A Superbly Engineered Bing Mobile Crane of 1920

Wednesday, May 14, 2014
               Cool and cloudy, 
         changing to rain and hot

A Superbly Engineered Bing Mobile Crane

of 1920

   I always like to visit Opamerica's fine store on ebay. I never know what I'll see,but I always know there will be some rare and exciting toy to marvel at. And I wasn't disappointed when I saw today's Bing crane.

Rare 1920's Large Bing Steel Tower Crane Germany 22x33

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I am pleased to offer this Antique 1920's Bing Large Pressed Steel Metal Toy Tower Crane that features a maroon exterior throughout, a four-wheeled base, turn crank (s), horizontal jib with lock lever, and claw piece marked by Bing, Bavaria. Two cranks turn to either rotate the crane or move the jib back and forth; base wheels roll well across flat surfaces. There is another rope type crank in the middle (no rope present). May show paint wear, marks, patina, and oxidation from use and age overall. Slight dent present on one end of the crane from previous use. Sturdy condition.

A fantastic and rare antique toy!

Measurements: approx. base 14-1/2" inches long x 10-1/2" inches wide; 22" inches tall x 33" inches wide. 

* Description Courtesy of Opamerica

Please click here to visit this excellent merchant on ebay (USA)

   I used Opamerica's written description because  the amount of writing would be too much in proportion to the size of the first photo. AS well, I decided to leave the photos show without any distractions,except for m usual copyright and company logo placement.

  For my European readers, the size of this toy is:

Base:     368 mm (length) x 268 mm (width)

Height:      559 mm

Width:     838 mm

This certainly is a large toy, and I can;t even imagine the lifting power of such a machine.

Children of the time much have had lots of fun - for sure! I tried to find illustrations of this crane in my 1912 Bing catalogue, but couldn't. By the way, this particular toy was produced in 1920.

 There are several several wheels that are used to lift and turn the bucket, but as the description describes, one set of ropes is missing. This could easily be added and restrung. 

I like how the design of the boom  looks quite similar to today's  immobile location building

cranes. In modern Europe, these building crane as we see today in North America was used much earlier on before it came to North America.

A close-up of the Bing name and logo on the side of the bucket.

I especially like this link chain that looks like brass.

The top lever has a lock to keep the bucket fixed in one position.

In the unlocked position, I assume that the bucket moved back and forth along 

the horizontal crane boom.

I'm unsure what the bottom wheel is for.

The lower handle on the left, has an auger-syle gearing that  connects to a circular gearing wheel. This allows for the entire crane  tower and crane to rotate in a 360 degree circle.

As you can see, this toy has certainly stood the test of time, having been made in 1920 - 

Wunderbar 

(Wonderful in English)

It's time for me to do some more spring chores - gardening and mowing. I hope that it rains as fore case, because the lawn (my task) is my responsibility. The garden flowers are my wife Heidi's "exclusivity".

Thanks for dropping by,

and , as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com

Matching Bing Toys to Their Catalogue Illustrations

Monday, January 6, 2014

Matching Bing Toys to Their Catalogue Illustrations

   I always like to see if I can match up old catalogue illustrations or photos with toys that have been up for sale or for action. So today is  a simple post on 2 nice Bing toys that I happened to find at Bertoia Auctions . I matched them up to a 1912 Bing catalogue reproduced by New Cavendish Books.  If you're a collector,auctioneer, or seller, it's good to have a collection of either the original catalogues or reproductions. These books are great references and for sure,if your a seller, you want to be able to describe an item as best as possible.

Please click here to visit Bertoia Auctions great website

Bertoia Auctions Description:

Bing Fire Pumper (Germany)

Circa 1910

An early hand painted open service farm example, done in classic red, black striping, orange bench seating with gold details to wire railings, clockwork activate piston which releases water from brasss boiler fitting, rubber tires, original seated figure. repair to lantern mount, minor early  retouches, missing driver overall (Exc. Cond.)

Length:    10 1/4"    261mm

Bertoia Auctions Description:

Bing Delivery Truck (Germany)

Hand painted in try body, features low open stake side body, red bench seating, considered one of their finest in their line of Lorries, includes canopy cloth cover over bed, reads, BNG-2512", rubber tires,orange spoke wheels, a quality toy. Minor restoration to grille area, overall (Exc. Cond).

Length:    11"    279mm

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always, have a great part of the day,

wherever you may be.

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com

Bing Steam Driven Autos

Monday, October 14, 2013
     Canadian Thanksgiving Monday
It's finally rained after a extraordinary 
  streak  of autumn warmth and sun

Bing Steam Driven Autos

   I had already noticed that Bing made steam driven auto toys prior to their 1902catalogue. These same toys do not appear in the 1912 catalogue, having been replaced by key wind-up mechanisms.  I wonder how easy it was to get the steam-driven toys to work, and how they were.With the replacement to wind-ups, the steam-generated toys are today very rare, and all four toys presented today received very high final winning bids, with the highest being $ 18, 800.00.

Please click here to go to Bertoia Auctions fine website

As you can see, these century old plus toys were very carefully hand-crafted with exemplary detail. In one of the descriptions, the copywriter wrote that these toys rarely lasted  "the test of toy time play". Perhaps,that's one of the reasons that the steam-powered movement was later replaced with a key wind-up  mechanism. These "trophy" toys certainly are wonderful and more so to be around after so much had happened in a century of among other things 2 world wars.

