An Exceptional Collector of Rubber Toy Vehicles - Part II

Friday, January 23, 2015
Cloudy and very cloud, partly sunny later

An Exceptional Collector

of Rubber Toy Vehicles

(Part II)

I already introduced you to Mr. Michael Lavova, whom I'm continuing to write about today.  Michael had written to me last Sunday, and invited to help me out.  I always appreciate readers who write to me. It gives me solace that people are reading my blog, and keeps me going. However, he even wrote to say if he could help. I wrote back , thanking him, and said that I'd like to write about his collection of rubber toys that he's been collecting for 30 years. I wrote about his car collection, and for today, it's his toy racers.

Please click here to visit Michael Lavopa's exception toy website

Please click here to visit my first post on Michael Lavopa

What I like about Michael's website is that he likes to present his fine rubber toys differently from each other. You'' have hight camera angles,and lower camera angles, cars angled to the left, or to the right. Two cars and one car.This makes for  more interesting viewing.

What amazes me most about rubber toys ( I bought and sold a few on ebay) is that they have lasted so long.  The toys below are from the 1930's-1940's and they're still intact. I don;lt know what they put in the rubber to allow for the rubber to stay so firm and not crack. I know when my I keep elastics from my newspaper in my car for a week, they crack and break from the heat.

It's also interesting that Michael has made an effort to collect different variations of the same model, but with different colours or colour combinations.

This is a great photo for its' wide-angle effect.

I like this model because it had round surfaces compared 

with the other racers with straight edges and lines.

I don;t know if the toy below was ever modelled after a "real" racer that had this shape and design.

For those who don't know, Akron, Ohio (USA) is famous for its annual "Soap Box Derby.

Young children get to build and race their entry cars there. The cars do not have any pedals or mortars, but have to move down a hill on their own with the due driver. The cars have to be designed for safety, durability, lightness and speed. The fastest one to the finis line is the winner, and

gets to advance to the next round of races. At one point, as many as 70,000 people would come to Akron to watch the races.

Some companies, like other toy companies would offer 2 

different sizes of the same model to their young customers.

All of the companies here are American, but when I did write 1 instalment of my own 

about rubber toys, I did find 1 that was not American. However, what is amazing is that  toy companies could make rubber toys and sell them well for almost 20 years.

For these photos I added some bright areas called "highlights". These small toys are just so wonderful, I felt I had to make them jump off the page!

Thanks for visiting and as always

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com