, of course, Windsor Ontario.

Boxes always make any collectible more valuable, and even the box that Joseph has is in very good shape. For myself, I like the artwork illustration on the top.

THe photo below shows that the toys look as if they were never played with - at least outdoors.

Now this is a "real find" for anyone collecting!

 The next few photos were nicely presented on the tabletop for the photos.

The orange tool is a tiller. Thanks to Bob Walden ( a reader of my blog) I now know what the grey and red implements are. 

The grey item is a planter for seeds, while the red item is called a drag harrow. 
It's for cleaning and levelling the soil.

 I am always amazed at seeing toys from 50-60 or more years ago in such great shape.

And I'm surre Joseph has someone to pass on this "treasure" to be in this same condition for another 50 years.

So that's it for this raining and snowing day!

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

Toysearcher@gmail.com

A 1900's Leymann (German) Wind-up Toy

Thursday, February 25, 2016

A 1900's Lehman (Germany)

Wind-up Toy

Please click here to visit the Copake Auction website

There were plenty of new immigrants that were arriving on a daily basis into the United States. As such, the country was getting larger and larger in terms of its population.aThe June 10, 1910 census

determined the US population to be 76, 212,168 people, which was an increase of 21.1% over the 1890 census. 

With such a larger population already, the country easily surpassed the populations of older established (e.g. European) countries of the world. With immigration, there were new jobs, and a booming economy, which naturally would lead to an increase in commerce with countries around the world.

Although the USA did have toy companies, trading with other countries allowed imports, and thus we come to today's 1900's Lehmann truck, a wind-up toy with a length of 5 1/2" (140 mm).

What makes the Lehmann toy interesting is both the wind-up mechanism, as well as the sophistication of the printing process (lithography) of the toy. Toys in the USa were mostly painted and were pressed steel or even the cast iron "heavies". But a toy from France or Germany would be printed lithography, years ahead of most American toys.

Below:

A photo illustrating the patents in years 1903, 1904, & 1906

The wind-up knob on the left side of the toy allowed the coil to get tense and build up energy. THe energy would be released when the toy was placed on the ground. A series of gears increased the sped of the toy, allowing it to be self-propelled. The front wheels had some leeway allowing the toy to turn.

Below:

The steering wheel allowed the front wheels to be turned 

to allow the truck to move to the left or right.

 Below:

A nice side view of the truck. Notice how Copake Auction likes to place an employ Coca-Cola can in the photo as a reference to the relative size of the toy. For a toy that's almost 110 years old, it's not too bad in its condition.

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com