Saturday, February 16, 2013

What's New with Dan Morphy Auctions?

Saturday, February 16, 2013


What's New With 
Dan Morphy Auctions?


(Please press on the address above to be redirected to Dan Morphy's fine website)


      Lately, I've been writing about newer die-cast toys, and 3D Printing. The problem however, is that I've been e-mailing the leading companies asking for their permission. I'm particularly interested in in die cast and  large-sized earth-moving and heavy duty machinery. The problem however is that I'm not getting many people to answer!  It's a bit frustrating!

    So this morning, I thought I've return to my trusted "for-sure" sources and see what was happening.  James D. Julia is now having one of their fine people scouring the US for future listings, while the other 3 - Dan Morphy, Bertoia Auctions, and Lloyd Ralston have future postings of their auctions. I screen-captured from the later 3 auctioneers today, and will post during the next 3 days. Of course, I will write a post for James D. Julia   similar to today's "past" auction for Dan Morphy.

    What I found interesting were several things. The first was that there were items that I had not seen before or had passed over. Secondly, some items amount the auctioneers were contemporary (not old),and were bringing in what I thought were great prices. Of course the items were fine quality and in excellent condition (you'll see today in the train engines). Of course, I don't include final winning bids, so you'll have to go to the specific auctioneers websites.

All of the items presented today were just from 1 auction: 
Tuesday, January 8, 2013


    I can't remember playing with sand buckets as a kid, but I have played 
with them with my friends children.

  These 2 toys are so entrertaining and cleverly-designed.
I think the way the seesaw toy works is that dry sand falls into the backer causing 1 side to tilt.
Thjis them causes the other side of the seesaw to be positioned under the cone-shaped filler. Then it drops sand, fills up and tilts. At the other end, the dry sand will then slowly slide out. Is that clever or what! 

 I'm sure that every sportsman, kid taking lunch to school, or blue-collar workman had a lunch pail and thermos. We had a few in our house, but used them mostly when we wen fishing. I was always amazed at how hot coffee could remain so hot even after 3 hours of being on the lake till evening. My father always liked to fish till sunset  hoping to catch that "big one".

     My sister had a few dolls, but never a Shirley Temple one. Of course, in the 1950's and early 1960's we'd watch Saturday morning cartoons  and old serial movies. And there was Shirley Temple, as cute as she could be. Later Spanky and Our Gang, and the Keystone Kops were also shown.

My sister never had these, and when she was young enough to have them, we would never have had the room for them. 


These are "Still Banks" That's just a term to differentiate them from the mechanical banks that move or throw pennies into the storage bank area. I'd never seen them before until today.



Of course, either my brother or sister had one of these. A Pez dispenser to release 1 piece of candy at a time. These are relatively modern toys. But who would have thought that 50-60 years later, with the amount that these dispensers fetch at auction, you could have bought a 2 year supply of Pez candies in the 1950's?

The above crane is modern-era (Contemporary). I have seen old original models made 70-80 years ago. I assume that if the company went out of business, and nobody bought e defunct company or the trademarks or patents to the toy, then it's a "free-for-all" . What I mean by that is that anyone if free to make reproductions and sell them. This particular item went for an excellent price, even for a "newer" era toy!

What's gong to prove interesting in the next 15 years is the 3D printer which I write about this week.
As the prices drop, and software or 3D laser scanner drop in price, anyone with a moderate amount of money will be able to make any kind of toy in his house! I'm meeting with a interesting model builder in 2 weeks, and was going to talk "old toys with him. However, he gave me "homework" - to research 3D printers for our interview. He's very interested in this technology. 



Another modern-era toy that yielded an excellent price at auction.
The zip code and bar code helps to date the era of the toy.

What surprised me about the "Pennsylvania" train is that it appears to be electric. I'm aware that most trains in Europe are electric,but in the USA, I thought that they were all first coal,
then diesel fuel.



I haven't seen many tin toys, although there are many. What I like about tin is that it is easy to hammer from an iron template, and machine.


     I'm glad that I decided to check out my 4 highly-valued auctioneers who have given me their permission to use their photos. In the short time that I haven't written many posts about their toys, I was amazed to find items that were both interesting, and caught me off-guard with their final winning bids.

Thanks for dropping by,

and have a  great weekend, 
wherever you may be.

Stacey


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