Old Antique Toys

This blog discusses old toys from the early 1920's to the end of the 1950's. All kinds of topics are discussed. The time span was the greatest period for "hands-on" toys, where a young child could actually go outside and play for hours at a time. You can see the elegance but simple design of these toys. It was a time when huge machines, and people made and finished toys by hand. The era has long passed, but many of the toys are still around, and that is what I would like to share.

Showing posts with label ebay seller 237. Show all posts

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Fire Truck Toys of the 1920's

Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Cloud with some sun & Flurries
6 Celsius 41 Fahrenheit

Fire Trucks of the 1920's-1930's

Please visit this exceptional American toy Auctioneer

Please visit this exceptional old magazine advertisement ebay store

What's interesting about old toy fire trucks of the 1920's is that most of the toys from different manufacturers of toys look the same. The standard fire truck came with a bell, ladders, and sometimes hoses. There were also "chemical" trucks that were carried in large cylinders on the fire engine. These chemicals were used to put out fires that could not be extinguished with water.

The advertisements below are quite nice and informative, and present to you the "real" fire trucks of the times. The toys of course, are based on these "real life" fire trucks

Please do not copy without their written permission

I don't know why the toy manufacturers left out the front headlights on the above

3 fire trucks. Certainly, there were front headlights on fire trucks by the 1920's, and of course later.

The Ahrens-Fox Company must have been one of the major fire truck manufacturers of the 1920's-1930's. They certainly offered their customers a lot of variety when choosing a fire truck.

Please do not copy without their written permission

A more sophisticated fire truck. It's equipped with a high pressure nozzle

at the end of the long structure. Notice also, that there are 2 cylinders that same structure. These would have been filled with fire-fighting chemicals that could be pumped though the high pressure nozzle.

Please do not copy without their written permission

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

Thursday, November 17, 2016

The Truck Ads of the 1910's

Saturday, November 19,2016
Cloudy with sunny periods
15 Celsius 59 Fahrenheit

The Truck Ads of the 1910's

Please click here to visit this wonderful ebay seller

For this post, I decided to write about old truck advertisements from the 1910's. The first things that you notice when looking for 1910's truck ads are the fact that the advertisements are almost always in black and white. The second thing that you notice is that the truck cab (where the driver rides) is open to the elements or has a roof. Another thing noticeable is that there were so many truck companies back then, just like the car companies.

On this truck we see that the cab is ope not the elements but for the roof.

It must have been very cold to drive these trucks in the winter.

Notice that the wheels were solid rubber without any inflatable inner tubes.

Also, the rear axle is chain-driven on booth sides of the rear.

I never heard of the truck company Velie until today, when I was writing this post.

It has similar characteristics to the truck above, but it's a dump truck.

Here's an ad for the Duplex Truck Company. I like how this truck gets "5 miles per gallon".

What's more interesting is the fact that this truck has 4-wheel drive.

I'm wondering why it took the car industry almost a century to

develop 4-wheel drive! Once again, the wheels are solid rubber,

without any inner inflatable tubes.

Here's an advertisement from 1929.

By then, there was a roof, doors, and most-likely windows,

making driving in winter more pleasureable!

WHat's interesting is that addresses were so simple back then.

There were no zip or area codes, and things of course were much simpler than today.

Telephone numbers were also simpler. The phones numbers would have 2 letters and 4 numbers such as CR 4235. Again, there are the soiled rubber tires, without inner tubes, and the wheels were often made of wood.

Even the fire trucks were similar in nature to the regular trucks.

Again certainly no "fun" in winter!

Like several of the previous advertisements,

this ad is a hand-drawn illustration, rather than a photograph.

The truck is specialized with an elevated platform to to work at high levels

The truck below is similar to the one above, but its' platform is twice as high.

THe truck was specially designed for maintenance workers who work led on replacing street lamps

high above the streets.

You don't see so many different brands of toys based on the 1910 trucks,

but there are some. In the USA, they were mostly cast iron, while the European imports were

numerous,and were colour lithographed on tin or pressed steel.

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

Monday, November 14, 2016

Beautiful Car Ads from the past

Tuesday, November 14, 2016
Cloudy with Sunny Periods
9 Celsius 48 Fahrenheit

Beautiful Car Ads

From the Past

I was browsing the Internet for old toy cars when one of the search results happened

to be a nice old magazine advertisement for "old cars". I guess the search engine is not yet

100% in its' search results. So from there I decided to do another search for old car advertisements or something to that effect, and these results yielded a website called oldcaradvertising.com. That site had car ads from the 1870's-2000's. The problem here was that the photo were too small to use, and the second problem was to see the original photos, I had to go to ebay. I clicked on one of the photos and arrived at an ebay seller with the moniker (nickname) of 237. I was given permission to use the photos there and that's what I'm presenting for today. 237 also has other magazine pages for sale, but I focussed on the cars.

If you look at the photos, you'll see that the magazine pages are placed on top of a black paper or cardboard. This ebay seller or his photographer certainly know how to photograph magazine pages.If you don't place a black cardboard under the photo, the images and type will come through the back of the page and interfere with the from viewing page.

Please click here to visit ebay seller 237

As you can see if you've browsed the images before reading this, the car ads were for the

people who were well off financially. In the 1920's-1930's wagons were quite low for the average person. And don't forget, the Great Depression hit North America between 1929-1932,as well as the entire world.

The drawings (rarely were photographs used), usually have luxurious settings, with people pressed quite well. Notice that in the screen-capture above and below that theme are wearing a tuxedoes and the man below is wearing a top hat.

The screen-capture below has 2 images. The top image is of a soldier being bestowed a title for his achievements, and "quality of work and service". The type (writing) also refers back and forth from the king and soldiers to the Packard car linking both to "quality of work and service".

The opening words of the type say it all for this advertisement:
"Packard, like its patrons, demands and selects only the best the world provides." In this ad, the two
lades are being shown a luxurious coat in a "fancy" shop, as you can tell from the interior furniture, and the well-dressed salesman.

ladies

Once again, there is that association of well-to-do people dinging out, and the luxurious limousine
with an open-air driver seat for a chauffeur. Cars like these were very expensive, considering the "average" person was earning for the 1920's was about $1300.00 US in the United States, while a car like the one below was probably about $5000-$6000.00.

Below is an actual photograph. It's in colour, but there was no colour film in the 1920's!

I assume that the photo was hand-coloured with transparent oil paints, then photographed to yield 3 colour-separations for the printing (like the lithography of tin toys in those days).

Once again, the emphasis is on well-dressed and probably earning a good salary

in order to afford even an economical Ford Car.

Below is an ad for a car company called "Century". The people in the car are again well-dressed.
THe theme of this advertisement is that the "Century" car is in demand around the world, and you can see one of these cars being loaded on to a shop.

The Dodge Brothers car below is again set in a nice area probably a hotel or fancy restaurant. The type is discussing the extra power that this car has, and the fact that this car is very luxurious.

Looking at these photos makes you realize that most people at these times did not have cars. But at least they could afford to buy toy cars (cast iron or pressed steel, or lithographed tin) for their children. You could say, that these families did have a car "of sorts!".

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

Have a great part of the day or night,

Wherever you may be.

toysearcher@gmail.com

Stacey Bindman