A Few Suffragate Toys

Friday, November 24, 2023

Cloudy and Cold

-6 Celsius / 21.2 Fahrenheit 

 

 Some Suffragette Toys

    The Suffragette movement was a movement in the early 20th century that related to women who wanted the right to vote. At the time, women were not allowed to vote. The first country to allow women to vote was New Zealand. That was in 1893. Eventually many women in countries worldwide started to march, protest, and pressure legislatures to allow women to vote. The USA Congress passed legislation on June 4, 1919. On August 18, 1920, the legislation was ratified, and the 19th amendment was ratified, granting women in America to vote.

    I was searching the Internet for a topic to write about today, and decided to search out Althof Bergman Bell Toys. I came across one website, and lo and behold, there were several of their toys described as "Patriotic Suffragette toys".

   Whoa!   Did I just read that? That toys were made to honour women who  fought for the right to be allowed to vote? And that's how today's post evolved!  I was euphoric, and I learned a great history lesson!! 

       Most of the Althof Bergmann Suffragette toys were made in the 1870's. There are a few more that were made at the time, and when I have more time, I will look for them.

So thanks for dropping by,

And as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

I can always be reached at:

toysearcher@gmail.com

My name is (Mr.) Stacey Bindman,

and you are always welcome 

to send questions, or even send me photos of your

special toys, that you might want me to write a post.

   

An Exceptional Collector and his Website are Rediscovered

 Thursday, November 23, 2023

 Cloudy

 3.9 Celsius / 39 Fahrenheit

An Exceptional Collector

and his website are Rediscovered

    I recently contacted ATCA (Antique Toy Collectors of America) to ask for permission to write about their website and this great resource for toy collectors. Coincidentally, the person who replied to my inquiry was Mr. Derrick Clow. I received the permission, and posted recently on ATCA.  

    This week, I found an exceptional website, and it just happened to be written by Mr. Derrick Clow. What a coincidence. However, I didn't make the association, because lately, I've been very tired probably from the flu. I contacted Derrick, not remembering that he had had answered me 2 weeks before on behalf of ATCA. Nevertheless, I had a "Eureka moment", and recalled that I had just written to Derrick at ATCA, and now I was asking if I might write about his excellent website. I even checked my website, and sure enough, about 10 years ago, I had written a post about Derrick!  Needless to say, I was very embarrassed, and apologized to Derrick for my memory lapses.

  Derrick happens to specialize in collecting Keystone toys, catalogues, and even old invoices of a renowned American toy Company by the name of Keystone. Not only did Keystone once manufacture toys, but they also were known with regard to their having manufactured movie cameras and movie projectors.

Please click on the address below to visit Mr. derrick Clow's fine website

http://www.collectingkeystone.com/author/derrickclow/

        I've just presented a very small "introduction" to Derrick's exceptional website and resource for anyone collecting Keystone toys, or wanting to know about this once very popular company.

    I'll be returning to this great website, and will write another post some time soon. In the meantime, please have a look at Derrick's website. It has lots of information, and of course lots of photos of toys for anyone interested in learning about Keystone.

                                                       That's all for today.

                                                   Thanks for dropping by,

                                   And as always, have a great part of day or night,

                                                   Wherever you may be.

                                                   I can always be reached at

                                                     toysearcher@gmail.com

                                         (Mr.) Stacey Bindman

        

    

    

The Great Toy Resource- Antique Toy Collectors of America

 Sunday, November 19, 2023                                                                                                       Cloud                                                                                                                                         3° Celsius / 37.4° Fahrenheit 

Website Address:

https://atca-club.org/

I was very fortune this week to be able to get permission from  "The Antique Toy Collectors of America Inc." to begin writing several post about this great resource. This 

club has been since 1965, and is a great resource for anyone that collects toys, especially American-made toys.

Whenever I get e-mails from a reader asking about a toy, I first go to ATCA (The Antique Toy Collectors of America Inc.) to do my preliminary research. If I can't find the information there, then I will use the Internet.

ATCA has a great selection of catalogues from a great amount of toy catalogues. Better still, they have all the pages of the catalogues for the reader to look through.This is one of the best toy resources on the Net.

The  screen-capture below is from ATCa. It's the opening page.

I've been having trouble figuring out how to create an arrow in Photoshop, so please excuse my shoddy red arrows that are pointing to the words "View Toy Catalogues".

For those who do not know, you can click on any image or photo on this post that you are now looking at, and the image will enlarge. When the image is larger, it shows very nicely, and it's easier to see.

I will be writing about many of the toy catalogues in the near future. I'll show readers how to do a search for their toys so that they might find out who made the toy, and when it was made.

So for today, that's it, and I hope you will venture over to this excellent resource, 

and check out their website. You will most-certainly be amazed!

As always,

Thanks for dropping by,

And have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

I can always be reached at:

toysearcher@gmail.com

Stacey Bindman

                                                                                                                                                                                                    

Toys from a 1926-27 Montgomery-Ward Catalogue

 Thursday, November 16, 2023                                                                                                                         Clear and Warm                                                                                                                                                   10 Celsius / 50 Fahrenheit

Toys from a 1926-27 Montgomery-Ward Catalogue

    Once upon a time, America was expanding at a very fast rate. Millions of immigrants came to the USA for better lives, and as the country was expanding, many of the new immigrants chose to go west. The Transcontinental railroad was built between 1863-1869, and that helped to move vast numbers of people across this great country. However, there were no cars or trucks back then, and to travel by horse or stagecoach would take months and months. The majority of people and what they would need (when they got to their western destinations) was transported by train. Several companies were created for people who just reached their destinations and needed the materials, clothing, tools, and even toys. 

