The 1912 Bing Steam Engines

Saturday, October 12, 2013
      (Long Thanksgiving Weekend)
  (Yet Another Excellent Autumn Day)

The 1912 Bing Steam Engines

   It's been said that North American students are not entering the science at university and that we're falling behind  the Asians. I cant say what the stats were 100 years ago or even 50 years ago. I do know that when the Nobel Prices are awarded at this time of year, most of the awards do go to North Americans. I'll be presenting more posts on the 1912 Bing Catalogue. What's interesting is that whereas I though Bing made mostly "regular" toys such as cars and tricks, their catalogue seems more like a Fisher-Scientific (America) catalogue. It's filled with lots of hands-on learning toys such as telegraph machines, experiment boxes,electric motors, and today's topic - steam engines.

   What's interesting about steam engines is that they are still popular as ever (more so in Europe) and they're most interesting in terms of design and visual appreciation. I have written about the steam engine in the past,and what is fascinating is that there were  mechanized accessories to have the steam engines run these machines. I'll of course, present another post (probably tomorrow) to show you the wonderful learning toys that Bing and other companies produced.

I'm presenting scanned pages from the New Cavendish book.  I've asked them for permission, even though I am wondering what the copyright laws are. They've copied a catalogue that is from a company no longer in business.So did they just copy it or does someone own the rights to the Bing Company ?

New Cavendish Books

3 Denbigh Road, London, W11 2SJ

I added a written descriptions or left the descriptions on the scanned page.However, I have almost no idea what is being written. I'm sure for those who do have these fabulous learning tools ( notice I didn't say "toy"), I'm sure they know what is written.

I decided to sepia tone the scans to make they more "vintage". And of you're wondering what those watermarks are, they're my logo that I use to try and deter people from using the photos (which aren't really mine).

If I ever read about some local steam engine club here in Montreal having a show to present these machines, I'll be attending for sure. These machines are just unbelievable in prevention, design, and function!

I added another post about how these steam engines were paired with what are called 

"working models". These were accessories that were powered by the steam engines. I won;t say more, but for sure, you will find this post mmost interesting!

Please click here to visit the accompanying post on "working models"

Thanks for dropping by,

and I hope the weather where you are is as nice as the great streak of fine weather that we've been having here in Montreal (Canada) for the last 3 weeks.

Stacey

Please feel free to write to me anytime at

toysearcher@gmail.com