A Fine Dutch Toy Seller

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

A Fine Dutch Toy Seller 

 Last Friday was my birthday, and my younger brother, sister and brother-in-law were coming in from out of town. I had decided in advance to write to many people so that I would be able to have permission to prepare and write my week's worth of posts in advance. The idea worked well, and I was able to post in great time, so that I could spend more time with my bother, sister and her husband.  I also heard from several other people, and was thus able to move into this week with my first written post.

  Mr. Pieterjan van den Berg is a Dutch seller who has been collecting for the last 30 years. He's now decided to sell many of his items in his collection. I've been contacting European  people on ebay because I haven't been able to get permission from auctioneers, except from the fine auctioneer - Bonham's and then mostly for their auctions great auctions of toy soldiers.  It's interesting that one sees many more European toys being sold in North America, but the reverse does not hold true for American toys in Europe. When I say that, I specifically refer to Europeans sellers selling American toys and vice-versa. Also, by contacting Europeans, I 'm able to see and use toys that I haven't seen or yet to see in North America.

Pieterjan wrote back to me and wrote the following:

Hello Stacey, 

Thanks for your interest in my toys on ebay, 

My name is Pieterjan van den Berg and I'm collecting a different kind 

of vintage and antique tin toys, 

from tin wood paper or plastic. 

My collection has tintoy boats mostly Fleischmann, wooden boats of prewar Germany , slotcars prewar Marklin , lionell, and others, tin toy cars from Japan, Germany, China, France and others. Wooden Dutch toys like bridges , carriages and Amsterdam storehouses.

I'm selling a lot of toys to concentrate more on the highlite's in my different collection area.

Regards, 

Pieterjan van den Berg

Please click here to visit Pieterjan's ebay webpage

The  above German carousel  is certainly beautiful in colour and the characters (human and animal) were very nicely drawn before they went to be lithographed. The toy is an early 20th century German windup.

 Pieter likes to use a blue background for his foundation (what he places his toys on).

I decided to "extract" the toys and position them against white. His photography is excellent, and I especially like his selection of camera angles, and the use of"exaggeration" through a wider andgle of view (wide-angle lens).

Pieterjan wrote for this ebay item that this is a rarer toy.He had only seen  one other one in all of the years that he had been collecting toys. The toys had wonderful colours and lithography for the body and the blades.

Pieterjan has a nice selection of Communist Chinese toys circa 1950's-1960's.  I wondered if the USA allowed such items into their country before the thaw in their relations before President Nixon and Henry Kissinger's huge effort to create better relations with China.

For sure, I will be writing another post about Pieterjan's Chinese toys that are currently for sale on ebay. For myself, it's rare that I see pre-Nixon era toys for sale on ebay. Nowadays, as we all know, almost everything is "Made in China" ( I sometimes exaggerate, of course!).

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always, 

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

yoysearcher@gmail.com