Carette Steam Engines And Their Accessories

Saturday, March 24, 2018
Sunny with Cloudy Periods
3 C  37.4 F

Carette Steam Engines 

and Their Accessories

Noel

Barrett

Please click here to visit these fine American auctioneers

One of the more interesting toys of the Early 20th century were the steam engines.  These machines were miniature reproductions of life-size steam engines miniatured for children to play with. However, these machines had to be supervised by parents as they were very hot when operated, and  ran on alcohol as a fuel.

Georges Carette was one of the best known manufacturers of these toys. Not only were there small steam engines, but there were accessories to have the engine run them.

The toy steam engine consisted of a fuel source, which heated up air to run a piston, that would turn a flywheel. Attached to the flywheel was a metal cord that ran up to a driving pulley wheel, which also had working driving pulleys. The last-mentioned pulleys would then attach to toy accessories that also had drive pulleys that ran theses accessories.

 Drive pulleys that you see below, could attach to small men characters that did assorted "jobs" that you will see later on. These pulleys could be single or in multiples as the sketches below illustrate.

Below are working models of assorted machine shop machines. 
These are without people. 

Below are working shop machines with people.

Each toy had a driving pulley wheel that would attach to the 

driving pulley wheel of the steam engine.

Below, the scan page illustrates many people operating different machines.

Each machine has its' own driving pulley wheel in front.

The page below illustrates even more complex and sophisticated machines.

 Here's an actual toy machine from the Pook & Pook / Noel Barrett auction.

There are 2 workers hammering a piece of iron. The driving pulley can be seen in front, 

attached beside the anvil.

One is chopping a block of wood, while the left person is a locksmith filing something. 

The models could be anywhere from 3"-5" tall (7.6 cm - 12.6 cm)

Below are 4 machinists working at the same time. You can clearly see the 4driving pulleys that are attached to the driving pulleys of the actual machines that the workers are at.

 The larger driving pulley to the extreme left and the largest is the master driving pulley,. That pulley would be attached to the steam engine.

Finally, a pair of riders on horses. You can see the large red driving pulley

at the left in the photo.

I'm sure that many of the steam engines found at auction might still be operable and could attach to the people working models that you saw above. Of course, you'd have to be very careful operating these machines, and you should be taking these machines outdoors for safety purposes. 
Once the driving pulleys of the steam engine and small toys were attached, you could see a miniature group of tradesmen plying their trades.

There are still today manufacturers of miniature steam engines. If you type in miniature steam engines or toy steam engines, you will come across the brand names of  the manufacturers - Wilesco, Mamod, and Jensen. 

Even today, these miniature models are still popular!

Thanks for visiting,
and as always
Have a great part 
of the day or evening.

Stacey Bindman
toysearcher@gmail.com

Some Carette Cars and Their 1911 Catalogue Illustrations

Saturday, November 2, 2013

Some Carette Cars and Their

 1911 Catalogue Illustrations

   Yesterday in Montreal, we had rain in the morning following by the strongest winds I've seen in a long time. Thankfully, the meteorologists  got their forecasts corrects to warn everyone of the strong winds that followed. There were 750,000 people without power in the Province (Quebec, Canada), including my wife and I,and Buddy (our dog). The wind was so strong (65 mph/ 90 kph that Buddy refused to "pee". I sent him out to the front lawn tree, he gave me a pleading look, and came back in after I gave him the OK to come back into the house. today's newspapers will be interesting to see what happened overnight. Our salmon trout never got cooked in the oven (power failure),and we had asparagus, salad,and crackers. 

  As you know, I received the Carette catalogue a few days ago, and naturally like to go through it. I like to try and match up actual antique items with their catalogue counterparts. What I find amazing about early cars is that they became so sophisticated and ornate for having been around for so short a time ( 15 years).  There are only a few pages in the catalogue devoted to cars and trucks. I was able to match up cars, but I couldn't find any trucks (some are called wagons). The Carette catalogue is the second New Cavendish Books catalogue that I've purchased. These are reproductions, but already seem to appear on Amazon and AbeBooks as collectables,with high prices to match. Of course, some are not in excellent condition and if you like old toy books, you can purchase them at lower prices. If someone has a solution as to how to eliminate that musty old book smell,I'd be very thankful!

Please click here to visit the New Cavendish Books fine website

Please click here to redirect to Bertoia Auctions fine website

I haven't described the cars as I normally do on the photos.
I decided to let you, the viewer match up the actual toy photos with the 1911 catalogue sketches.

What's interesting about these toys is all of the hands-on workmanship that was needed to paint and install the accessories (e.g. lamps) to the toys). Also,some of these lamps are nickel-plated,which nowadays would be prohibitively expensive to use as parts for a toy. Also,you have to look closely for the detail.Notice the large hand brake to the right of the driver, the steering wheel is on the right side, and finally, the brake. If you look at the second photo from the bottom, there is an arched device that is on a rod and slightly away from the rear left tire. That was the brake in those times! What's also interesting is the costly options such as having rubber tires on the wheels. Imagine, that was a toy option in 1911!

Thanks for dropping by,

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

wherever you may be.

Stacey

write to me anytime at

toysearcher@gmail.com

I Thought that Antique Toy Car was a Bing!

Saturday, October 12, 2013

I Thought the Antique Car was a Bing!

  I'm writing this post of Friday, but I want it to show Saturday's date - so please don't be confused. Google enters the date when you post - what can I say!

   Anyway, yesterday's post was about the fine Bing "Motor Cars". If you read that post, you'll have read that I was easily confused by the Carette cars. I've ordered an old reproduction Carette catalogue for my next  "match the real antique toy with its catalogue sketch counterpart" post. Yesterday, I must have entered Carette, forgot, and then began screen-capturing Carette cars as Bings. After 40 minutes I realized the mistake, and threw everything out in the garbage can! So the next post obviously would be a comparison of 2 examples of Bing and Carette cars to show you how easy it is to get confused. I'm sure, somewhere there are identifying marks that specifically identify each manufacturer. However, rarely, are these presented in listings by the major auctioneers. They are very sure of what they post, so if they say Bing or Carette, you know that what they say is correct.

Please click here to visit Bertoia Auctions outstanding website

Of course, you can see "differences" if you look hard enough.  I'll let you do the comparing rather than my writing down all of the differences -that's your "homework" for today! Of course, if you bought  a either of the 2 Carettes above and thought they were Bings, you would not have made a bad deal.  The   Carette "Four-Seat Open Tourer"  went for $4,312.50 at auction, while the above dark green Carette Limousine went for $ 15,000,00 at auction.

Thanks for visiting, 

and as always have a great weekend,

Stacey

(please feel free to write to me anytime at toysearcher@gmail.com)