Monday, March 11, 2013
The Shimer Cast Iron Toy Company
Yesterday, I wrote about the Wilkins toy company, and decided to continue with cast iron wagons and carts. I find it amazing that so many toy manufacturers in the late 19th century to the mid 1940's were able to produce toys that were so similar, and yet not sue one another. Contrast that with the rash of recent lawsuits like Apple suing Samsung for supposed large copyright and patent infractions, as well as "smaller" ones such as the rounded corners of the Apple's IPhone to that of Samsung cell phone. I was surprised that when Apple recently made their IPad smaller, nobody sued them. Anyway, I digress.
I had to search and search to find out some information about the Shimer Toy Company. As it turned out, the company was in Freemansburg, Pennsylvania, USA, and was called Shimer and Son. The company also produced toy banks. I'll do more research in the future to see what more I can find. An interesting fact also is that many of the cast iron toy manufacturers were in fact established in Pennsylvania. The reason for this seemed to be the abundant availability of iron ore in the area, as well as the craftspeople who could work in the foundries and produce castings.
As I mentioned before, there are many similarities among different toy manfucturers products. In the case of Shimer, there are similarities like the "bucking horse", and the design of a cart or wagon. However, their difference from others seems to be in the use of nickel to plate portions of their toys. What's interesting is that I haven't found that many of the Shimer toys on the Net, specifically on E-Bay and Liveauctioneers. Furthermore, the Shimer toys that I did find were from the mid 2000's, and haven't been seen lately at auction. However, the rarity doesn't seem to have increased the value of these particular toys to other brands. The one toy in this post that did fetch a handsome final bid was the first montage (multiple photo image) of the police wagon below.
(please press on the above address to be redirected)
The small figure above appears to be an Amish boy from the Pennsylvania.
One fact that I forgot to mention is that these toys are called pull toys. A piece of twine or cord would be attached to the front of the toy, and a child would pull the toy along the dirt road or wooden sidewalk. All of the toys are also missing the cord reins that the driver would have in his hands to lead the horses. I guess the auctioneers always leave the toys as found or as remitted to them, and leave it up to collectors to add the missing components.
I'm adding this post on a Sunday, but Blogger doesn't seem toto want to change the posting date to when I actually want to add it (Monday). The reason that I do this is to sometimes try and get ahead,whenever I have others things to do on a certain day. So if you ever have wondered why there are 2 dates at the top of my post page, that's why!
Thanks for visiting,
and as always hae a great morning, afternoon, or evening
wherever you may be.
Stacey
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