Collectors as Great Sources of Information

Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Later in the day -overcast, colder, and rain

Collectors as 

Great Sources of Information

  My recent post on the Arcade Taxis was total inspired by a reader - Mr. Joe Gallo. When I answered Joe, I invited him to send me some of his photos, and to be a guest on my blog. Yesterday, I received a yes, and I was elated.

  In the previous post that I mentioned, Joe mentioned about the telephone numbers on the sides of the taxis. When I wrote to Joe, I asked him to send me some specific photos that I will elaborate on below.

What makes the Arcade cast iron taxi so collectible is of course the fact that it was modelled after the 

real taxi of the era. Most taxis from Mexico, Canada, and the United States were similar, having had the cars made in the U.S.A. Moreover, they were painted of course in yellow. One of the largest taxi cab companies even was called Yellow Cab.

I asked Joe Gallo to send me a photo of the coin slot and the place where the cap would  unlock to access the money. You can actually see the coin slot in the middle back of the roof.

Above is a close-up of the running board. I would think that the running board allowed you 

to step up into the cab of the car.

Above is a nice detail  of the rear spare tire. Interestingly, for this particular Arcade model , the spare tiore was not a separate tire mounted on a rim, or a separate metal tire. It was actually a part of the casting of the left side of the toy.

Below is an even better photos of the spare.

What's also interesting is that Joe purchased this toy and it was painted over in green.

Joe write that he carefully used ear swabs (Q-Tips brand for example) with acetone to gently remove the green, and expose the black layer of original paint.

The pair of photos above show you part of the job that Joe did in carefully removing the top green layer from the bottom black layer. He also mentioned that he had to take a lot of time and painstakingly remove the green layer.

Several things are quite interesting to notice above.

1. Most cast iron toys have a smooth steel bolt that is hammered at one end to keep the 

2 halves of the toy together. In this case a screw was used. 

2. You can see how the nickel-plated driver was attached to the car body.

3. The lock at the bottom of the toy needed a key - this is substantial!

What I'd like to know  are 2 things:

i. How many coins could you fill this toy with

ii.. How much would the cast iron toy weigh when full with money

The title for this post certainly is a good choice, since I personally was able to see lots of details that you never see in photographs of toys going to auction, or for that matter in old catalogues.

Joe certainly helped me out in seeing all of the details that I normally might miss, or never see.

Thanks Joe.

And thnks to everyone who visited my log,

and as  always,

have a great part of the day or night

wherever you may be

Stacey

Please feel free to either comment on the post, or to email me.

My e-mail address is toysearcher@gmail.com 

Check the "Checkers" on the Taxi Cab

Wednesday, August 13, 2014
                   Cloud and raining

Check the "Checkers"

on the Taxi Cab

    I decided to check one of my reference books last night before I went  to bed.  I don;t refer to them often enough, so I decided on a whim to do so. Sure enough, I came across some nice toys to write about. If you read my 2 posts on cast iron taxis last week, I wrote about the most common yellow and black taxis (which the toy companies made into orange and black), as well as other colours. Anyway, as I was looking in the reference book, I came across some very rare Arcade cast iron taxis. They were rare because they were much more elaborate than the 1920's I had written about, and they were rare because of a change in a detail on one of the models. I'll explain below when you see the photos.

Please click here to visit this exceptional auctioneer's website

It's hard to read the word "Checkers" on the front of the cab where the visor (sun protector) is.

THis toy has the word "Checkers" embossed there, but later on, the real taxi cab manufacturer, removed this feature from their cars. So Arcade followed suit in the same manner.

The grille certainly is beautiful and has lots of fine features with the horizontal grill lines, and the well-crafted headlights. The numbers were also designed well, since they also are well detailed and not so large and thick as the earlier toys.

The model below is actually painted in yellow overall, and does not have the word "Checkers" on the visor. You can see the writing in the last photos above, but being such an acute camera angle, it's hard to read.

If you return to the earlier 1920's taxis in my previous posts, you'll see how the cars and taxis evoked over a period of 10 years. Both the real cars and the toys became much more beautiful as time progressed.

Thanks for dropping bgy,

and always, 

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com