Buffalo Toys Racers

Wednesday, December 16, 2014
Cloudy, snow showers (rain and snow),warmer

Buffalo Toys Racers

   I found the photos for today's post a few days ago. This was on the same day that I found the Buffalo (animal) Gong Bell toys. If you read that post, you would have known what I just wrote. The Gong Bell Buffalo toys was my first "sad" story, but today,  posting is back to normal.

  The Buffalo Toy company was located in Buffalo, New York, USA. At one time the city of Buffalo has the most millionaires of any American city. It was quite a prosperous city,and had all kinds of businesses to have the title of "most millionaires". 

  One of the types of toys that the Buffalo Toys company  made in the 1930's was the racing car. At the time, the automobile had evolved over a period of 2 1/2 decades (25 years), and one of the things people wanted to do is see how fast they could build a car. So, as with popular "real" things (airplanes, cartoon characters,fire trucks, cars and racing cars as examples),  many companies build the toy racing car or the toy speed record car of the day. I've written about these cars before with the famous Malcolm Campbell, who later was knighted (Sir Malcolm), at the steering with his super fast car, the Blue Bird. One of the places where land-speed record cars were meant to be tested was at Daytona Beach (Florida, USA).  There was lots of flat ground with lots of sand for cars to be able to drive fast.

Please click here to visit this fine American Auction Company

One of the unique features of the Buffalo Toys toys was the way the toys were activated to move.At the back of the toy was a ring that you placed your finger or fingers into. You pulled this ring, and it activated (probably a friction wheel) to allow the toy to move. You can see the patent page screen-capture. 

If you go to the link below and type in the link (or copy and paste it)

you will be able to read the full patent at the United Stated Patent and trademark Office:

Just type in the top left empty space the patent #: 1,914,428

Please click here to visit the Unitied States Patent and Trademark Search Page

Interestingly, at the time (1930's and slightly earlier) race cars had an accompanying rider. His job was to help with the navigation and repairs to the car. I'm "guessing" that the car below was a car for breaking long-distance records rather than being the fasted car in the world records.

The  "real"land speed short distance race cars were very long at the time. Consequently, the toys were also. If you read the length of the two toys below, these are very long, measuring 25" and 20"   (635 mm and  508 mm) respectively. 

So even with a toy,you needed a long and wide place to be able to race these toys.

With the  two toys below,notice how the ring at the back of the racer has been replaced with a knob.

 The "Blue Bird" below was the toy that Sir Malcolm Campbell's race car was modelled after.

To be near the "real" car must have been quite exhilarating to fans.The smoke, the noise,and of course the speeds must have created euphoric periods for everyone watching.

I'm sure though, children playing with their land speed record toy cars would have had even more fun. They could play for hours, while the "real  racers" would have made 2 passes back and forth in front of the fans within a certain time limit.

Thanks for dropping by,and as always,

'have a great part of the day or night,

'wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com