The 1893 Ives, Blakeslee & Williams Co. Catalogue - Early Trains

    Monday, October 13,2014
              Canadian Thanksgiving
Mixture of sun and cloudy, seasonally colder

The 1893 Ives, Blakeslee & Williams Catalogue-

Early Trains

  I recently purchased an 1893 reproduction of an 1893 Ives, Blakeslee, and Williams Co. catalogue that was reproduced by the Mechanical Bank Collectors of America, courtesy of one of its members- Mr. L.C.Hagarty. The Mechanical Bank Collectors of America isa long-established group that is dedicated to the fine antique collectible of vintage and antique mechanical banks. When they get together in a large group such as at a convention, one of their great ideas is to reproduce long-defunct toy catalogues.

The Ives, Blakeslee & Williams Company was once the premier and foremost toy train company in the United States. They had produced many other toys besides trains, but over the years until the early 1930's were the #1 train company. Eventually, they were overtaken by the Lionel Company,, and eventually closed down.

That's the logo that I use for my photos or scans

It's a trio of pairs of maple leaf seedlings

Pages from the 1893 Ives, Blakeslee, and Williams Company 

Catalogue Reproduction - Train

  There are several interesting things that you might want to know about the trains and the time period that they were produced:

1. The train locomotives are all wound by key.

2. The reasons for this is that electricity was not yet invented and was no yet available. 

Electricity would become available in the USA in about 25 years, and would be available across America  in about 50 years.

3. There were "rare" sets of battery-operated trains, but that was impractical.

4. What surprised me is the final prices at auction of these toys. 

They do yield good prices, but not exceptional prices.

If you go to the Liveauctioneers website, 

you will be able to find the final prices of these toys.

An Ives Blakeslee & Williams Company Catalogue Arrives

Thursday, October 16, 2014
                Partly cloudy and cold

An Ives Blakeslee & Williams Company 

Catalogue Arrives

   I was about to go for a coffee when I checked my e-mail and i received a notification that my Ives Catalogue had arrived. I went to my mailbox, and sure enough there it was. I'm not happy with ebay lately, as are many other people.  First of all, ebay has increased their fees. That's business and I can live with that. But requiring sellers and buyers to use registered mail for everything has become very, very costly. Today's item cost  was almost matched by the cost of mail, and the collection of taxes by ebay  for Canada Revenue. Our Canadian government figured it was losing"trillions"of dollars from all those  Canadian sellers and buyers who bought items on ebay, and didn't pay taxes. So the Canadian Government "gently pressured" ebay  to collect taxes. I don't know what "or else" pressure was, but ebay  acquiesced. 

  However, on the bright side was the fact that I now have a reproduction catalogue of an: 

Ives,Blakeslee & Williams Co., Manufacturers

Iron Toys, Wood Toys, Tin Toys

Games and Novelties

circa 1893

Thanks to

Mr. L.C.Hagerty

Collector of Iron Toys

& Mechanical Banks

Coalport, Pennsylvania, USA

  Mr. Hagerty in 1965 loaned his original copy of the catalogue to the Mechanical  Bank Collectors of America ( I believe), or another American association. The association periodically reproduces old catalogues and sells them as part of their convention that they hold from time to time. What's great about this is the fact that the reproductions get to circulate among collectors, old and new. This in turn allows collectors to know the toys that they are trying to collect.

That's my logo that I use on my photos to try and 

keep them from being used without my permission.

I've added it to the catalogue photos below.

I've made today's images larger than normal so that you'll be able 
to read what the type (writing) says.

I never heard of such a toy before receiving the Ives, Blakeslee & Williams Co. catalogue today.
I have seen those miniature Japanese items that rise in the air like hot air balloons.

What surprise me is that these items were made from "heavy cardboard" as it's written

on the top left corner of the page below.

Of course, the other interesting thing is that a gross of these items (1000) 

sold for $18.00 wholesale in 1893!

There certainly is a great selection to choose from, and I'm sure these items

were excellent sellers considering the novelty and price of them.

I did a fast search o  ebay and on Liveauctioneers, 

but didn't find anything.

If anyone of you comes across any information on these "Hot Air Toys", would you 

please send me some photos or a link to the website.

It's always great to discover something that I never knew about, 

and it's also fun to share with everyone as well.

Thanks for dropping by to visit

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey

Please feel to e-mail me anytime at:

toysearcher@gmail.com

The Schott & Co. Catalogue for the Fall of 1898

Wednesday, September 17, 2014
          Partly sunny and seasonally cooler

The Schott & Co. Catalogue

for the Fall of 1898

 I just received another catalogue. This time it's from Cabin Creek CD's who sell both on ebay, and their own website. The Schott & Co. was located in Chicago, Illinois (USA), and sold all kinds of merchandise by catalogue. At the end of the 19th century and even for the 30 years to follow, most people listed in rural area of the United States. There weren't the excellent highways that one travel on today, and it was the railroad that meandered through the country linking people with the big cities on the Eastern part of the United States, as well as a few on the Western coast.

