A New Discovery - Uebelacker Tin Ships

  Sunday, July 27, 2014
Thunder, lightning, overcast and rain

A New Discovery

Uebelacker Tin Ships

    Lately, I've added a few post for a marvellous auction from Bertoia Auctions that will be occurring on September 19-20, 2014 of this year. The collection that is up for sale has an amazing array of toys that I haven't seen before. For today's post, there is in fact 1 of these Uebelacker ships for sale. I decided to add the others from previous auctions to talk about the fine true antique tin ships of the early 1900's.

   I haven't as yet been able to find much information on this manufacturer from Germany. The toys were made of tin and hand painted. The larger-sized toy boats (ships) would have wind-up mechanisms and would be self-propelled with their rear driven propellers. Te company produced  their toys in the early 1900's.

Please click here to visit this fine American Auctioneer

Coincidentally, the Uebelacker ship below is the one that I discoed for among the many toys slated for the September 19-20, 2014 auction. It also happens to be the largest and most ornate of today's presentation.

The length is a massive 21" (533 mm), and it's clockwork (wind-up driven with a key winding application. What's most beautiful are the hand-painted die cast figures, and the fine curtain detail that appear on the upper deck cabin just behind the smokestack. There also is a fine detail of a stairway leading to an observation deck. Notice also the merman ( or is it a mermaid) on the front of the bow.

The Uebelacker toys sometimes came in a set, as you can see above. These toys would be placed on park lakes and allowed to float around. Eventually they'd come ashore and be collected, or parents could wade into the shallow lakes with rubber boots and retrieve them by hand .

( I think I once saw a photo of this)

This nicely coloured toy came with a small dog that would have been at the stern (rear) of the rowboat. When the toy was wound with the attached red key in front of the boy, the oars would move back and forth to simulate the rowing .

I had originally intended to write a few posts on the Uebelacker toys, but decided to combine all of today's images into one post.

What interesting about the 3 boats below is that  they are in fact all similar. Many companies (even today) will use the same basic toy,then change either the colours or the features.

With the there boats below, you can see difference sod:

1. Passengers or no passengers

2. Paddlewheel or none

3. Canopy or no canopy

4. Differences in the country of origin flags.

1. The top flag is of course Germany

2. The red and white horizontal flag is an old flag of Rhenen (The Netherlands).

It's also the flag of Indonesia and Monaco. 

Would this  flag have represented Monaco at the time?

3. The bottom flag is that of the USA (United States) . 

At the time, the USA had 45 stars on the flag.

Today was a fine post about a newfound European (Germany) manufacturer. I also learned and hopefully will remember the name of the manufacturer - Uebelacker. I certainly spelled his name plenty of times!

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