Thursday, June 19, 2014

Lloyd Ralston's Upcoming Auction June 21 (2014) - Part II

Thursday, June 19, 2014
             Sunny and warm 


Lloyd Ralston's Upcoming Auction June 21 (2014) 
 Part II

   Yesterday (June 18, 2014), I posted Part I of a 2-part post about the upcoming auction at Lloyd Ralston (USA). The 2 sons of the late Lloyd Ralston now manage the fine auction house. They always have lots of interesting toys for sale, and I especially like the smaller toys. For the upcoming auction, there are many Tootsietoys, and lots of Dinky toys. Dinky manufactured toys first in Great Britain, then later also in France. The toys are still made, and there are lots and lots and lots of Dinky toys around today all over the world.

   What I like about old toys, and especially the Dinky toys is that they present to you an encapsulated version of how things were back in time. That's what I like about old toys in general. You get to remember things form your past, and you get to see things that you never saw before your time.


I've never seen this Dinky toy before. I like the brass-coloured (or is is brass) bell 
and the 6 firemen inside the truck. 

While I was sleeking toys for today, I noticed that Dinky did something similar to Tootsietoy.
They used the same truck model but added different decals to the chassis. As well, they, of course painted the truck in different colours. Tootsietoy didn't do this as much, and their  custom-labelled toys fetch high prices at auction. I once came across a famous Canadian department  store (The T.Eaton Company) on ebay.

 What I found interesting with this coupe was the fact that the bumper was made of tin.
Also, the description indicates that there is "1 die cast pop", which I don't know what that means. 

Once again, we see that the bumper is tin.
I like the red -tipped black pole to the side of the car. 
I think that was for people hailing the taxi to know whether the taxi was carrying passengers or was free to take on new passengers.

As you read the descriptions, you read that some of the Dinky toys have cracks.
I once received a poorly-packaged Tootsietoy that arrived in a 100 pieces!
It also had lots of cracks, which I later found out could be from impurities in the pouring of the molten alloy of metals into the mould. Over time, the metal composite reacts with air and become brittle.

 If you're about my age (65), you must have seen 1930's and 1940's war movies.
For sure, you would have seen a car like this in the movies being chased by the "bad guys"!

The green covering of this truck is made of metal, while the rest of the truck is die cast.
The front radiator and headlights appear die cast as well.


Here's a beautifully restored truck.
If you enlarge these photos in Blogger slide show mode, you'll see the detail that is elevated on the sides of the truck and on top. I like details, and you get to see how the original truck must have appeared all those years ago.

As you read the descriptions, you get to read  some descriptions things like the toy was repainted or was repaired. In past times, kids and people kept things and tried to fix or repaint them. Unlike today, we simply through the item out and buy a new one. Either the old one is too costly to repair, or there is a "new and improved" version available. 

I remember when my wife and I moved into our house. The house had a swimming pool and the previous owner left a fantastic vacuum head that attached to the suction hose. It broke, and I tried to get it repaired or replaced. I never did! We've purchased newer suction heads over the 20 years that we've lived in our house, but never did we get a replacement that matched that first one!

Of course, you're probably wondering if it's with bidding or buying a cracked or repaired item.
The answer varies, but in some case if the item is very rare, it still has great value. Also the decision rests with the individual. If I was a collector, I would be collecting for what I like, rather than what I could resell the toys for.

Thanks for dropping by,
and as always, 
have a great part of the day or night,
wherever you may be.
Stacey
toysearcher@gmail.com