Sunday, January 14, 2018

Very Useful Resources

Sunday, January 14, 2018
Sunny and Cold
-20 C -4 F




Very Useful Resources



One of the difficult things when working with old and antique toys is to find out who made them, and whether or not they are "authentic". The most useful resources are reputable and known auction houses or antique dealers near you. However, many will not be familiar with toys.

Great resources are on the Internet, and both Bertoia Auctions and Liveauctioneers are 2 excellent resources for the toy collector. You can visit each resource or you have the choice to go to Liveauctioneers, where Bertoia Auctions is one of their clients. For those who don't already know,
Liveauctioneers is an auction management company for auctioneers. This site presents the toys from Bertoia Auctions, aswell as running the auction. Bertoia Auctions also has a concurrent 
(at the same time)  auction at their own website.

Both websites keep past auctions on their websites, and this helps to find out what you're toy might be, who made it, and the "estimated" value of your toy. Of course, there are many factors that determine the value of a toy, so you cannot rely on either sites as determining the value of your toy, but roughly the estimate. Factors include who the auctioneer might be, how the economy is doing, the rarity of the toy, the condition of the toy, and whether or not parts are missing from the toy.

If you happen to have a toy like this ,then if you searched out Liveauctioneers or Bertoia Auctions, you would eventually find this toy. However, Bertoia Auctions has not identified this toy in terms of which manufacturer manufactured it.




Another resource happens to be old toy catalogues or reproductions of old toy catalogues. 
ATCA, or The Antique Toy Collectors of America, Inc.  is a very good resource as a group.Members share their toys at their annual convention, and the website of ATCA has catalogues on their site for you to view.




Below is a screen-capture of the past auctions from Bertoia Auctions. The left arrow indicates that on the Liveauctioneers website, there are 70 past auctions to be found there.



If you search hard enough, you will have found the large-sized ice wagon

 I also happen to have a reproduction  of a Hubley Catalogue that I found on ebay. It was reproduced by The Antique Toy Collectors of America, Inc. for one of their conventions. I don't know what year the catalogue is for, but it looks to be from the 1920's or even earlier. The toy may or not be a Hubley (e.g. Bertoia Auctions) did not name the toy a Hubley. As such, another thing to know is that many manufacturers of the time made similar toys. Unless there are any Hubley names on the toy, we might not say its' a Hubley. Nevertheless, it does have a value for such an old toy.

The catalogue scan below is from an old toy company named Nerlich & co.
Their catalogue illustration presents the toy size and description, but does not identify the 
the manufacturer.


Thanks for dropping by,
And have a great part of the day or night,
Wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman
Toysearcher@gmail.com




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