James D. Julia's Upcoming Auction

   Saturday, May 23, 2015
             Sunny but very cold
3 degrees C or  37.4 degrees Fahrenheit

James D Julia's 

Upcoming Spring Auction

   This week, I received an e-mail from the James D. Julia people up in Maine. They're having a very nice auction coming up on June 19th. It's still spring until  June 21, of this year, where upon the days get shorter. If you told me this today, I'd say : what? It's 3C or 37.4 F today - it's going to be summer in 29 days!!!!! It's been a very cold winter up here in Montreal, Quebec (Canada).  In a stage way though, as soon as May 1 came, it's as if a large heater was turned on, and the 54 foot piles of snow on my front and side lawns melted in a week. Now my grass is nice and green!

   Getting back to the topic of auctions, I ventured over to the James D. Julia site, and came across a very noise grouping of early American tin toys. I just started to return to writing again after a long hiatus (break). I recently wrote about a George Brown toy that someone wanted to see if I had a photo of. It's of the Excelsior steamboat of Beorge Brown. I couldn't find any, so if you've ever seen a photo or know where I can find one, please tell me.

   The James D. Julia Inc. auction has a fine collection of toys. However the highlight happens to be an excellent collection of  early American toys from the late Mr. Laurence Hapgood.  These include pressed steel, cast iron, and of course early American tin toys. I decided to present the tin toys since it's "rare" that you find so many nice ones in one auction. As an aside, if you ever want to see what are called  "salesman's samples", I would highly recommend searching on the Julia site. I had never heard of this category of collectible, but when I first saw these items, I was taken aback.   I won't say more (not even what a salesman's sample is)! You absolutely, positively have to viust the Juia website and discover them for yourself!

Please click here to visit the James D. Julia website

When you arrive at the Julia website, you will see other categories of items for sale, besides toys. What you will also notice is excellent descriptions and excellent photography. Also, the photos are very large  and can even be magnified. If you're looking for detail, this is the place to see detail!

The Ives toy company is known for early toy model trains on rails. However, the one below is quite early, and I didn't know that the Ives company started so early. I would think this one is from the late 1800's.

What I'm always amazed at  about American toys is that toys manufactured from different manufacturers could resemble each other so closely. I always like to contrast this with a lawsuit that Apple took against Samsung for copyright infringement. The lawsuit was extremely long in it's content of infringements. One of the listed items in the lawsuit was for Samsung having "infringed" on Apple's rounded corners on their IPhone.   I won't say any more than this.

If you take a closer look at the Ives locomotive (above) and the Althouf Bergman locomotive below, you will in fact see many almost similar features that the 2 different toys possess.

What immediately catches my eye on the  toy below is all those perforations on the perimeter of the wagon. What I'd like to know is if this was done by hans or perhaps by a press. And if a press perforated the hole,  then the press and the dye to cut the perforations would make for a great collectible.

Most of you (my readers) would not notice the slightly different camera angle in the photo below compared with the other images presented today. However, being a professional photographer myself,  I noticed this immediately.  The lower camera angle helps to accentuate the wheels and the horses better than a higher camera angle. It's a small detail, bout important nevertheless.

The James D. Julia Auction Inc. company has great photographers. One of my favourite categories is their gun division. If you want to see photography at its best for merchandise going to auction, their gun division manifests this in the best way! 

What I find most interesting in the Hull & Stafford toy below is that part of it is made of wood. This is interesting because for a wood toy to have lasted so long and in this condition (

 Once again, notice the slight difference in the camera height and angle in the pair of photos below.

I like the early tin toys because of their simplicity. They remind me of American "Naive Art" and early American toys that were made by local people and not companies.

I've seen the toy below before, but what caught my eye here was the fact the the James D. Julia Inc. company knew it was a "Dexter" horse. I didn't know that!

What's interesting about the  Fallows elephant toy below is that it moves via a sliding mechanism . It's a "pull toy" I assume there is some form go gearing mechanism that  moves the elephant back and forth and causes it to move up and down and forward sand backward.

Notice:  I have to apologize to everyone. As I was writing this post, I noticed that the "cut and paste" description that I took from the Julia website is blurred at normal view. Normally I type everything by hand, but (no excuses), I was tired today, and took "a short cut".

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

The Carpenter Fire Brigade

Thursday, December 4, 2014
Sun with clear skies, mild temperatures.

The Carpenter Fire Brigade

Yesterday, I wrote a post about the transitional fire wagons, when the internal combustible engine and mass production of the car and truck came about,. At the time, fire equipment and wagons were pulled by horses. However, when the  car and truck came about  "the writing was on the wall" ( you could see that a change would occur).  I came across a nice carpenter fire wagon, and decided to investigate what else Carpenter had manufacturers in the 1890's and later. Sure enough,I found  a noise grouping of  fire wagon toys pulled by horses. The Carpenter toy company is most famous for their fabulous "Burning Buildings",which I wrote about ( 3 posts) on October 28 of this year. You absolutely have to see them!

