Cast Iron Racers-Part 1-The Arcade Bullet Racer

Thursday, September 11, 2014
                    Cloud with rain and colder

Cast Iron Racers 
Part 1
The Arcade Bullet Racer

   It's  quite early for the Indy 500 race, (Indianapolis 500), but I decided to write about the beautiful cast iron race cars of the 1920's-1930's. I'm starting off alphabetically with Arcade, and will continue in the near future with several other manufacturers.  

 I've updated this post as of September  13, 2014 to reflect my change of this post to reflect more of the racers from other manufacturers of the time. This post was only seen by 8 people in 2 days, and I'd like to share the other fine racers, and of course try and have more people read and view this post. When I add the other posts next week, I'll add links to them and backwards to this post.In this way,  it will be easy to move back and forth to see these most beautiful toys.

   The Arcade Manufacturing was one of the largest American cast iron toy manufacturers in the 1920's-1930's, They were renowned for their toy cars, and one of these were their racers, specifically the bullet racer.  As I was searching for examples of this racer, several interesting self-observations came to me. First, I look more at the photos than at the writer description. What I miss in doing so are the details of the toys. As it turned out, Arcade made several variations of the bullet racer, both 
in size, wheels and tires, and  the number embossed on the racer. As well, Arcade made several other racers that could easily be mistaken for the specify bullet racer.  

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The racer on the right is the smallest sized bullet racer from Arcade.

There are no racing numbers embossed on it, and no nickel-plated exhausts mounted to the sides.

The wheels are nickel-plated disc wheels.

The yellow Arcade Bullet racer below is the medium-sized model.

This one had nickel-plated drivers, and nickel-plated exhaust pipes mounted to the sides of the body.

The tires are white rubber, and the racer is embossed with the number "9". The highlights are the hood are painted in black.

 Of course, most toy companies of the time produced toys in different colours, and the Arcade M) mm in length, but painted in red, with gold trim on the  sides and top of the front body. 

The wheels are nickel-plated disc wheels, and the number "9" is embossed on the back end sides of the racer.

On the red model below, notice that the wheels are spoke wheels, 

while the top model has disc wheels.

 I always wonder why a manufacturer might have 2 different variations of tires and wheels for the same toy. In the case of the green and red Bullet racers below, notice that the green model has nickel-plated disc wheels,while the red model has  white rubber tires mounted or red-painted metal wheels. Both have the familiar 2 nickel-plated drivers, the riveted nicks-plated side exhaust pipes.

This largest model at 10 1/2"  (267 mm) has huber "7" embossed on the rear tail, and also has a transparent windshield. 

I'm insure of the top green model had an amber-coloured windshield or had aged and turned colour over time. The lower red model had a cear windshield. I didm;t adjust the expose of the windshield so it appears grey,but in fact is truly clear and brighter.

I also noticed while typing that I mistakenly converted the length of  10 1/2"  to 167 mm instead of 267 mm. I'll correct that later.

Of course, if you looked very fast at most photos, you'd never notice even more differences among the same models or even different model racers. 

I debated (with myself) whether I should include the models below, and decided to include them. These are not bullet racers. Nevertheless, they are quite nice. There are no exhaust pipes riveted or embossed on the racer sides, no numbers on the back body or tail, and the drivers are part of the casting, rather than being separate, nickel-plated and probably screwed into the body. THe tires are rubber and came in white.

One small note:  I always copt the descriptions as they are or slightly might add a repeating term (e..g. nickel-palting). In the case examples of the light blue and  red cars, I',m quite sure the lengths of both cars are the same, although in the original descriptions one is written ad 7 5/8" (172 mm) while the other is 8" (203 mm). I't s a small mistake,and would not affect the bidding at auction.

The orange model below is totally different altogether in size and design.

There is a single driver, embossed side exhaust pipes, and black rubber tires.

And just one final note, if I haven;t tires you out already with the lengthy writing for today.

Since I select only toys from each day's post, I do miss out on other toys and models to be include in a post. I'm sure there are some models I left out, but the Bullet Racers are very well covered by Bertoia Auctions in today's post.

It's now time to walk Buddy, our miniature Poodle. I find that because I'm retired and stay home a fair part of the day, he sticks to me like glue (nothing wrong here0. However, he needs more stimulation, so I'm taking him to a local dog park to mingle with his friends.

Please click here to go to part 2 of this series

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always, 

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com