Orobr Toys - Part I

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Orobr Toys

(Part I)

   I had to check a couple of times to see if the name "Orobr" was spelled correctly on the Net. I also had to correct my typing several times to get the name correct. Which doing the research for the history of the Orobr toy company,  I came across a fabulous site :

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=41690

   I left the exact address so you could see another nice example of an Orobr toy, as well as to check out their site. I'll naturally write them an e-mail to see if I might write a post about them. By the way, they're in Australia.

www.bertoiaauctions.com

(please click on the above address to be redirected to the fine Bertoia website)

History

   The  name Orobr was actually one of the trademarks of the Oro Works (Orowerke) toy company of Brandenberg, Germany. The owners and partners of the company were Mr. Reil,  Mr. Blechschmidt, and Mr. Mailler. The company manufactured inexpensive, but well-made tin toys both before WWI and again after the war, until 1922. SInce labour was low at that time, the company was quite successful both at selling in Europe and overseas. Surprisingly, for low-cost toys, there were some very complex toys made that had as many as 42 different pieces of tin plate with tabs. The small tabs were made to fit into small slots and then bent to hold together the 2 different pieces. *

* Pressland, David,  "The Art of the Tin Toy", New Cavendish Books, London, England , Great Britain 1976.

   I decided to check the information on the book, as the city was simply written London, and I wanted to be sure that that was London, England, Great Britain. AS it turned it, it was Great Britain, and the book can still be purchased new or used.  However, the publisher turned out to be 

Schiffer Publishing Ltd (1983), so perhaps New Cavendish Books was  acquired by them. It furhter turns out that Mr. David Pressman now has his own publishing company called  "Art of the Tin Toy Ltd." 

His Website address is:    http://www.artofthetintoy.com

     There were so many nice toys made by Orobr, that I decided to create 2 posts for the company. If you haven't been following my blog,you'll notice that the images have a slight  "halo" effect to them.

I started to improve the photographs that I borrow from all of my sources, with their permission of course. Last week, by accident, I was "toying around" (please excuse the punk), when I found the Photoshop layer effect called "inner glow". I'll probably add a post on my other blog:

prophotographylearning.blogspot.com 

    I don't write much on that blog, as it's hard to attract viewers to it. However, I have had the occasional toy viewer to my blog ask me to write bout taking better photos. So if you ever have a request to take better toy photos, or have a toy that you'd like me to improve, by all means please send me an e-mail at my address - toy searcher@gmail.com. 

As always,

thanks for visiting,

and have a great part of the day,

wherever you may be.

Stacey