Please click here to visit this fine American auction company

Most fire ladder or fire pumper wagons of the time were very long and large. 

The one below is 24" or 610 mm. There is a nice pattern on the black supporting sides of the wagon,but the detail was too small (low resolution) to separate the tray background from the cast iron. for those who don;t know,I started to present toys against white (sometimes a lot of work). I find that this showcases the toys best without any distractions of colour.

Anytime an original cardboard or in this case a wood box comes with an original toy, the value collectively increases.  Carpenter produced two different sets of horses for their fire wagons. Below is the  front legs separated from the back legs.The other version (please see the second photo after this one below) had the front and back legs close together, and almost joined.

Absolutely beautiful colour. 

What's interesting about the Carpenter fire wagons is that they have  the horse-driuven wheels with notches.  I don't know exactly why they designed the toy this way instead of a smooth moving or fixed wheel. The only thing that I can think of is noise. If the toy was pulled on a wood sidewalk ( Some mid-west USA cities in the 1890's would have had wood sidewalks) or concrete one, there would be lots of noise! 

The pumper below has several differences from the one above. OI had originally selected it to present for the frame that paired the team of horses together. 

There are 2 differences to notice. First and foremost (most important), the left side in the top photo has the # 33,while the one is rarer and doesn't. Also, The one blow doesn't come with a pair of  small-sized spoked wheels behind the driver. Are they missing or simply never came with the original toy?

Below is the front and back legs touching, which is different from the other 

pairs of horses with a galloping leg position.

I selected the image below for its' brown horse and the open front legs (unattached to the rear legs).

However, I now wonder pif the horse was in fact originally off-white or yellowish white compared to having been brown but repainted.

If you examine all of the drivers and  their hands, you would have noticed a small hole. That of course was for the reins.  The one thing that none of the toys have are the original cotton cords that would have come with the original toys.

Sometimes you have to accept  small parts that go missing, but what a small price to pay for some marvellous 125 year old toys!

I can live with that!

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

The Exceptional Penny Toys of Max Berry - Part I

Thursday, October 23, 2014
  Overcast with rain, seasonally cooler

The Exceptional Penny Toys
of Max Berry-Part II

   I've posted about the penny toy,and I thought I'd add a fine grouping from the upcoming Max Berry Collection offered through Bertoia Auctions. There is just one difference between the toys on this post, and the one to follow in a few days,or if time permits - tomorrow. It's their starting prices. ONe post gads higher-pricers while the other one has lower ones. I'll tell you the answer on the third post from this one.

  I titled today's post "The Exceptional Penny Toys" for many reasons. First and foremost, from an emotional point of view is that, here were toys made for everyone who could afford to pay a penny. These toys could be accessible for everyone, and in those days (late 1890's-1930's) a penny went a long way, so every child could ay least have a toy such as these. Secondly, here were all kinds of toys, made by many manufacturers with limitless choices for everyone. And thirdly, here were toys that were mass produced, that were usually very small and assembled by hand. I can't even imagine how many toys that a worker would have to assemble in a day for him or her to earn a day's wages!

Being very small toys, the workers would have to be quite dexterous with their hands and be able to assemble and bend the small tags to join the pieces together. Moreover, the pieces were s slightly sharp-edged, and somewhat hard ,so at the end of a day's work, the workers must have had very tired hands.

   The great thing bout these toys is that there are so many that still survive to this day!

       Toys from the Upcoming Auction 

        of the Max Berry Collection

Please click here to visit this fine American Auctioneer

The first thing that you notice with theses penny toys is that they are very small relative to other toys.

But the sheer numbers and variety of this genre of toy is mind-boggling. I also wonder of the more complicated  toys cost more than a penny.

As you can see, the contrast of toys is quite broad, from the lowly donkey and cart, 

to the majestic horse-drawn hansom cab. 

Spread your thumb and forefinger out as much as you can. My height is 5' 9"  ( 1.75 M) and the distance of my thumb to forefinger is 6"  152mm) - an inch (25.5 mm) longer the truck!

I was just reading an article in the New York Times yesterday about watchmaking - a very specialized career. The fine swiss watchmaker, Audemars Piquet, give a one-day course in watchmaking for owners of watches. As you know, watches have very small components to them. One person dropped a tiny screw, and could;t find it on the floor. He also said that he would never be a watch-maker because it was too painstaking and too stressful.

