The Website for Old Toy Advertisements!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012
                         (Blog # 2 of the day)

The Website for Old Toy Advertisements!

    I like old ads.Whether they're on old billboards on old highways, on buildings downtown, or in magazines, I like them. I imagine that in 50 years from now someone my age is going to say, I like those old ads from the 1950's.Of course, when you're living through history, you don't pay as much attention, as later on when you're older. 

   There is so much information out there on the Net, but it takes lots of hard searching to find what you want. And plenty of times, I find interesting toys and information, when I'm not looking! This is the case with Timothy McPherson's fine website - vintageadvertisements.com

   I found this great site a few days ago, and wrote to Timothy for his permission to use his fine photos of these old advertisements. He wrote back with lots of interesting stories, and talked about a great collection of ads that he has. Most of the advertisements were from when buyers would go to trade shows to purchase toys for their stores. Most of his advertisements were not from magazines, so these are very unique posters. I once asked about what happens to movie posters after the movie is no longer in the theatre, and the usher answered that the posters are returned to the distributor and then I guess to the studios!

  For a while, I was trying to match up old catalogue photos of toys with toys that I had purchased or that people who gave me their permission  to use their photos. Today, this is a real "treat" to be able to match up some of my own photos with  with some of Timothy's fine advertisements.

The outdoor ad above was a photo that I took 2 years ago. There had been a fire, and the building was destroyed. I passed the site many times, and then one day decided to photograph it. 

Last year, a developer built a condo on that empty lot and the one adjacent to it, and the old hand painted advertisement is no longer.

http://vintagetoyadvertisements.com
(Please click on the address above to be redirected to Timpthy McPherson's fine site) 

I wrote a post about the Hubley Circus toys.

I couldnl;t believe how many different animals Hubley produced along with the wagons, horses, and cages. I assumed that since 3 of the 4 items were already made, that adding different animals to the cages was not so difficult or expensive.

The last toy at the bottom is a LaSalle.

It's one of the rarer Tootsietoys, so everyone is always bidding on them on E-Bay, and the price of the Lasalles is about 2x-3x the cost of most of the other Tootsietoys. This also includes the Tootsietoy Grahams, which are similar in design and concept (they're take-apart).

The Tootsietoy LaSaslle 

circa 1930's

I'd written about the China Clipper in a previous post.

The Wyandotte toy was modelled after the Pan Am airplane, and naturally was licensed to Wyandotte inorder to produce the toy. The original Pan Am airplane flew from San Francisco to Hawaii, and some U.S. "Territories" to deliver mail,and perhaps had a few passengers also. I'd seen the amphibious  in old 1930's-1940's movies, and was thrilled when I purchased my first Wyandotte China Clipper!