Ives,Blakeslee, & Williams Co. Catalogue - Part II

Sunday, October 10, 2016
Overcast and Raining
17 Celsius / 63 Fahrenheit

Ives, Blakeslee, and Williams Co.

Catalogue Reproduction

(Part II)

Yesterday, I added a post about a catalogue reproduction of an 1893 original. Yesterday's content was exclusively iron pull toys, that would be pulled along the road or sidewalk by a string. Today's entry is about the "mechanical toys" or wind-up toys. These toys once wound up , would be able to move by themselves or feature moving people doing some kind of action, such as dancing, or playing a musical instrument.

The toys below can run in a straight line, or if a part of them are turned, will run in a circle.

The toys below can run in a straight line, or if the front axles are turned, will run in a circle.

Below's toys are more sophisticated in nature. The horses (middle photo) move around in a circle, until there is no more energy, and the winner is the one that lines up with the # 60 on the base of the toy. The cat toy has the animal playing a violin on the top of a house roof.

Below are assorted toys that will perform different actions. The largest one (immediately below) 

has 3 people doing different actions and when wound, will run for 60 minutes.

These American toys  developed after the high-quality and lithographed toys from Europe were imported into the United States. The European were more colourful,as the Europeans, especially the Germans had developed lithography (printing) on metal, and had very sophisticated and multi coloured colour themes.

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)

Page 5 of the 1933 Tootsietoys Catalogue

Tuesday, October 1, 2013
    The exceptional mild weather continues

Page 5 of the 

1933 Tootsietoys Catalogue

(Dowst Manufacturing Company) 

   It's getting to be that time when I have to start taking in all of the summer lawn furniture into the house. I keep telling my wife that we should buy a small 10' x 12' ( 3.048M x 3.657M) storage shed for the back year, and  I keep having to put the furniture into the storage area of our house! Some things (husbands and wives) never change!

   When I started to write about toys, I would buy and sell the,m on E-Bay. I purchased plenty of Tootsietoys because they were inexpensive, but still quite old. I like old design (real or toy), and the Tootsietoys afforeded me the pleasure of seeing them up close. These toys are quite small,hence the name. I'm not adding sizes today, but the average length is about 3 - 3 1/2"  (762mm x 889mm). If you look closely on the back page details, you'll see that a gross (144) of these toys such as the "Mack stake Trailer # 2801 weighed 36 pounds (16.36 KG).   So you can imagine just how many of these small toys were manufactured. In 1933, the US population was 125,578,763*. *http://www.demographia.com/db-uspop1900.htm)

  These wonderful toys were  painted die cast  toys with mostly rubber tires.  On some models, such as the wrecking car # 0806, the metal radiator would be nickel plated.  In the case of the Delivery Motorcycle, the driver would be hand painted. 

Please click here to visit the fine website of the Lloyd Ralston Gallery

You'll notice that there are some variations in colour of the toys from their catalogue sketches. That was usually the case for toys of that era. Colour choices were offered for many of the toys. Of course, for collectors, the rarer the colour, the higher the value - go figure!

I'd rather just have the toy to play with I mean look at with (at 65!).

Thanks for visiting,

and hope that the weather where you are is as nice as here in Montreal. Of course, this weather is like old toys - ina while, they'll simply be a memory.

Have a nice day or night, 

whever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com