More Zeppelins

Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Overcast, light snow to freezing rain, warm.

More Zeppelins

Yesterday's post  was about Zeppelins.What was interesting about the search was that there were so many different zeppelins on Liveauctioneers from so many different toymakers. Also,you need to do another search using the word "blimp" to find even more. What I lied about searching for zeppelins was that the manufacturers added some "poetic license" to their designs.The term "poetic license" simple means to mean away from the norm. So when you do a search on Google or Bing,or go to Liveauctioneers, you will amazed at how many different toy zeppelins you can find.

Please click here to visit this very interesting American auction company's website

Relatively speaking, toy zeppelins are not expensive compared to other old or antique toys. I had seen dan Morphy's latest zeppelin sale below, and eventually decide dot add some posts about these most fascinating original airships,and of course toys.

The one is the most expensive of all the listings by Morphy Auctions on Liveauctioneers.

What amazes me is just how huge these airships were., and the one below gives you a great idea just how large. The toy itself is long,measuring 26" or 660  mm. When you imagine people being in the front compartment (gondola) you get an idea of the scale (relative size). 

The cast iron zeppelins always bring a smile to my face. There's such a contraction her win terms of having a lighter than air airship made of cast iron which is so heavy!

As a child of 8 years old, I had a Meccano (Great Britain) set.  My parents kept buying me different toys all the time, that I never "specialized" in any one genre. Had I took an interest in Meccano or A.C.Gilbert, I would have wanted either the Meccano auto sets, or the zeppelin set below.

The wood base (below) measures 53"  or 1.365 M.

Now that's a toy to assemble!

As you can see from yesterday and today's post, there are no toy toys alike.

This toy is interesting because it combines an earlier "lighter than air" hot air balloon with the later lighter than air toy - the zeppelin.

The description for the toy below says "string operated", but I have no idea how it works.

AS a toy, both the upper zeppelins and this one would most likely be not to scale.I doubt if a zeppelin of this length could actually carry such weight. Of course, these were toys, so the criteria for "accuracy" wasn't necessary.

I like the contrast of the airplane with the airship and the inclusion of the Empire State Building.

At one time,that was the largest building in the world. However,when I look at this toy's photo,I keep seeing "king Kong" climbing the building, with that airplane attacking him!

Don't ask me why!

My favourite small toy is Tootsietoy (with apologies to Dinky toy fans). I first saw the Tootsietoys on ebay, and clamoured to buy and resell as many as I could.I never had the chase to buy the top zeppelins or the bottom Buck Rogers toys.

The 2 silver zeppelins worked with 2 guidelines on their tops.A string was tightened across the room or outdoors, and by gravity, the toy would descend along the length of the string.

THis is certainly a nice tabletop toy that would have fascinated very young children. I like the children who are seated against the vertical blue column and the three pairs of children riding under the miniature zeppelins.

Not to scale, but a 2-5 year old would never know this

and I'd never tell them either!

It's almost  06:00 a.m.in the morning and today's weather forecast is for snow changing to freezing rain. Not a day for  going somewhere in a Zeppelin. You would have to take a train!

Thanks for dropping by and as always,

have a great part of the dy or night,

wherever you may  be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com