So imagine people working on an assembly line and having to assemble theses small toys by the thousands in a day!  Also, many factories at the time did not have the best lighting for working, especially in the 1890's-1900's when electricity was not yet invented and commonplace.

The blue and yellow Fischer gunboat below is a titan among the average toy 

with an astounding length of  9" (228 mm)

Imagine that this toy 16 easily showing bending tip projections tips to join the yellow deck to the ship's blue bow.

Then there are the smoke stacks the ship's steering room,  the gun, and the 2 sets of wheels.

That got to be stressful to do this day in and day out!

Of course, the airplane toys below were made much later in the timespan of the penny toys.

Perhaps, by then these were 2 pennies or even more!

Here's a very nice piece - the sewing machine.In those days, most people had sewing machines in their home, and would make their own clothes or repair them. Naturally, a toy sewing machine would have been great for a child to have  that would be a small version of the one her mother had.

And finally, a whimsical toy that would make any child laugh - the mousetrap.

As you can see from the photographs, the toy still works and is catching the mouse after 100 years!

Try finding something today that will last into the next century!

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

Mint & Boxed

Saturday October 4, 2014
   Overcast with rain later in the day

Mint & Boxed

  I'm always looking for reference books and of course nice photographs to accompany the references.  I had seen 4 catalogues being offered for sale on ebay, so I purchased them. I then researched the material for today's post. As it turned out, there was a company in the 1980's to 1990 or a bit later called  Mint & Boxed. It's director and chairman was a man by the name of Mr. Jeffrey S. Levitt. Mr. Levitt established the company in 1983 and incorporated the company through Jeffrey S Levitt in 1984. The plan was to be able to collect antique toys in excellent condition and high-quality and then sell them.  However, the plan never went according to plan,and the company went bankrupt. The story is much more complex than this, but I won't get into details.

That's the  Company Logo

THe written description for the fine toy below can be seen in the lower left corner of the above page.

It's from the summer 1989 catalogue.

 Mr. Levitt placed a lot of effort and money  into starting up the company.  Above is a page of the store with an illustration of the location in Edgeware, Middlesex, England.

Below are photographs of the building and items for sale in the showrooms.

Mr. Levitt  wrote in the winter 1989/spring 1990 issue of the catalogue magazine had felt that buying  that the market and demand for toys had risen by 20% over a period of a year.   By buying high quality merchandise he would be able to meet the demand for collectors.

Below is how the car looks on white.

Description:

A unique MARKLIN (German) London, Double decker Bus made in 1906. Measuring 15"/ 38 cms, this toy, which can only be described as a work of art, features hand enamelled paint work and advertisements, powerful clockwork mechanism, rubber-tyres spoked wheel, operating handbrake and detailed interior.

Marklin probably produced no more than two or three examples to special order, 

of which this is the sole survivor.

Asking price at the time:  £165,000.00 (British Pounds)

Description:

" A unique Marklin (Germany) 'JMPERATOR' River Boat, made to special order in 1885 for the Corwn Prince of Austria, 'JMPERATOR' being Latin for Emperor. Intended as a gift for his children, this fabulous piece remained in the hands of the Hapsburg Royal Family for many years.

The hull of the boat is finely hand-painted in red ,white and light blue, and conceals a powerful clockwork motor which is still fully operational, which powers the two 'side wheel paddles'. Measuring in excess of 48' . 122 cms in length, the original linen canopy, figures and flags are still included.

This is probably the most important toy to have come onto the market, and we are most fortunate in being able to offer it for sale. Further information and details are available on written request. See further photograph on front cover."*

* pp. 23-24 Autumn/Winter catalogue 1988, Mint & Boxed

I selected just a "sprinkling" of examples from the 4 catalogue issues that I purchased. The idea for such a company and store certainly was most ambitious, as well as avery good idea at the time. 

Unfortunately there were financial and legal issues that arose, 

and the company eventually had to close. 

The catalogues can still be found,  and make excellent reading, combined with excellent photography. Not all of the toys in the catalogues were very high-priced. There were pages and pages of Dinky,Corgi, Techno, Matchbox, Yesteryear, and Spot-On that could be found within the pages of each magazine. These were available at assorted prices, and were all accompanied buy their original boxes.

Not all stories have a happy ending, but  I can try and write one one for this.

In the end, all that remains of Mr. Levitt's grand idea are the fine magazines with the excellent-quality photos.  

The original idea was fine, and perhaps in 2014 with all of the Net Billionaires and very rich people today, there would have been a market for such rare and fine collectibles. Or perhaps, Mr. Levitt might have created an auction company for such high-end toys - we shall never know.

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 comment on any post, or write me:

toysearcher@gmail.com