A Toy Collector asks for Information on an old A.C.Williams Car

 Monday, August 14, 2023

 Cloud with Sun later Today

 21° C  / 70° F

A Toy Collector Asks for Information

on an old A.C.Williams Car

    I haven't been writing posts in the last several years. However, I do try and write for people who write to me and are asking questions to which I cannot answer. And so, when Mr. Gary W. Davis wrote to me, 

I was eager to try and answer his inquiry, and to write a post, if I couldn't answer his question. So, since I couldn't answer his question, I am now writing this post.

    I've only ever seen the toy that Gary is asking about once before, and Gary fortunately was able to reference the post that identified his toy. I had written a post in 2014, which when I think about it is now 11 years ago. I'm sure that like myself, many of you cannot believe how fast time goes by. Wow, that post was from 2014!

    The photo (screen-capture)below is from a 2014 auction that the excellent and renowned auctioneer house, Bertoia Auctions had in 2014. The screen-capture is from my blog post.  

    I asked Gary to send me some photos of his A.C.Williams car, and sent me a nice grouping. Not only did he send me photos of the A.C.Williams, but he sent me a fine grouping of cast iron toy vehicles that he has collected over the years.

Below are photos of the A.C.Williams Sedan that Gary was asking about.

The photo below is the A.C.Williams toy number. Gary wrote that the number is 198.

The size of this cast iron toy is 8 1/4" Long x 2 1/4" High x 2 1/4" wide.

    It's certainly a most beautiful car! So, if someone reading this post has information about this fine A.C.Williams car, and can tell us what the toy has been selling for recently, this would be a great help for Gary and myself.

My e-mail address is toysearcher@gmail.com

&

my name is (Mr.) Stacey Bindman

As always,

thanks for dropping by, and have a great part of the day or night, 

wherever you may be.

  

Mr. Hardy Littleton Helps Out Again

Thursday, January 18, 2018
Cloudy
-3 C  26.6 F

Mr. Hardy Littleton

Helps Out Again

Please click here to visit this fine ebay seller

A. C. Williams Blue Cast Iron Boat Tail Racer w/ Driver & Embossed Pistons 

Antique A. C. Williams Cast Iron Tail Fin Racer Toy Car!  This fantastic c.1930s is an A. C. Williams cast iron toy. This large car features raised exhaust stacks on the hood, and a seated cast driver. The racer has a large tail fin on the end, and sits on 4 white rubber tires. The car rolls very well when pushed.This is one of A. C. Williams more rare large sized racers. 

Measures approx. 8-1/2" L x 2-3/4" W x 2-5/8" H

216 mm L x 70 mm W x 67 mm H

Antique Hubley Red SPEED Motorcycle

Rare Hubley Cast Iron SPEED motorcycle with rubber wheels and rare red paint. Has SPEED raise letters on both sides of motorcycle tank also raised number 5 on riders back.  wear from age . Length:  4" ( 102 mm) 

Hubley Cast Iron Futuristic Streamline Blue Coupe

This great little cast iron coupe was produced by Hubley in the late 30’s. 

The car is 6″ ( 152 mm) long and is in great, 

original condition with red wooden hubs and rubber tires. 

The photography helps to present  the cars with their features in 

their most appealing manner.

It's also a good business strategy when selling your merchandise.

Thanks for passing by,

and have a great part of the day or night.

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com

Past Sold Items by Mr. Michael Hadshian

Friday, October 21, 2016
Cloudy with Rain
11 Celsius  52 Fahrenheit

Past Sold Item by

Mr. Michael Hadshian

Please click here to visit this fine ebay seller

Most of the time, I visit the page for what people are selling currently on ebay. However, another great resource is to see what these same people have sold recently.

If you look to the right side of the page, you will see a rectangular space with the words "Top-rated seller". Under these words is the  name of the seller's nickname on ebay, in this case being  mikie70mach. In brackets is the number of sales (1967) and a red star. If you click on the number of sales, in this case 1967, you will be redirected to Michael's most recent sales on ebay. 

