An Exceptional Collection of Restored Old Toys Comes to Auction

Sunday, January 4, 2015
Overcast, freezing rain, mild temperatures

An Exceptional Collection of 

Restored Old Toys Comes to Auction

  There's a fantastic collection of Mostly restored old toys from the pressed steel era of the United States (Circa 1920's-1940's). Morphy Auctions (Mr. Dan Morphy) will be conducting the sale on  January 24, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada (USA). You can view these beautifully restored toys either on Liveauctioneers or on the Morphy Auctions website.

   I always wonder what old toys would look like when they came off the assembly line so many years ago,and I even am tempted from time-to-time to "restore" the photos in photo-editing software (with the auctioneer's permission of course). So to see so many toys restored as they might have looked so many years ago,is a real "treat"! I'm going to send Morphy Actions an e-mail to see if they can tell me something about the collection. I always appreciate a nice story to go along with the toys.

Please click here to visit the Morphy Auctions website

Please click here to visit Morphy Auctions on Liveauctioneers

I don;t know who restored all these toys, but  if the person lived near me, and offered classes in toy restoration, I'd sign up tomorrow. I've restored a few small toys, which I enjoyed very much.BUt to restore these larger-sized toys to this level requires years of experience,and lots of equipment for speedier work. I did my restorations with a Dremel high speed machine, sandpaper, paint solvent,car body filler,and paint. The painting I did mostly with a brush or with a spray can for the slightly larger items. These toys were done by spray paint, and probably primed before for a better finish and better adhesion of the outer paint coats.

I always like to look at toy wheels and tires. NOt all old toys have both, so it's great to see both in the toy below.

If you've been to my blog before,you'll know what a "hillclimber" toy is. It's a toy with a friction wheel (go to wikipedia and search).  You push the toy on the ground and the friction wheel starts to turn and pick up the energy from the movement of the ground. The more you do this, the faster the wheel goes,and the more whirring noise there is. You then place the toy gently on the ground and it will accelerate. The great thing about these toys is that they will go up steep angles such as on an inclined driveway. The speed wheel orr friction wheel have excellent torque to transfer the energy to the wheels and the toy up inclines.This is always fun ( I had one as a kid) and it's more fun that the regular wind-up or just push the toy, type of toy.

The toy below  is great.It reminds me of all those silent movies where the characters (Chaplin or Buster Keaton) or even the "good cowboys" would be pressing and pulling the handles up and down to move to rescue the girl tied to the train tracks. I thing I remember being near a "real" one of these hand cars, and you need to exert a lot of energy to get it to move.

I'd love to have one of these (the real one) on an outdoor 400 Meter track. 

You might as well enjoy the scenery and get some exercise at the same time!

Thanks for dropping by, and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com