James D. Julia's Upcoming Auction

   Saturday, May 23, 2015
             Sunny but very cold
3 degrees C or  37.4 degrees Fahrenheit

James D Julia's 

Upcoming Spring Auction

   This week, I received an e-mail from the James D. Julia people up in Maine. They're having a very nice auction coming up on June 19th. It's still spring until  June 21, of this year, where upon the days get shorter. If you told me this today, I'd say : what? It's 3C or 37.4 F today - it's going to be summer in 29 days!!!!! It's been a very cold winter up here in Montreal, Quebec (Canada).  In a stage way though, as soon as May 1 came, it's as if a large heater was turned on, and the 54 foot piles of snow on my front and side lawns melted in a week. Now my grass is nice and green!

   Getting back to the topic of auctions, I ventured over to the James D. Julia site, and came across a very noise grouping of early American tin toys. I just started to return to writing again after a long hiatus (break). I recently wrote about a George Brown toy that someone wanted to see if I had a photo of. It's of the Excelsior steamboat of Beorge Brown. I couldn't find any, so if you've ever seen a photo or know where I can find one, please tell me.

   The James D. Julia Inc. auction has a fine collection of toys. However the highlight happens to be an excellent collection of  early American toys from the late Mr. Laurence Hapgood.  These include pressed steel, cast iron, and of course early American tin toys. I decided to present the tin toys since it's "rare" that you find so many nice ones in one auction. As an aside, if you ever want to see what are called  "salesman's samples", I would highly recommend searching on the Julia site. I had never heard of this category of collectible, but when I first saw these items, I was taken aback.   I won't say more (not even what a salesman's sample is)! You absolutely, positively have to viust the Juia website and discover them for yourself!

Please click here to visit the James D. Julia website

When you arrive at the Julia website, you will see other categories of items for sale, besides toys. What you will also notice is excellent descriptions and excellent photography. Also, the photos are very large  and can even be magnified. If you're looking for detail, this is the place to see detail!

The Ives toy company is known for early toy model trains on rails. However, the one below is quite early, and I didn't know that the Ives company started so early. I would think this one is from the late 1800's.

What I'm always amazed at  about American toys is that toys manufactured from different manufacturers could resemble each other so closely. I always like to contrast this with a lawsuit that Apple took against Samsung for copyright infringement. The lawsuit was extremely long in it's content of infringements. One of the listed items in the lawsuit was for Samsung having "infringed" on Apple's rounded corners on their IPhone.   I won't say any more than this.

If you take a closer look at the Ives locomotive (above) and the Althouf Bergman locomotive below, you will in fact see many almost similar features that the 2 different toys possess.

What immediately catches my eye on the  toy below is all those perforations on the perimeter of the wagon. What I'd like to know is if this was done by hans or perhaps by a press. And if a press perforated the hole,  then the press and the dye to cut the perforations would make for a great collectible.

Most of you (my readers) would not notice the slightly different camera angle in the photo below compared with the other images presented today. However, being a professional photographer myself,  I noticed this immediately.  The lower camera angle helps to accentuate the wheels and the horses better than a higher camera angle. It's a small detail, bout important nevertheless.

The James D. Julia Auction Inc. company has great photographers. One of my favourite categories is their gun division. If you want to see photography at its best for merchandise going to auction, their gun division manifests this in the best way! 

What I find most interesting in the Hull & Stafford toy below is that part of it is made of wood. This is interesting because for a wood toy to have lasted so long and in this condition (

 Once again, notice the slight difference in the camera height and angle in the pair of photos below.

I like the early tin toys because of their simplicity. They remind me of American "Naive Art" and early American toys that were made by local people and not companies.

I've seen the toy below before, but what caught my eye here was the fact the the James D. Julia Inc. company knew it was a "Dexter" horse. I didn't know that!

What's interesting about the  Fallows elephant toy below is that it moves via a sliding mechanism . It's a "pull toy" I assume there is some form go gearing mechanism that  moves the elephant back and forth and causes it to move up and down and forward sand backward.

Notice:  I have to apologize to everyone. As I was writing this post, I noticed that the "cut and paste" description that I took from the Julia website is blurred at normal view. Normally I type everything by hand, but (no excuses), I was tired today, and took "a short cut".

Thanks for dropping by and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com