Teamwork in Identifying Althoff Bergmann Toys

Thursday, February 2, 2018
Overcast and Snowing
-2 C  28.4 F

Teamwork in

Identifying Some Nice 

Althof Bergmann 

& Company Toys

Please click here to visit this renowned American toy auctioneer

The Althof Bergmann & Company was established in 1867 by three miner-brothers.They

imported porcelain and toys, such as horse-drawn vehicles, railways, and boats. The toys were made of iron and tin, and were quite similar to the pull toys of the times. 

A great resource for identifying certain types of old toys happens to be the Antique Toy Collectors of America or ATCA. On their fine website, they have a section, whereby one can visit their collection of old toy catalogues, and one of them happens to be  a reproduction Althoff Bergmann catalogue from 1874.  What I did was  use the scanned pages from ATCA two cross-reference (*match up) the toys from Bertoia Auctions to the catalogue.

Courtesy of The Antique Toy Collectors of America

Courtesy of The Antique Toy Collectors of America

Courtesy of The Antique Toy Collectors of America

Here's a fine "large dog on wheels" pull tin toy on cast iron wheels. It's an Althoff Bergmann,

 but it's probably made a bit later, and the catalogue doesnt' have the dog

without the small basket.

Here's another match-up of the upper image of the steam fire engine with horses.

Here again, we have a modified toy called the "Fulton. Bertoia Auctions identified this toy 

as an Althoff Bergmann. Nevertheless, you would have been able to 

identify this fine toy through the ATCA catalogue.

The bend in the that you see above helps you to know

that the irregular shape of the rod holding the 2 wheels has an attachment

that would allow the upper triangular part of the steamship to move up and down.

Of course, it helps when you have excellent photos such as these from Bertoia Auctions to 

help you identify the Althoff-Bergmann toy.

Thanks for dropping by,

And have a great day.

Stacey Bindman

Toysearcher@gmail.com