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always, have a great part of the day 

wherever you may be.

Stacey

write to me anytime at toysearcher@gmail.com

The Later Year Coal Trucks

Friday, May 10 2013

The Later Year Coal Trucks

The Progress of My Lawn Maintenance

    I figured that I might as well tell everyone about how my grass is doing. Yesterday and today, I bough lots of bagged black earth and seeds. Then I had to spread the seeds all over and cover them with earth. 2/3 of my lawn is done, and now it's watering time. The weatherman says rain, so I'm hoping that happens so I don't have to keep watering.

   My neighbour across the street has grubs. They're the larval stage of insects that lay their eggs in the ground. THese particular white grubs "feast" on the roots of grass, and kill the grass. I had the problem last year, and had to purchase "live" nematodes. They come refrigerated from Ontario - another province next to Quebec. You add them to water and spray them all over. You then have to water your lawn for about 5-7 days so the nematodes can burrow into the ground and eat the grubs. 

Since Canada and Quebec became more eco-friendly, it's hard to find good pesticides and herbicides that do their job and are still eco friendly!

  So that's the update on lawn maintenance. As for flowers, that's my wife's job. Since our climate zone is higher in North American, my wife likes to wait till about the end of May or the first week of June before she plants. Meanwhile all the large stores are selling the flowers now. I can't convince my wife to plant early, so that's that!

The Coal Toys

   If you study or write about toys, you'll eventually start to know when certain toys were made.  It's harder for European toys, because they always were ahead of toys compared with North American manufacturers. So when Europeans were manufacturing lithographed tin or hand-painted tin, North America was making cast iron.

  Basically, the North American (mostly USA) manufacturers started the late 19th and early 20th century with pressed tin toys followed by cast iron. By the 1920's-1930's cast iron toys were still being made,but pressed steel,then lithographed tin became more common, These processes were faster,more toys could be made in a work shift,and machines did much of the work.

  What I found interesting, is that most of the time, the toy manufacturers that are presented today actually had toy reproductions of coal cars with their side chutes or openings to release the coal. However, some manufacturers (e.g. Chein and Marx) simply took a truck and added the words "Coal or "Coal Truck" either through the lithography process or with decals.  These trucks could have been any other type of truck for that matter, buy simply adding on other decal names!

Please click to be redirected to Bertoia's fine website

The Bing Hopper above was made circa 1915. In the USA most toys 

were still made by the cast iron process.

   Notice how the 2 different manufacturers above have similar designs.  I'd need to check to see that these companies were not the same or that one was purchased buy the other. However, that always reminds me of Apple (IPhone) having sued Samsung over the "rounded corners" of the Samsung cell phone. Of course the lawsuit was much more elaborate than that, but to me, the fact that in the late 19th century and 20th century toy manufacturers could make similar toys without the "fanfare"always amazes me. Of course, I've written about the US patent office, and have matched up toy patents with the "real" toys.  

   Another idea came to mind. If  there were only so many truck manufacturers at the time, could all of the toy manufacturers have gone to the truck makers get licenses to produce reproductions of the "real" trucks? Thn in that case, 6 different toy makers could have all have produced similar toys based on the "real" truck.

I like that small side opening  on the truck. It must have been fun to load the truck, then open the slide to let the "coal" spill out. I'm sure though sand was used instead of coal!

The above is a Chein "Coal" truck. It could have been a delivery truck for that matter. 

Where's the chute? I wonder if any young children became unhappy when their parent brought home this toy, when they might have seen the real coal truck with it's chute or slide?

Here's another "coal truck". 

Now this is more my type of coal truck! It has the slide to open the coal from the back, and the rear truck can actually tilt! I'd have to check about coal, but I  wonder of the 3 different compartments were for different qualities for coal that was used for heating? I do know that there are in fact different qualities of cola. Some are cleaner (less dusty), and some are harder and have more energy per weight that the less-expensive coal.

   I must be over-tired because I'm having thoughts that are making me laugh.  I have to remember that these are toys, but as an adult, I am thinking "adult" Would such colourful toys have been modelled after such colourful "real" trucks? I know that when I was young, I 'd often clean out the BBQ. In those times, a BBQ actually had charcoal briquettes - a distant cousin to coal. Cleaning a BBQ then was a big mess. Would coal delivery trucks in "real"life have been so nicely painted? Could you imagine the mess, the dust, and all the scratches from the coal?

This Kingsbury toy was probably made in the 1930's , and  it's for transporting larger loads of coal.

The engineering is great ince the whole truck can be tilted to unload its coal cargo.

    Since these are in fact "toys", I will have to think like a kid, and say that "OK, maybe they had coal trucks like this way back then. I actually like the mechanics of this  Marx "coal truck". It moves via the wind-uip mechanism, has a dumping capability, and is brightly coloured. I especially like the lithographed tin driver. So, I guess I'll  let "artistic license" win out over the authentic reproduction of a "coal truck". 

   It must be a combination of the heavy yard work of the lawn in combination with too much sun. Thankfully, I'm finished the lawn in front of my house, and it's going to rain tonight and tomorrow. 

I'll be able to recuperate, and think  better over the weekend.

Thanks for dropping by,

and have a great weekend wherever you may be.

Stacey