Friday, April 26, 2013
The Chad Valley Co. Ltd. Toy Company
History
Two days ago, I wrote about the EmeraldCityToys company. It's a great old toy seller, and I found the website to be superbly designed and engineered. As well, there were plenty of interesting old toys that I had not seen before. One of the toy companies was the Chad Valley Co. Ltd. from Great Britain. Needless to say, I did a search on Liveauctioneers, and found lots of nice toys from them.
The history of the company goes back to 1860 having started with other companies. However,flash forward to 1920 and a merger occurs between 3 toy companies, and the name of Chad Valley is used. The name derives from a local a local brook (small stream) in Wellington (Salop) , Great Britain. The company ket acquiring other toy companies along the way. Interestingly, in 1938, the company was granted a Royal Warrant of Appointment - Toymakers to Her Majesty the Queen. I assume that receiving this is a fine commendation as to the quality of the company at the time. However, I do remember seeing plenty of such labels on many foods to be seen in gourmet shops in the late 1950's-1960's. There were fancy jams, and other foods such as smoked salmon and so forth. I always wondered if the Royal British family got all of those foods, clothing, and so forth freely.
For today, I'm only concentrating on the lithographed tin toys that the Chad Valley Co. Ltd. manufactured in the 1930's-1940's. They also made outstanding bears, and games. Eventually, in 1988, the company was acquired by the Woolworth (USA) company, and that's where my history of the company stops.*
*www.moorpool.com/moorpool.ra/history/Chad%20Valley%20Toys%20A%20Short%20Story.pdf
Busses
Obviously, I screen-captured and Photoshopped identical toys. However,I decided to leave the 2 items in the post.
What's interesting to see are 2 things:
1. How 2 toys ended up being photographed under different lighting.
As a consequence, 1 is more yellow than the other.
2. Notice also, how an important feature is missing from the first set of photos - the ticket taker.
I'm sure most of the bidders didn't miss the photo, but collector "purists" would have studied this particular listing to see if this was an important toy that might have been missing from their collection!
I just adore the lithographed bus passengers.
1. The lady with the bunny rabbit!
2. The pipe smoker on the bus!
3. Everyone is wearing a hat!
The third feature would help a collector narrow in on the possible time that the toy was made.
Of course, the "lithographed tin" further helps to narrow in on the date the toy was made. I don't ever remember seeing these outstanding biscuit containers/toys in Canada. I do remember soda crackers coming in tin cans, and there raisin cookies that were paper-boxed in a lion cage.
Oh, oh, I duplicated the toys again. The interesting thing here is that true collecotrs like to have the original box that the toy came in. So if you compare the 2 boxes in the top and bottom sets of photos, I would imagine that the bottom one fared better at auction. Of course, there are always plenty of other factors that decide the final price at auction.
Notice the words " By Appointment Toy Makers To H.M. The Queen". What I especially like about the many Chad Valley is all the detail! I especially like the 4 red gas containers on the side.
In this toy, the rear door also opens to reload the biscuits, although,I'm sure children and parents would load the inside of the toy with smaller toys.
This toy is similar to the red bus with the lady with the rabbit.
I wonder which of the two (red or blue) was rarer?
Cars
As you are able to see, the Chad Valley company must have been a successful company at the time. They certainly made very interesting and current toys modelled after the types of vehicles of the time.
I decided to end this post with the trio of toys shown above. Here are 3 biscuit containers that parents could place their biscuits in. Of course, the question would have been (in a British accent) - "Mamma, or mommy, can you please tell me in which can are the ginger cookies?"
I laughed to myself when I wrote that last sentence. I hope you also got a "chuckle".
Thanks for dropping by,
and as always,
have a great part of the day,
and a nice weekend,
wherever you may be.
Stacey
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