Sunday, November 11, 2012

The J Chein Toy Company

Friday, November 9, 2012


The J Chein Toy Company
(All Photos courtesy of Bertoia Auctions )

((Please click on the address above to be redirected to the Bertoia Auctions website)

     I've seen J Chein toys on E-Bay, but wasn't attracted to them as much as other toys. Of course, there weren't as many, nor the quality as one finds on sites like Bertoia Auctions, Dan Morphy, or other fine auctioneers. Being uneducated about old toys, I naturally thought that the J.Chein toy company was created by someone of Asian heritage. Wrong! It turns out that Mr. Chein was of Jewish European ancestry.

    I'm running late on blogging, since I want to try and have a post a day. Consequently, I'll return to this post to add information on the company in the future. The J Chein toy company concentrated mainly on mechanical wind-up toys. I always thought that these toys were small, but when I read the brief Bertoia descriptions, I was amazed at how big some of these toys are! What also got my attention is that these toys have kept their condition quite well from when they first came to the market (1920's-1930's). One other characteristic that you can't help but notice and be cheerful about is their  colour. Bold, primary colours that immediately would bring cheer to any child wanting to play with them.

















     From my perspective, the J Chein company  produced 3 classes or types of toys.

     1. Cars, trucks, and airplanes
     2. More mechanical and moving types - Merry-go-rounds
    3.  Cartoon characters

    What's interesting is that this 1 company could focus on such a narrow type of toy- the wind-up, and yet succeed. I guess the old expression" if it's good don't fix it" aptly applied to these fine toys.


Thanks for dropping by, 

and as always,

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

Stacey


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