Kenton's New Century of Toys Begins

Friday, November 21, 2014
Clear skies and cool

Kenton's New Century of Toys Begins

   I've been very fortune to have a very nice husband and wife team by the names of Tim and  Lisa Striker. They happen to live in Kenton, Ohio, and work at the Hardin County Historical Museums.

Both have important positions there, and work hard at helping to promote and publicize the area. One of the  important groups within the Museum grouping is the Kenton Toy Collectors. The group meets from time to time,and there will be 

3rd Annual Kenton Toy Collectors Cast Iron Toy Show

February 21, 2015 from 10am - 4pm

at the Hardin County Historical Museum, 223 N. Main St., Kenton Ohio.

Accepting reservations for vendor space. $25 per table. 

Can only sell vintage toys. Call the Museum or email for more info.

Their e-mail address is:  director@hardinmuseums.org

What's great about the Museum is that they happen to sell excellent toy antique catalogue scans that  are on CD's. These are from the early 1900's and later from the Kenton Toy Company that used to be in Kenton,Ohio. The quality is excellent for anyone needing images to cross-reference and check on Kenton toys.

Please click here to contact the hardinmuseums.org

You can use the same e-mail address above to also contact the Kenton Toy Collectors.

I was able to find excellent matching antique toys that Bertoia Auctions had sold before., 

so I 'm using their images today.

Please click here to contact this fine auction company

Below is the  # 610 Mechanical Hansom Painted "Horseless Carriage"

I'm wondering of there ever was such a "real" gas-powered machine.

However, I now can easily understand why they called these new machines" horseless carriages!

Theuy simply removed the horses, added a motor, but the carriage, in this case a hansom looked the same as the one with the horse or pair of horses.

                                         Below is the  # 620 Mechanical  Model Surrey Auto

   The 1902 catalogue describes this as a surrey. I'm glad that these motorized vehicles became know    

    as cars. I've always had trouble remembering swat a carriage, a Phaentom , a surrey, a  hansom, 

                                        and at least 5 other names for horse drawn vehicles!

The spring appears unwound and hitting the bottom of the table. I'm sure that when the 

toy was completely wound, the spool of flat copied wire became much smaller 

and was hidden from sight.

I didn't find a # 640 Mechanical Runabout or @ # 650 Mechanical Buckboard, 

but I'll continue to search.

Interestingly, the  # 640 Mechanical Runabout  toy is not to be found in the 1903 Kenton Toy Catalogue.

So that's it for this Friday.

Thanks for dropping by, and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com

Exceptional Old Kenton Catalogues-Part I

Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Overcast,rain, and seasonally colder

Exceptional Old Kenton Catalogues

Part I

  I'd been aware of the Kenton Toy Collectors who can be found on the Hardin County Historical Museum website. For those who are unaware, Kenton Toy was one of the largest and most popular cast iron toy companies in the USA at the end of the 19th and well into the 20th century. I'd been visiting the site often, and was interested in the toy catalogues. However, I procrastinated and procrastinated, and never got around to contacting the group and the Kenton Toy Collectors.

  Last week, I finally did, and heard from Mr. Tim Striker, the president of the Kenton Toy Collectors, as well as being one of the people to contact about how to purchase the Kenton toy catalogues. I purchased several catalogues after corresponding with Tim, as well as how to pay. I paid with PayPal (the monetary payment company of ebay. I was expecting the CD's to arrive next week, but  I received them today in a very fast time.  

 As an aside (off topic), I do have to say that I am a great supporter of both the USPS (United States Postal Service) and Canada Post. I have never had an issue with items getting lost or stolen, and the one "incident" that I did have was due to terrible packaging by an ebay seller. Sadly, because of the times (e-mail, texting fax machines,FedEx, Purolator, etc., etc), people are using the mail less. Consequently,  at least here in Canada, the government has decided to reduce home delivery of mail by postal carriers and we will be getting mail boxes with keys. Businesses will still get personal "real people" delivery.

  Immediately, I loaded the CD on to my computer, and made a copy of it. It's always a good idea to make several copies of any CD, and store the original CD in a safe place. I was elated at the content of the CD with the catalos, as well as the quality of the scans.  I don't know how the person scanned the catalogues, but the quality was exceptional. Clean, straight, and well -exposed. The copied scans appear to be from original catalogues that the Kenton Toy Collectors had access to.

 I decided to scan a fine 1902 Kenton Toy catalogue,and I'll present it in 2 parts. I hope to present many of the catalogues over time and over the years that the company existed.  For those who might not know,the Kenton Toy company manufactured cast iron toys. At the times that I mentioned that the company was in existence, cast iron toys in America were very popular. considering that European toy manufacturers were making toys from tin with coloured lithography on the tinplate.

Please click here to visit the KentonToy Collector's Webpage

The red jacket below is the cover for the 1902 Kenton Hardware Manufacturing Company. LIke most of the other hardware companies of the time, Kenton got into the toy business. For those who might not know, home hardware products consisted of mostly anything metallic needed around the house. Door hinges, food fasteners,door handles, door knobs,and so on.

I'd be curious to know who the young boy was and who he was related to.

Old toy catalogues are a great resource to write about, as well as to refer to for identifying toys.
But what I like best are hand-drawn illustrations, as well as the vintage graphic design (page layout).

I only took a few page samples for some of the more numerous toys that Kenton produced. 
Toy stoves were very popular a long time ago,and I have a feeling that these toys could actually work and cook things. I'm sure parents,especially mothers would oversee what their children were doing with these stoves. The detailing was exceptional, both the "real stoves" and their downsized toy versions. If you do a search on the Net, you will be very amazed at the beauty of these toys.

Fire wagons were very popular at the time. Needless to ay, Kenton made many models and sizes.
Once again, I only chose 2 pages from the catalogue.

When I was a between 5-9 years old, the big thing among children my age was to spot new cars for the upcoming year. Ir wasn't like today,when a 2015 car comes out in June of 2014.  In the 1950's , next year's cars came out in September and October, and there hardly any foreign cars then - imagine!

What I was wondering is if children in the late 1890's and early 1900's would look and see if they could identify a dray,  a cabriolet, a hansom, a phaeton, a standhope, trap, and a surrey.

I still have trouble identifying what some of these horse-pulled "items" are,
and I forgot to add the cart  and wagon to the list.

At least I think I know how to identify them from the other vehicles.

Many of the toys were based on people who worked on farms or made deliveries in the cities for companies. As such, many of the figures portrayed with the vehicles were black or as described back then "Negroes".

If you ever have a chance to purchase an old catalogue or a reproduction of an old catalogue, by all means do do. And even if it's just a Sears catalogue from 1900, do so.

They make the most interesting coffee table items, and people never tire from looking at them. 
Just one thing though - you have to air them out so that they don't have that "old musty smell".

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