An Exceptional Collection of Barclay and Manoil Comes to Auction

Monday, December 8, 2014
Variable periods of sun & cloud, very cold

An Exceptional Collection of 

Barclay and Manoil

Comes to Auction

   For the last several days, I've been writing about Gray's Auctioneers. As a blogger who likes to write every day, I have to always be on the alert for  new material to present to you, my viewers.  As chance would have it, last week, I came across an exceptional Auctioneer and Appraiser by the name of Gray's Auctioneers on Liveauctioneers. What initially caught my attention was their very high-quality photography, and photo-editing skills. Not only were the photos large-sized,but there were lots of images for each item listing, close-ups for detail, and nicely-styled arrangements of groups of toys.  BUt what also caught my attention was the fact that there was detail in the highlight and the shadows (brightest and darkest areas), which was done either in studio (difficult), or with photo-editing software.

   The collection that I'm writing about today is from the Provenance (ownership) of Mr. James N. Seidelle. The last couple of days, I was presenting just a few of his fine American mechanical banks.  I'm not exaggerating when I added the word exceptional to the title of this post.  This is the first time that I have seen such a large number of Manoil and Barclay cast iron and lead people and 

armed-service figures presented for auction. But the outstanding merits of the auction listing is to be able to appreciate the quality of the original figures. 

   With superior quality photography, the viewer can actually see up close and personal the expressions and the details of these fine American toys. I've only ever purchase a few of these toys, and they are great. The one I posted about was the motorcycle  policeman, and it's a beautifully-designed piece of art.  If you like art,  and collectibles such as these small figures, they make great artwork if you have a quality framer and artist who can provide you with a nice shadowbox, or carefully sewn items against a background. In this way, everyone can see these items, and you don;t have to worry about them breaking or gathering dust.

Please click here too visit this fine American auctioneer

If you go to ebay, you will rarely see more than 1-4 of these Manoil or Barclay toys up for auction.

It's exceptionally rare to see a whole collection being offered at auction. 

What's even more amazing is the starting price to bid. My bidding finger is "itchy", but ever since ebay started to force sellers to collect taxes directly for the Canadian Government via the USPS, and pressured sellers to ship via ebay Global Shipping, cost to Canadians have risen 50%. 

My bidding finger is in my holster!

I would highly recommend that you have a look at these fine toys on Gray's Auctioneers website. 

Because I started out on Google blogger with a specific format, I am locked in to eternity, and can't use the full page, without affecting the other 975 posts that I've written!

By going directly to Gray's Auctioneers website, you will see much larger-sized photos to explore and examine these fine cast and lead figures.

 The modern 1940's people below are spectacular. And as I mentioned,those motorcycle police are great.Have a look at the spokes on the wheels. It's unique just to see 2 spokes on each of the front and back wheels.

Most of these figures I have not seen before. Because these items are usually sold on e-bay anywhere from one to several, it's hard to start contacting people for permission to blog. As for Liveauctioneers,  it's again rare to see such a diverse and numerous collection going to auction.

I hope that these listings for this collection draws lots of bidders.

You rarely see such a fine collection of these toys such as Mr. Seidelle had collected over the years, 

and I'm sure he's probably sad to see them leave.

I know I would!

Thanks for dropping by, and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com