  I tried to find some information on the company, but came up "empty handed". I will try in the future to see if I can find something.  As for  Cabin Creek CD's,  they produce an excellent collection of old catalogues of all sorts of merchandise from "way back then". What I liked about the Cd that I received was the fact that the scanning quality was excellent. I did have to adjust the exposure, but the images were straight, clean, and contained nice detail. I only selected pages that contained toys. Of course, As I mentioned there were other types of merchandise within the catalogue.

Please click here to visit cabincreekcds ebay website

Please click here to visit CabinCreekcds website on the Internet

Below is a straightforward screen capture from the PDF (Adobe Acrobat) file 

that the catalogue was formatted with.

I didn't do anything to it but to add the "usual" copyright notice at the bottom 

and the watermark on the image.

The image below was adjusted with a photo-editing software.
I left some of the aged colour in, and I removed a fair amount of the back page 
from appearing through the front page.

What's interesting to note are several things:

1. Most old catalogues do not mention the name of the manufacture of toys. 
As such, it's somewhat harder to match up a catalogue illustration
 and description with the actual toy.

2. So many different toys were made that it is also hard to match up the 
catalogue illustration with the actual manufacturer's toy.

3. When I placed the Liveauctioneers search results for some of the toys on this page,
I only actually found 1 match.  Many of the companies at the end of the 19th and early 20th century produced toys that were very similar to one another. There wasn't the threat of copyrights and design infringements are there are today. 

Ive never seen the "steel kicking frogs", the "steel galloping horse", or the  steel sulky" ever.
I'll be searching for them though. It's much harder to cross-reference (match up) catalogue illustrations with the actual sold toys at auction when you don't have the manufacturer's name. The manufacturer may have had a different description for the toys that what the catalogue seller (in this case Schott & Company) had in mind.

Once again the 3 horse toys below are toys that I have never seen. 
I didn;t even know that steel toys existed at that time in the USA. Perhaps these toys were imported from Europe, or perhaps, I have to do more research! These are certainly fine-looking toys.

Finally a catalogue page that has toys that I can say that I have seen. Even though, the large-sized stove below does not mention the manufacturers' name, the fact that the model names are on the stoves or ranges as they are called helps. Notice that the names are Prize, Rival, and Eclipse.

What's always interesting to note are the accessories that could be purchased or might have came with the original stoves.

What;s also of interest below are the Bell Toys. I've written about these, and for sure could easily match them up, These are most likely Gong Bell toys by the same name (Gong) Eventually, another company called Watrous purchase the Gong Bell Company or vice-versa.

Ah! Another catalogue page that I would most likely be able to cross-reference with actual cast iron banks. The iron banks on the left are called "fancy banks". Today, they are called "mechanical banks. I've written about these most-interesting banks before. A lever is coked (tension), a coin is placed somewhere, and a simple movement, o r a series of several movement happens to the figures of the bank. Eventually, the coin is placed in a safe part of the bank, and only a screwdriver, or removing the bottom plug will allow the "saver" to access the money.

Boy, am I having great luck! Just within the last several days, I wrote about a Weeden Steam Engine. The one that I wrote about was produced about in the 1910's or the 1920's ,but looked much similar to the "upright" engine on the left.  These toys are actual working models and would operate by adding a fuel to the bottom of the boiler and having the water turn to steam, The steam in turn, would create pressure that would be released to operate the large wheel.

I've seen some of the wooden war cruiser below,and am always amazed. They were made from wood, with lithographed paper carefully glued over the wood. The fact that a true antique wooden toy could survive over a century plus, is amazing!

If anyone reading this post actually has any of the toys on this page, 

I'd be happy to post them on a post if you sent me the photos.

Thanks for dropping by to visit,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com

A New Catalogue Arrival

Sunday, September 7, 2014
 Sunny, windy, and cooler temperatures

A New Catalogue Arrival

   Last week, I ordered 2 CD toy catalogues on ebay. The one from Great Britain arrived quite fast, while the one from the U.S. is still on its voyage to my home. There are many entrepreneurs who scam or photograph  old catalogues and toy catalogues and either reprint them or place them on CD's. Copying of out-of-date catalogues from companies that are no longer in business is perfectly legal and acceptable. 

Please click here to contact me anytime

That's my "logo" above. 

I use it when I add watermarks to material that I have bought or have photographed.

The Nerlich & Co.Catalogue is from 1900-1901 for the  Fall and Christmas period. 

It was a company whose head office was in Germany, with a satellite office and warehouses in Toronto, Ontario Canada.

I cleaned up the original page that I had received. I thought you'd like to see how it would appear with photo-editing. Of course, to compliment the true antique catalogue, I left the aged yellow discolouration intact.

