An Exceptional Collection of Toy Banks Comes to the RSL Auction Company

Saturday, November 2, 2024

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5° C / 41° F

          An Exceptional Collection of Toy Banks

         Comes to the RSL Auction Company

Please click on this line to redirect to the RSL Auction Company's Auction on Liveauctioneers

    I haven't added many posts lately. So when I checked to see whom I would write about, I decided to write about the RSL Auction Company. Like many auctioneers, they've come a long way since I started to blog, way back on January 11, 2011. The times have been changing since I started to blog, and what I've noticed is that many auctioneers have opted to join Liveauctioneers on the Web.  What I've also noticed is that their photography has changed to "high key". Many auctioneers in the last 5 years have changed their photography lighting. They use a softer lighting and the contrast between the bright and dark areas is reduced.

   High Key simply means placing the person or product on a white background. What you notice in high key is excellent detail of the item everywhere. Because a soft lighting is used, there aren't any deep shadows from a harsher type of lighting.  The set-up  is easier, and you don't need many photo lights and reflectors to control the contrast. The photo  term "contrast" simply means the difference between the brightest areas called "highlights" compared to the darkest areas called "shadows". The photographic "shoot" moves much faster, and there is less work to bring out the shadow detail.

    The RSL Catalogued Auction has "325 Still Banks, 80-90 Mechanical Banks, Folk Art, and approximately 75-100 Cast Iron and Tin Toys" 

Here is the RSL Auction Company's well-researched and catalogued description:

" J & E. Stevens Company. Cromwell,CT (Connecticut) - 1890's. A print block

accompanies this lot. For most mechanical bank collectors the Girl 

Skipping Rope" represents the closest thing there is to a Holy Grail. In fact,

the Mechanical Bank Collectors of America (MBCA) designated it as their

mascot when the club was founded in the late 1950's"

There is something that readers should know about:

If you click any a photograph it will enlarge to a large size.

The purpose of the enlarged photo is to better see the detail.