Hemswell Antique Centres

Friday, March 2, 2018
Overcast with Snow
3 C  37.4 F

Hemswell Antique Centres

"Hemswell Antique Centres is Europe's largest antiques centre.

It brings together Europe's largest selection of dealers who can offer you the widest 

range of antique furniture and vintage collectables. They have 4 buildings and two coffee shops on sight, whereby you can browse the numerous antiques and collectibles on sight. Once part of RAF Hemswell - the home of the Lancaster Bomber during the Second World War - the centres now offer a wonderful mix of antiques and collectables from bygone times."*

* Courtesy of Hemswell Antique Centres

Please click here to visit this fine British Antiques Dealer

 I came up with the idea to search out British and European antique dealers in order to 

be able to write more posts. I initially contacted a British ebay seller, buy he nicely refused my request. As a result, I decided to do an Internet search for  the 2 toys presented below, and came across this fine British and European antiques merchant. Hemswell Antique Centres is located a few miles from the historic city of Lincoln.

Chad Valley Ubilda Sports Car

Clockwork toy with windup key

Tin Plate

Circa 1945

Height x Length x Width: 

3 1/8" x 10 1/4" x 4 3/4"   

8 cm x 26 cm x 12 cm

Wells Brimtoy Tin Plate Racing Car

Windup mechanism with key

Circa 1930

Height x Length x Width: 

 4" x 12 1/4" x 4 3/8"   

10 cm x 31 cm x 11 cm

The above 2 toys were manufactured quite well, and are still in working condition.

They were built in an era when fine cars and racing cars were very popular, and people 

were very interested in them. As a result, companies manufactured toys after "real" cars, 

and thus you see these 2 fine models.

Thanks for visiting, 

and have a great day or evening

Stacey Bindman

Toysearcher@gmail.com

Emerald City Toys - Revisited

Monday, January, 4, 2016
Clear skies and very cold ( -18 degrees C or 32 degrees F)

Emerald City Toys-

Revisited

   It's been a long time since I've been posting regularly. I decided  today to search for past posts and contributors, and found Emerald City Toys. Early on, when I had decided not to buy and sell anymore, Emerald City Toys most graciously allowed me to use their fine toy photos. You can find them on the internet by clicking on the link below underneath their nice logo.

Please click here to visit this fine American toy store

The first toy is a tin lithographed Ubilda car. The original car came was a kit with all the parts, and would be assembled with the instructions on the box. It's in quite good condition, considering how old it is (65++ years). Also, the original box always adds a premium cost to the item. Collectors like to collect toys that come with the original box and of course the instructions. What makes this hard is the fact that most children and parents would throw away the box, but keep the toy.

Below is a fine French-made windup (clockwork) toy. ONe has to remember that the 1930's were a mere 2 decades ahead in time when the fist Model T's (Ford) rolled off the assembly line. By that time, car production had advanced by leaps and bounds.  With the car being a machine meant four travel and speed, the 1920's and the 1930's were considered the golden era of racing. Not only did cars become popular for racing on circuits and across the contents (Mostly Europe and Africa), but airplanes and boats also were "speed demons".

Thanks for dropping by to visit,
and as always,
have a great part of the day or night,
wherever you may be,
Stacey Bindman
toysearcher@gmail.com

The Chad Valley Co. Ltd. Toy Company

Friday, April 26, 2013

The Chad Valley Co. Ltd. Toy Company

History

     Two days ago, I wrote about the EmeraldCityToys company. It's a great old toy seller, and I found the website to be superbly designed and engineered. As well, there were plenty of interesting old toys that I had not seen before. One of the toy companies was the Chad Valley Co. Ltd. from Great Britain. Needless to say, I did a search on Liveauctioneers, and found lots of nice toys from them.

     The history of the company goes back to 1860 having started with other companies. However,flash forward to 1920 and a merger occurs between 3 toy companies, and the name of Chad Valley is used. The name derives from a local a local brook (small stream) in Wellington (Salop) , Great Britain. The company ket acquiring other toy companies along the way. Interestingly, in 1938, the company was granted a Royal Warrant of Appointment - Toymakers to Her Majesty the Queen.  I assume that receiving this is a fine commendation as to the quality of the company at the time. However, I do remember seeing plenty of such labels on many foods to be seen in gourmet shops in the late 1950's-1960's.  There were fancy jams, and other foods such as smoked salmon and so forth. I always wondered if the Royal British family got all of those foods, clothing, and so forth freely.

    For today, I'm only concentrating on the lithographed tin toys that  the  Chad Valley Co. Ltd. manufactured in the 1930's-1940's. They also made outstanding bears, and games. Eventually, in 1988, the company was acquired by the Woolworth (USA) company, and that's where my history of the company stops.*

*www.moorpool.com/moorpool.ra/history/Chad%20Valley%20Toys%20A%20Short%20Story.pdf

Please click this sentence to be redirected to the fine Bertoia website

Busses

Obviously, I screen-captured and Photoshopped identical toys. However,I decided to leave the 2 items in the post. 

What's interesting to see are 2 things:

1. How 2 toys ended up being photographed under different lighting. 

As a consequence, 1 is more yellow than the other.

2. Notice also, how an important feature is missing from the first set of photos - the ticket taker.

I'm sure most of the bidders didn't miss the photo, but collector "purists" would have studied this  particular listing to see if this was an important toy that might have been missing from their collection!

I just adore the lithographed bus passengers.

1. The lady with the bunny rabbit!

2. The pipe smoker on the bus!

3. Everyone is wearing a hat!

The third feature would help a collector narrow in on the possible time that the toy was made.

Of course, the "lithographed tin" further helps to narrow in on the date the toy was made. I don't ever remember seeing these outstanding biscuit containers/toys in Canada. I do remember soda crackers coming in tin cans, and there raisin cookies that were paper-boxed in a lion cage.

Oh, oh, I duplicated the toys again. The interesting thing here is that true collecotrs like to have the original box that the toy came in. So if you compare the 2 boxes in the top and bottom sets of photos, I would imagine that the bottom one fared better at auction. Of course, there are always plenty of other factors that decide the final price at auction.

Notice the words " By Appointment Toy Makers To H.M. The Queen". What I especially like about the many Chad Valley is all the detail!  I especially like the 4 red gas containers on the side.

In this toy, the rear door also opens to reload the biscuits, although,I'm sure children and parents would load the inside of the toy with smaller toys. 

This toy is similar to the red bus with the lady with the rabbit.

I wonder which of the two (red or blue) was rarer? 

Cars

As you are able to see, the Chad Valley company  must have been a successful company at the time. They certainly made very interesting and current toys modelled after the types of vehicles of the time.

I decided to end this post with the trio of toys shown above. Here are 3 biscuit containers that parents could place their biscuits in.  Of course, the question would have been (in a British accent) - "Mamma, or mommy, can you please tell me in which can are the ginger cookies?"

I laughed to myself when I wrote that last sentence. I hope you also got a "chuckle".

Thanks for dropping by, 

and as always,

have a great part of the day, 

and a nice weekend, 

wherever you may be.

Stacey