Rick's Toybox Revisited

Saturday, February 3, 2018
Sunny with Clouds
-9 C 15.8 F

Rick's Toybox Revisited

Please click here to visit Rick's ebay store

I've been revisiting old posts and people to see how I can add new posts about them. Rick has helped me out in the past.I've written about his store and how he sells replacement decals of old toys that are missing them. 

However, Rick also happens to sell fine toys on ebay. So when I revisited Rick's website on

ebay, I did a search emphasizing toys from the most expensive to the least. Sure enough, I found 5 toys in total, with 3 toys I had not seen seen before, and 2 old toys that are in demand by collectors.

 Vintage Cast Iron Kenton Overland Circus Truck 

with Lion and Driver.

Circa: 1930's

Length x Height:  7.5" x 4.5"  191 mm x 105 mm

Vintage Arnold Tin Toy Wind-Up  

Daredevil  Motorcycle Driver and Acrobat

Key Wind-up

Circa: late 1940's-1950's

Length x Height:  8 3/4" x 11 1/4"  215 mm x 311 mm

The way to date this toy is from when it was made.

In this case, part of Rick's description was "Made in Western Germany"

This informs us that that was the name of part of Germany after WWII. At that

time, Germany was divided into Western and Eastern Germany.

Vintage Structo Army Tank

Pressed Steel Military Tank

Length x Height:  12.5" x 6.5"  306" x 165" 

Vintage Marx Tin Gas Roadside Pumps, Grease, Motor Oil

Pressed tin with rubber hoses

Circa: 1940's

Length x Height:  9.5"  x 5.5"  241 mm x 140 mm

Vintage Kingsbury Golden Arrow Racer

Pressed Steel Toy, Wind-up, Blue

Circa: 1930's

Length:  19 1/2"  496 mm

Modelled after Sir Malcolm Campbell's (British) famous racer Modelled after Sir Malcolm Modelled after Sir Malcolm Campbell's (British) famous racer, the "Blue Bird",

he set the land speed record at Daytona (Florida, USA) in 1931

to 246 mph (396 km/h) and some time later to 251 mph (396 km/h) 

Writing about the last toy, which was modelled after a real-life racer  that

raced at Daytona Beach, Florida (USA), I sure would rather 

be there than up here in Montreal (Quebec, Canada).

 Oh well, there's a mere 46 days left until March 20, which is the  first day of spring!

Thanks's for visiting, 

and have a great day or evening.

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com

The Lehmann Toy Company

Saturday, November 12, 2016
Cloud with partial sunny periods
10 Celsius  50 Fahrenheit

The Lehmann Toy Company

Please click here to visit this exceptional American toy auctioneer

A tin toy, or tin lithograph toy, is a mechanical toy made out of tinplate and colorfully painted by chromolithography to resemble primarily a character or vehicle. Tinplate was used in the manufacture of toys beginning in the mid-19th century. The toys were made from thin sheets of steel plated with tin, hence the name tinplate. They were a cheap and durable substitute for wooden toys. The toys were originally assembled and painted by hand. Spring activated tin toys originated in Germany in the 1850s. In the late 1880s offset lithography was used to print designs on tinplate. After the colorful designs were printed on the metal, they were formed by dies and assembled with small tabs. The lightweight nature of the toys allowed them to be shipped less expensively and easier than the heavier cast iron toys. Germany was the major producer of tin toys in the world in the early 20th century. The most famous German manufacturer of tin toys was Ernst Paul Lehmann who is said to have exported 90% of his toys. France and Englandjoined the fray and it wasn't long before hundreds of thousands of these penny toys were being manufactured. Production of tin toys in the United States started earlier, but began in earnest when tin ore mines were opened in Illinois providing easily available and cheap raw materials. A number of manufactures scrambled to catch up in the beginning of the 20th century, but it wasn't until after World War I, with anti-German sentiment high, that they began to make real gains. There was a growing demand for American produced products and by the 1920s American firms had overtaken the competition. The largest and most successful firm from the 1920s to the 1960s was Louis Marx and Company. Marx produced a huge number of designs and depended on large sales volumes to keep prices down.*

 *Courtesy of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_toy

In the 1880's Germany and Europe had already developed advanced print techniques on metal using the lithography process. Salaries were low, and the Lehmann company produced 1000's of different toys for the European and North American markets. An offshoot of these type of toys (lithographed wind-up toys) was the "penny toys". These toys were inexpensive to manufacture and were literally sold "for a penny". If you go over to Bertoia Auctions and search for the 

November 11-13, 2016 Auction, you ail find at least 100 penny toys that were sold. The prices started at $ 100.00 , not bad for a 1,000,000 % profit. Of course, your great-great grandfather or grandmother would have had to pass the toy along through several generations of the family to yield this handsome profit.

For this Bertoia Auctions auctions, it's truly amazing to see just how many toy the Lehmann Company manufactured so long ago. And these toys are just some of the toys that they manufactured! What's even more amazing is that these toys are still around today, and many of them still work!

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

Have a great part of the day or night,

Wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com