    Mr. Aaron Montgomery Ward started a catalogue business in Chicago, Michigan (USA) in 1872.  His catalogue contained all kinds of things that people would need in their new locations. By 1883, Montgomery Ward's catalogue was 240 pages, and contained 10,000 items    (Wikipedia - Montgomery Ward)

   The scans on today's post are from a Fall and Winter Catalogue (1926-1927). 

    Even though this is a 1926-1927 catalogue, many people still used the catalogue to purchase merchandise that they might not have obtained wherever they lived all across the USA.

    

  I decided to add some non-toy scans for you (my readers) 

for interest. It's truly amazing how times have changed, and how inexpensive

merchandise was at in 1926-27. 

Of course everything is all relative, almost 100 years later!

From 2020 to now, it's unbelievable how Covid and inflation

have skyrocketed the cost of everything and anything. 

Worst of all,

merchandise and food have changed in quality and type. I haven't seen the 

type of steaks that I now see in supermarkets. 

Although these cuts of meat are priced

less, they are not the same quality as a rib steak. 

However, with the high prices, I just can't

buy a rib steak (here in Canada) for $ 22.00 @ 400 grams (14 ounces) 

with the bone and fat occupying 30% of the steak!

And as far as less-expensive cuts of beef, I tried a few, and they're fine,

but nowhere near a good old-fashioned rib steak.

                                                               Thanks for dropping by, 

and have a great part of the day or night, 

wherever you may be.

(Mr.) Stacey Bindman

I can always be reached at: toysearcher@gmail.com

                                                

 

 

 Saturday, November 4, 2023

 Sunny and mild winds 

9 Celsius (48 Fahrenheit)

A Reader Asks About a Fine

Pull Bell Chime Toy

    I haven't written much lately, even when I said that I would write. So readers, I have to apologize. 

I checked my stats, and to date, as of today, I've had 930,778 hits since I started to blog in 2011. The numbers are not the highest, nor the lowest among blogs, but nevertheless, I'm happy. I've enjoyed leaning about toys, and better still, writing about a topic that I never ever dreamed that I would have written about. In due time, and with patience, my blog will achieve the milestone mark of 1,000,000 hits sometime next year. Of course, I'll have to subtract the 300 times I've checked on what was going on with my blog (just kidding; it's only 45,000 times!).

    I was pleasantly surprised to receive an e-mail from Mr. Craig Metheny. Craig's family name sounded familiar, so I did a search for "Jazz Musician" and found, of course Pat Metheny, a well-known jazz musician.  Hmmm, that was interesting! I have trouble figuring out where I put my cell phone in the house all the time, but I can remember Pat Metheny!

    Coming back to today's blog, Mr. Craig Metheny, a toy collector, wrote to me. He sent 4 excellent photos, and best-of-all, they were very large sizes. Their Width x Heigh are 55.556 x 41.667 @ 72 Pixels/Inch.  I usually ask for at least 4" x 6" @ 300 dpi.That size provides viewers with a fine image that shows well on the Net and your computer screen. As well, it allows me to try and improvew the image )(if I can) for exposure, dust, background, and colour (USA spelling is "color"). 

Below is what Craig wrote

"Hello. 

Saw your blog, very fun to look at. Thought you might know something about a particular toy I found, or point me in the right direction.I got this old cast metal toy, a sulky rider and horse with a bell/gong, at a garage sale. I am thinking that it might be from the N. N. Hill Brass Co. from about 1920s.It's about 7.5 inches long. No maker's marks of any kind that I can find. Not sure if this is cast iron or some other metal alloy. The horse is painted silver. The jockey is red and green and the sulky cross bar is green. Do you recognize this toy? Or do you have a 1920 N N Hill catalog that might show it? Thank you very much for your time. Craig."

     Craig's letter certainly shows that he knows about bell toys. He mentioned an N N Hill catalogue, and dated the toy from the 1920's. I wrote Craig back, and answered his question about where to find catalogues on these toys. There were other bell toys, but not the one that he mentioned.

I answered Craig with a great website of the Antique Toy Collectors of America. Their  website is https://atca-club.org. Their website has plenty  of old toy catalogues, and there is plenty of information on their website.  However, I wan't able to find an answer as to which company had made Craig's excellent bell toy.

The length of the toy is 7.5 inches ( 190.5 mm)

The toy appears to be made of pressed metal, with the wheels diecast.

This type of toy is called a gong bell in the generic lexicon of English. However, there was an American company that began in 1866, and closed in the mid 1960's. The name of the company was the

Gong Bell Manufacturing Company.

I even wrote about this great company in one of my posts. 

Below is the link.

https://oldantiquetoys.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-gong-bell-toy-company.html

(simply copy and paste the address above in a new window, 

and you'll be able to read about this great American toy company)

    If anyone knows the manufacturer of this fine toy that Craig purchased, please e-mail me, and I will forward the information to him.

My e-mail address is:  toysearcher@gmail.com

 

Before I finish this post,  if ever you are interested in having me write a blog post for you, 

or to help you find an answer to a question that I can't answer, please feel free to write to me.

As always,

Thanks for dropping by,

and have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

(Mr.) Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com