Friday, April 5, 2013

Courtland

Friday, April 5, 2013
Courtland

   I was looking on the Liveauctioneers website when I came across some older toys in great shape.It turn out that they were manufactured by a company called Courtland. This was  another company that this week,  I couldn't find any reference in the book called O'Brien's Collecting Toys (12th Edition). So I went to 2 another site  http://www.jodysattic.com/pages/makermarks, and I found some mention of Courtland. Jody's Attic is quite good at listing many companies that are not listed or mention in O'Brien's. That said, O'Brien's is still a great reference when it comes to mentioning and showing most of the  old American toys  that were once made.

    Courtland as it turned out, was founded in 1944 by  Mr. Walter Reach. He started out making die-cut cardboard toys (with lithographed paper),and then changed to lithographed tin, after WWII.  The company was first located in Camden, New Jersey (USA). , then moved to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (USA).  At the height of its existence, the company's sales (1947) were over  1.5 million dollars,and employed 600 workers.  Sadly, the company closed down in 1954.
Please click on this sentence to be redirected to the fine site of Morphy Auctions





Most of the toys made by Courtland had wind-up mechanisms to make them move. I like the price of  ice-cream for 5 cents!  In those days, ice-cream was ice-cream and not what we have today. 



* I  erred in describing the toys as made from lithographed pressed steel,when if fact they were made from lithographed tin. I'll correct that in the near future.What nice about the toys presented is  that you can find these toys in excellent condition considering most of them are at least 50 years old.









The prices of these toys at auction were not exorbitant, in comparison to some of the other manufacturers of that time period.  What's also interesting is that many of the toys have the Courtland logo on them, making them easy to recognize.


Thanks for visiting,
and have a nice day, wherever you may be. 
Stacey
at

6 comments:

  1. AnonymousMay 14, 2014 at 1:43 PM

    thanks for keeping all the little boys dreams alive bravo

    ReplyDelete
  2. toysearcherMay 15, 2014 at 4:53 AM

    Hello,

    Thanks for dropping by and commenting.

    Stacey

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousApril 4, 2023 at 5:16 PM

    I have searched as well very little about this company.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Laura PierceSeptember 15, 2023 at 11:13 AM

    Still wondering why Walter Reach named his company Courtland Toys. Was it a family, maybe his wife's family name. Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  5. toysearcherOctober 22, 2023 at 8:50 AM

    Hello Anonymous,

    I did a search for the "Courtland Toy Company", but did not find much information.
    Most of the resulots on different websites have almost identical information. They include Walter Reach, and also talk about "die-cut cardboard toys (with lithographed paper),and then changed to lithographed tin, after WWII."

    I hope this helps,

    Thanks for writing,

    (Mr.)Stacey Bindman
    toysearcher@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  6. toysearcherMarch 23, 2024 at 4:31 AM

    March 23, 2024

    Hello Anonymous once more,

    I visited an excellent website that I wrote about:

    https://www.fabtintoys.com/courtland/

    This is an exceptional site for finding information on toy companies.

    They also sell toys.

    Thanks for writing,

    Stacey Bindman
    Blogger of this blog

    ReplyDelete