Ferries

Monday, October 7, 2013

Ferries

     I was looking for something else, when I thought of the expression "by land, sea or air". I then thought of ferries, and decided to do a search. I've been on 4-5 ferries in my life. Once as children, we took (with my parents) a ferry to cross Lake Champlain from  (Burlington Vermont) to Plattsburgh (New York) in the U.S.A. I've taken a ferry across to Martha's Vineyard with my wife Heidi. I've also used a 4 car ferry to cross one of the rivers near Montreal. There is a ferry that crosses the Saguenay River at Tadoussac (Quebec) that empties into the Saint-Lautent river (Quebec). The span across this river is not far, but because of the very fast river, at the time only a ferry was possible, as compared to a bridge.   Then my last ferry crossing was from Vancouver to Vancouver Island. Because Vancouver Island is very large and has a large population, there is a huge system of ferries to transport people across. The ride takes about 2 hours, and there must be at least 10 ferries that each transports about 200 cars!

    I was surprised to not find very many old and different ferry toys. I'll check in the future and see if any other auctioneers have sold other types and brands.  Bing (Germany) made several models, as did Wolverine (USA). Of course, the Bing ferries went for a lot more at auction than did the Wolverines, but I was surprised at how low the Wolverine toys sold for ($ 150.00 - $ 250.00 US), since they were made well and are almost as old. Then there was a new company by the name of  Walbert.

Please click here to visit the fine website of Bertoia Auctions

The Bing ferry above is my favourite.  I could imagine a real ferry looking like this, and I especially like the simulated glass skylights on the roof. I also like the colour scheme.

I just noticed the wind-up key  in the above model. So the question for me is: Did the Wolverine company make 2 models of ferries? One a pull toy, and the other a wind-up self-moving toy?

What's interesting about the Walbert ferry is how it so closely resembles the Wolverine model or vice-versa.  So this poses another question. Are the 2 companies related in the sense that one owns the other, or is this a case of "let sleeping dogs lay" in terms of allowing each other to produce a toy that so closely resembles the other. I have seen this before, and always bring up my Apple-Samsung lawsuit over patent infringement.  In the lengthy lawsuit, one of Apple's points about the copyright infringement of their IPhone was the "rounded corners" that Samsung had "copied" to their cell phone. Imagine! Apple won their lawsuit in the USA, but not in Europe.

If you've never taken a ferry ride, you might want to try one.  You can select a slow or fast one depending on the distance to cross and the size of the ferry.  There's lots to see on a ferry if you're a curious person like me, and you can meet some interesting travellers. Of course, if you are prone to seasickness (like my wife), ferry-crossing may not be for you.

Thanks for dropping by,

and have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com