Who Made It?

Saturday, October 24, 2014
A beautiful morning with rain forecast  later

Who Made It?

   I always like when readers send me a request asking if I can identify a toy. I'm not an expert, but I can at least do a search and am familiar with where a toy might have been made (Europe or  America) and approximately in what timeframe.  So when Mr. Doug Van Middlesworth sent me  an e-mail with 2 photos, the search began. 

             "Read your blog. Not a blogger myself. Found this toy when I was a boy about 60 yrs ago 

                       in an old home my family bought.  Could you tell me anything about it?"

* E-mail courtesy of Mr. Doug Van Middlesworth.

Below are the two images that Doug sent me. I haven't adjusted them so that you can see how they look like before I correct them .

He sent me large files while are great. In this way, I can see lots of information, 
and it's much easier to work with a photo-editiing software.


That shadow is great, and you'll see later why it's an added benefit!




The first step was to adjust the colour balance.

Then I did my "usual" removal of the foundation and background.

The foundation is a photographic term meaning what an item is resting upon.

Below are 3 points of interest:

1.  The basic overall colour of the horse is gold

2. There are hand painted colours of red and blue representing 

the reins and a red blanket or saddle

3. The wheels have 8 spokes

The first step was to adjust the colour balance.

Below is my usual placement of a toy against a white background

The 3 points to note are:

1. Eureka! In the actual image of the toy, you don't see the narrowing of the horses angles (hooves) in the image. However the shadow clearly shows this. 

This is a small detail, but might prove important in identifyingwho the manufacturer was.

2. I checked out many photos of these toys (pull toys), but couldn't find a match.

What's important to notice is the mane of this particular horse. Most of the horse toys of this era (I'll tell you later) look very similar, and so you have to discern (differentiate) among them. The mane is a good characteristic to compare and contrast one toy from another.

3. Once again, a small but important feature of the horse is important when searching out an exact same toy. The tail is short and smooth with a few impressions for depth.

    I haven't yet found a match to this toy, but here's what I can tell you with some certainty:

1.  The toy is called a pull toy and is most likely American made.

2. It would have been made anywhere from the 1850's-1920's.

3. The horse and young boy made of tin and cast iron wheels.

4. The horse and boy were hand-painted.

5. Horse toys of the time frame that I previously mention are usually very round and smooth. By that I  mean that there are not a lot of impressions to give the horse a lot of muscles showing.  Notice how large the cheeks and neck of the horse are and how smooth they also are.

I'm sure someone out there has the same toy. So if you do have this fine toy, by all means send me your photos, and if can identify the maker and time period, and even have some catalogue scans to add, that would be great!

I'm writing this post early today because it's a nice day, and I have to go and clean the lawnfurniture and bring it into the house.  Then I have to remove the swimming poor cover from the wind-up reel, clean it, and fold it for storage into the house.

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com