Saturday, November 4, 2023

 Sunny and mild winds 

9 Celsius (48 Fahrenheit)

A Reader Asks About a Fine

Pull Bell Chime Toy

    I haven't written much lately, even when I said that I would write. So readers, I have to apologize. 

I checked my stats, and to date, as of today, I've had 930,778 hits since I started to blog in 2011. The numbers are not the highest, nor the lowest among blogs, but nevertheless, I'm happy. I've enjoyed leaning about toys, and better still, writing about a topic that I never ever dreamed that I would have written about. In due time, and with patience, my blog will achieve the milestone mark of 1,000,000 hits sometime next year. Of course, I'll have to subtract the 300 times I've checked on what was going on with my blog (just kidding; it's only 45,000 times!).

    I was pleasantly surprised to receive an e-mail from Mr. Craig Metheny. Craig's family name sounded familiar, so I did a search for "Jazz Musician" and found, of course Pat Metheny, a well-known jazz musician.  Hmmm, that was interesting! I have trouble figuring out where I put my cell phone in the house all the time, but I can remember Pat Metheny!

    Coming back to today's blog, Mr. Craig Metheny, a toy collector, wrote to me. He sent 4 excellent photos, and best-of-all, they were very large sizes. Their Width x Heigh are 55.556 x 41.667 @ 72 Pixels/Inch.  I usually ask for at least 4" x 6" @ 300 dpi.That size provides viewers with a fine image that shows well on the Net and your computer screen. As well, it allows me to try and improvew the image )(if I can) for exposure, dust, background, and colour (USA spelling is "color"). 

Below is what Craig wrote

"Hello. 

Saw your blog, very fun to look at. Thought you might know something about a particular toy I found, or point me in the right direction.I got this old cast metal toy, a sulky rider and horse with a bell/gong, at a garage sale. I am thinking that it might be from the N. N. Hill Brass Co. from about 1920s.It's about 7.5 inches long. No maker's marks of any kind that I can find. Not sure if this is cast iron or some other metal alloy. The horse is painted silver. The jockey is red and green and the sulky cross bar is green. Do you recognize this toy? Or do you have a 1920 N N Hill catalog that might show it? Thank you very much for your time. Craig."

     Craig's letter certainly shows that he knows about bell toys. He mentioned an N N Hill catalogue, and dated the toy from the 1920's. I wrote Craig back, and answered his question about where to find catalogues on these toys. There were other bell toys, but not the one that he mentioned.

I answered Craig with a great website of the Antique Toy Collectors of America. Their  website is https://atca-club.org. Their website has plenty  of old toy catalogues, and there is plenty of information on their website.  However, I wan't able to find an answer as to which company had made Craig's excellent bell toy.

The length of the toy is 7.5 inches ( 190.5 mm)

The toy appears to be made of pressed metal, with the wheels diecast.

This type of toy is called a gong bell in the generic lexicon of English. However, there was an American company that began in 1866, and closed in the mid 1960's. The name of the company was the

Gong Bell Manufacturing Company.

I even wrote about this great company in one of my posts. 

Below is the link.

https://oldantiquetoys.blogspot.com/2013/04/the-gong-bell-toy-company.html

(simply copy and paste the address above in a new window, 

and you'll be able to read about this great American toy company)

    If anyone knows the manufacturer of this fine toy that Craig purchased, please e-mail me, and I will forward the information to him.

My e-mail address is:  toysearcher@gmail.com

 

Before I finish this post,  if ever you are interested in having me write a blog post for you, 

or to help you find an answer to a question that I can't answer, please feel free to write to me.

As always,

Thanks for dropping by,

and have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

(Mr.) Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com