The merchandise is  mostly from the U.S.A., but some of the more complicated toys such as the steam engines and the toy cursers below are from great Britain, I think!

The chime toy in the lower right hand corner looks similar to a Gong Bell (U.S.A.) toy of that era.

I have a similar cast iron (USA) sulky & rider with horse as the one appearing bellow in the upper left corner. In terms of rarity and cost, the mechanical rowers and the hansome cab are usually more valuable.

What's interesting is that the description of the M65 Handsome Cab is misspelled.

It is called a Hansome Cab, without the letter "d".

What's interesting about toys, is that they give you a micro-second look into what "real" items were like at the time.  Motorized vehicles of all kinds are still being developed and improved. Fire engines are pulled by a team or team of horses. Water is pumped into a boiler that created pressure, and then is pushed out via the hoses.

Many toys of the time were actually small-sized versions of real items. There were small ice boxes,

small stoves, and even irons. These items were quite heavy, and I often wonder if they actually worked. They had all of the features of a "real" stove, and I've even added a post about them.

Below are banks. What is interesting is that the more expensive anymore interesting "mechanical banks" were not sold by the Nerlich Company. A "mechanical" bank" is one that has moving parts that are cocked through a spring. A coin is placed somewhere, and earn the "trigger" is released, there is a movement, whereby the coin is eventually deposited inside a "safe" place.

I think the steam engines below were from either Europe , from  Germany or Great Britain.

The large round wheels with the spokes had a small indentation around the circumference of the wheel. A rope could be attached from the wheel to a local mechanical toy with a movement, and the power from the steam engine would transfer to the accessory. I've written about these steam engines, and the accessories form such companies as Bing or Georges Carette are just magnificent, both from the appearance and their actual movements. In some cases small mechanical men would do all kinds of movements, and you have an entire "factory" of skilled workers doing all kinds of things.

Since electricity is still in its infancy, most homes were lit by gas and candles. Electric trains" would not be created until electricity was more available in a decade or two later. There were two typos of toy trains at the time. The cast orin versions (America),and the tin types  with some kind of winding mechanism (Europe and America). 

It's too bad that the catalogue was not in colour. However, the printing industry at the time was still in tones and in black ink. Colour would take much longer to develop all over North America. Europe already would have coloured lithographed toys. Many American or the rare Canadian toy (at the time) would be dipped in paint or hand-painted.

The toy scales once again represent miniature versions of the "real thing".

By the way, the hammers and the hatchets are not toys, and I hope I eased those of you who might have though tees were toys. The Nerlich & Co. was also a seller of "grown-up" merchandise. The toy pages that I presents wed are literally taken "out-of-context", hence my writing to inform you that the dangerous items were in fact not toys.

Of course with heavyweight cast iron trains, miniature stoves that I believe could work, iron for ironing clothing (also probably functional) and steam engines, parents would have enough on their hands to supervise their children without worrying about hammers and hatchets!

Thanks for dropping by to visit,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com

Ida and Earnest Long - Their Fabulous Dictionaries

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Ida and Earnest Long

Their Fabulous Dictionaries

    It's not that long ago, but I can't remember where I purchase the 2 volumes of Dictionary of Toys Sold in America. However, 2 days ago a reader had sent me some photos of an old toy to research, and I had completely forgotten to research it in these exceptional 2 booklets. I did find a sketch of the model that I was looking for, but that's for another day, on another post. I don't thing this couple are still alive, since I did a search for them on a website of the town where they lived - Mokelumne Hill, California (USA).  That's sad, because these 2 booklets are a definite must for anyone who collects or need to research old American toys from before 1950.

   I did write to the Mokelumne website and asked them to either send a copy of my e-mai lto the Longs, or to forward it to any of their sons or daughters. I always ask for permission to present any photos or scans of material that I work with. I've added these pages today, but the size and resolution is low because I don't have their permission. So quality for anyone to copy and use will be weak.

Ida and Earnest Long

Mokelumne Hill, California 

(USA)

  If the Longs or their  relatives are still alive, I would hope that they would make reprints of these 2 exceptional volumes. I know that when I purchase reference reproductuon catalogues, they only have 1 company's toys for a certain period of time. What's most interesting about the Longs catalogues is  that the toys are all hand-drawn illustrations. I'd love to have some of the original sketches of the catalogue. I can;t even imagine all of the work that was needed to compile such volumes - hence the title including the word dictionary.

   Some of you might have noticed that I didn't have much to say. In today's post about the 2 catalogues, the old expression "A picture is worth a thousand words" is most aptly applied here. These sample pages and their sketches "speak volumes". I just hope that I'll hear from the Longs or their children, since this would most certainly be a great story to write about.

Thanks for dropping by

and have a great part of the day, 

wherever you may be.

Stacey

Write to me anytime at toysearcher@gmail.com