An Interesting Discovery of the Converse Cars

Thursday, October 24, 2013
             (Start preparing for winter!)

An Interesting Discovery of the 

Converse Cars

   It was cold on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings,and my car had frost on its windows. Winter is coming - ugh! So yesterday I decided to attach the cocoa mats to our riverbed (hard stone) stairs).  The mats are firmer on your boots when walking up the stairs, and  act as a modest barrier when salt has to be added to the stairs when ice forms. For those of you living in warm climates, please invite me for a visit!  While on the subject, cars back in the early years did not have winter tires, nor tubeless tires. I think chains had to be attached to the wheels, and they had inner tubes. This sounds like more complications that my stairs!

   While perusing through Liveauctioneers, I saw some nice Converse automobiles. Converse was an American toy company in the early 20th century teens. They made some very nice trollies (streetcars), trucks, and cars. As I looked at one of the Converse cars, I noticed that one  interesting characteristic of them was the fact that their headlights and side lanterns were made from wood. That certainly was a deviation from the norm of the time, when most of these parts were made of pressed steel. And if you looked at my previous posts on the European cars, you'd have noticed extremely elaborate and ornate headlights and lamps. I don't know why this decision was made, but it would be most interesting to know. What's more interesting is the fact that the parts have stayed with the cars for all these years. Another question that I'd like to have answered was what type of wood was used?

Please click here to visit Bertoia Auctions fine website

Notice how the windup key goes through the canvas roof. You can;t see it, but there is a round grommet (rivet) that the long shafted key goes through. I added the toy below to show you that the canvas roof could be turned down .

THe fine example above was professionally restored and certainly presents itself beautifully.

I kept the name of Gottshalk in the Bertoia description. Mrs. Gottshalk was an outstanding collector and author of antique toys, who also had a fabulous collection of toys. I like how the front headlights are drooping! The description indicate that the above car was a non key wind version (I added pull toy). However, I wonder what that round hole is in the front of the grill.

There's that small hole in the grill again. What is that? 

Questions, questions!

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always, have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com