Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Unidentified Antique Toy

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Another Request for an UAT
(Unidentified Antique Toy)

Background

Today's post has to do with the identification of another toy. A reader from Brazil by the name of Bruno Ferreira has been corresponding with me to find out the identification of  a recent purchase of an "old" cast iron bus. The reason that I placed the word old in brackets is that for anything to be a true antique, it's supposed to be at least 100 years old

     Bruno wrote to me last week, and his item looked  like I would be able to give him an instant answer.  The reason that I say this, is that I had the same toy in my possession, before I sold it.  Unfortunately, this was going to be a good news-bad news-good news story. The good news was that I had in fact sold one of these. The bad news was that I have both Lightroom and Aperture on my computer, but I never use them! The good news was that I think I identified the manufacturer of the toy!

    I'll just "talk" a bit more before I get to today's post.  Lightroom and Aperture are image-sorting and editing software. What that simply means is that you can catalogue all of your photos together in one place. They're bot great for that role, and there are also about 10 other similar software companies making a similar product. 


                                          
                                        

     I purchased both softwares while I was teaching. I always wanted to be up to date, and like most major software companies, they have "educational pricing". Now that I'm retired, I had to pay "civilian prices". Anyway, I never use both softwares. I find that having a huge catalogue of photos attached to a software with a huge file seems to take a lot of time to load and slow to work with on my  Imac 27" dual 3.06 Ghz with 4 GB Ram and  2 TB  hard drives. That's a mouthful to say!
So I have become "lazy" and have to identify toys by looking at them!

     So I had to search 1 of my hard drives to find the file which is an Excel  spreadsheet. There, I have a brief description of  toy, and a label. All my labels are identified by the date and sequential number of its' acquisition.  So, I finally find the toy identified as 04-28-170, which turned out to have been purchased in 2011. Unfortunately, when I purchased the toy, the seller never ID'd the manufacture, nor was I able to at the time! Now, I only has an old blue cast iron bus of about 5" long!

    What I thought was going to be an easy and quick answer for Bruno, turned out to be NOT! Fortunately, I discovered several great antique sources - Live Auctioneers and  Icollector.




Please click on the above "link"



Please click on the above "link"


     Both icollector and Live Autioneers are excellent reference resources. They both have extensive current and past auctions from many auctioneers or galleries that sell  all classes of  old antique collectibles. These 2 sites, and a few others are where I now go to search for the identification of a particular toy. I've previously mentioned this in another post, but it's good to mention this agin. E-Bay is a good place to bid on toys, but it's very rare that you get to see the elite toys from manufacturers. 

At these 2 sites, and their corresponding antique auctioneer, dealer, or gallery, you will see toys that you've never seen before. AS we,, you can go to a particular auctioneer, enroll, and then bid! Also, I've mentioned that you're dealing with a business who has an entire collection of toys to be sold, and who is more reputable and honest.On E-Bay, although most of its members are reputable and honest, there always is the "bad apple". A dealer cannot afford to have a bad reputation!


The Story

      Bruno Ferreira, the  reader from Brazil, sent me the 2 photos below.




Both photographs are well-photographed. I like the "selective-focus" that adds a style to the photos. 


I checked on my item  # 04-28-170, and it didn't have the name of the manufacturer.
Those are my photos above.

    What's interesting is that I checked for more photos of that toy, and I didn't have any more!
At that time in April of 2011, E-Bay let you have 1 free listed photo, and the rest cost 15 cents  U.S. each or a "package" for $ 1.60 U.S. So listing 20 toys every month cost quite a bit, and ate into my tiny profits, if I had profits at all. 

    So what I did was to combine 2-5 photos and upload to e-Bay as a single photo. I was able to save at least 20 x $ 1.60  = $ 3.20 U.S.  each month.In July of 2012, E-Bay changed the "rules", and now offers 12 free photos for each listing, as well as their being able to be magnified.

   Now I had 4 photos of the UAT (Unidentified antique toy)- 2 of mine and 2 from Bruno. Also, I had to write Bruno again, as we didn't have any undercarriage (inside) photos to see of there were any numbers, letters or manufacturer's name hammered into the metal! I e-mailed Bruno again, and he took more photos and sent them back to me.


        Bruno sent me a side-by-side comparison  of  2 toys - his photo and a listed one from  Mosby and Co. Auctions posted on Live Auctioneers

Copyright 2012 Photo Courtesy  of Mr. Bruno Ferreira
Please do not Copy without the Written Permission of Mr. Bruno Reffeira


 Here's what Bruno wrote me:

"I am sending more information and pictures about my first bus. On the right side there is one number "5"mark, and one "7S"or "72" mark on the left side. As we use the metric system here, it has 13 centimeters length that means about 5" length. And 1.6" width, 1.8" height.  I think I bought an AC Williams, not an Arcade, but the mystery remains. For sure I can tell you the price ! I payed 50 usd + 12 usd shipping cost." 


"Hello Stacey !

Thanks for the book suggestions. Did you read a book about Arcade Company written by Al Aune ? I bought it last week and i am very anxious to read it. 

I have been buying my toys at Ebay. Most of sellers were very helpful to send them to Brazil. The only negative point is the shipping cost. Even the cheaper one is very expensive. Do you think live actioners has better offers than Ebay? I read your post about their offers at the 27th action. There were some amazing toys!

I am sending more information and pictures about my first bus. On the right side there is one number "5"mark, and one "7S"or "72" mark on the left side. As we use the metric system here, it has 13 centimeters lengh that means about 5" lengh. And 1,6" width, 1,8" height.  I think i bought an AC Williams, not a Arcade, but the mistery remains. For sure i can tell you the price ! I payed 50 usd + 12 usd shipping cost. 

Brazil has a great number of toy collections, especially from the 60's until today. After soccer Brazilian loves cars, and most of them has one small toy car at office tables or at home.The market for new toys is very big, but for the old toys is very new and amateur. There isn't anything about 1920 to 1940. And the market for old things is increasing a lot. Besides toys I am developing a great market here for old jukebox, gas pumps, and many other stuffs to explore. 

Its a pleasure to have a new instalment in your blog about Brazilian toys. As everything is very new for me, i just need some more time to study, and prepare great text, with information and pictures. Thanks for the oportunity.

Nice week to you

Bruno"

   
Bruno will be sending me a narrative and photos in the future, so that he can be a guest on my blog. I'v been fortunate and thankful to the several companies and readers who have been helping me out in the last 2 weeks. I've been able to continue my blog, and of course, I can try and he;lp the readers or companies with people who read my blog and might go visit the sites of these sam people.  However, my blog only receives between 40-140 page views per day. However, the average has now increased to about 70 -80 , so my readership is increasing!  I also, always make sure to not be counted on the readership. This can be done in Blogger!


 However, I did do a search, and did found the name of the manufacturer. It is a Hubley!  I don't have the name of the auctioneer on hand, but I will add it if I can find it again.





Bruno's  e-mail address is above, and that is a "link". So if you can corroborate  (authenticate) what I wrote, then that would help Bruno. Simply press on the address, and your Mail program will come up on your screen.

So thanks for dropping by.

And as always, have a great morning, afternoon, or evening
wherever you may be.



















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