Monday, April 20, 2020

Bill Buttaggi's Barclay Toys

Thursday, April 23, 2020
Sunny
7 C  43F


Bill Buttaggi's
Barclay Toys



     The last post that I wrote about was Bill's excellent collection of die-cast (slush) toys. If you haven't followed 4 posts about Bill, then I'll explain. Bill asked me if I would write a post to promote a very good book on his toy collection of these toys. I did so, then asked if I could use his other photos to post more about him and his toys. This is part II of a four-part series. First I did the Tootsietoys, Now Barclay, then C.A.W., Kansas Toy and Novelty .


A History of the Barclay Toy Company

"The Barclay Manufacturing Company was an American metal toy company based in New Jersey that specialised in diecast toy cars and hollowcast toy soldiers. Due to their common availability at five and dime stores, collectors often refer to Barclay's toy soldiers as "Dimestore soldiers"."

"Barclay Manufacturing was formed by Leon Donze and Michael Levy in about 1922 (O'Brien 1997, 62). The name of the company came from Barclay Street in Hoboken, New Jersey. During the 1930s, the company was later based in North Bergen, New Jersey."

"Some of Barclay's first vehicles were slush cast white metal made in the 1930s. Some of the most interesting models were in art deco style. One intriguing selection was a "Coast to Coast" art deco style bus – another a two tone oil tanker with pontoon fenders – on both models, fenders were different colors from the bodies. One available set had a cartoon-like strip on the box lid that stated it was a "Build and Paint Your Own Auto Set" which was "Loads of fun". The set included a four-door sedan, a two-door, and a tanker truck. It included paint and the cars had white rubber wheels.
Also about this time, and into the 1940s, the company made a variety of military vehicles – tanks, trucks with cannon and other cars painted brown."**

What made these toys so popular was their design and cost.  They were nicknamed  
"dimestore toys" because most small toys in the dimestores  of the time would  cost 10 cents.














Interestingly, these toys are still very much in demand. However, for some of these toys, they would cost you 100-500 times their original cost of 10 cents. 
Talk about what investments you could invest in to retain the value of your money!

That's it for today.
I phoned a couple of friends that I meet at McDonald's every day (before the Covid-19 virus came. 
They're fine, and some of the other people are fine also. I've been trying to get more facemasks and latex gloves, but it's impossible to find them!


Thanks for visiting my blog,and please take care of yourselves and loves ones.

As always,
Have a great part of the day or night wherever you may be.

Also, I can always be reached by e-mail at:

toysearcher@gmail.com

Stacey Bindman




No comments:

Post a Comment