When I came to this page, there were a nice group of cast iron toys that had been sold and these are shown below, except for the one below which was still being sold at the time.

Below are the past sales which were sold most recently.

Above:

THe photo of the 5 toys helps to give the reader a relative idea as to the different sizes of toys. 

In the photo, you can see the orange taxi cab,

and the blue stake truck behind the road scraper on the left side.

Please click here to see at the real truck from the 1930's

So that's all for today on this rainy and miserable day.

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

Have a great part of the day or night

Wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com

A Reissue of an Old Post

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

A Reissue of an Old Post

Background:

   If you have been following my blog, you will have read a post titled Blogger Miseries. My blog, Google e-mail, and my personal Hotmail e-mail were spammed for thousands of times. I'll let you read my original post, rather than rewrite the same material. 

   I removed 10 posts that were spammed and sent feedback to Blogger, not that they ever read it. You have to consider that Google Blogger probably has 200,000,000 or more blogs. So I don't think Google is going to resolve a problem where about 200 bloggers write for help or complain on the Google Blogger Help Forums.  Google,s main line is that they really can't do much about spam, and people should never open it up if it in your mail.  Also, Google says that if you don;t open up the mail, and trash it, it's harmless.

  However, I feel that Google should and probably can do something, but they don't or do?

  I sent Google feedback and complaints via their send feedback on every Blogger page. As well, I wrote that from then on, I would remove the visibility of every post from then on that was affected by spam. Mysteriously, within 10 days and 10 post removals to draft mode the spam stopped!

  I've retitled the post and removed the original title, lest the spammers find this post again and start the spam cycle all over again. The reason that I was so irritated was the fact that I was working very hard to reach the 200,000 page view milestone (achieved on August 25, 2014). Sadly for me, I did not achieve that number truly, since there was so much spam. Today, I have  221,425 page views as of 17:33 P.M. EST (Canada), so thais is probably an actual 200,000 less the spam.

  I rethought my strategy, and decided to reissue all 10 posts, but edit them as well, and hide the original name, as I mention before. 

  This post received 7,115 page views, but as I mentioned 1000's were probably spam.

Monday, March 19, 2012

(This post originally appeared on the above date)

The new material appears in this colour type.

     Like today, the toy companies would make model toys based on current "real life" cars.  The  actual  Chrysler Airflow was made for a few years, but production stopped since the car was not a success in terms of sales. There were probably 1000x more toy cast iron Chrysler Airflow toys made than the actual real cars. If you search for Chrysler Airflow> on the Net you will see a truely >gem of a car for that era.

I've written about the Hubley model, so for today, I also include that one as a comparison. The Arcade toy shown today measures 4"(L)x 1 1/2"(W)x 1 1/2"(H) or 100mm x 38mm x 38mm. It's just a bit smaller than the Hubley.

The Hubley Airflow

(Length 4 1/2" or 112mm)

A "reproduction"Hubley-style toy car

There are several characteristics to inform you that this is a fake:

1. The surface finish of the car is very course compared to authentic cast iron toys.

Compare the red fake above to the beige one below.

2. The white wheels are metal, whereas the real toys 

have rubber tires  on wood rims or even metal rims.

3. The Hubley had a special patented system of attaching the upper body to the lower chassis. You can see how this was done in the first large image LOOK AT THE LOWER LEFT PHOTO. THe spare tire goes around the rim of the lower  nickel-plated part. This jus how the 2 parts are held together.

With the fake, a screw on the spare tire hold the parts together.

4. The lower chassis part on a real toy was nickel-plated,whereas the fake is

a cheap cast iron casting.

The Hubley Enlarged

The Arcade Chrysler Airflow

The basic Arcade design is similar to the Hubley however the differences are:

 1. More windows on the Arcade

2. Less-sophisticated grillwork on the Arcade

3. Single Fornt Window on the Arcade, whereas the Hubley is split in 2.

4. The rear window on the arcade is one, whereas the Hubley is split in 2.

Of course, there could have been 2 models of the Airflow!

You can see hw many times this toy had been repainted before I finally received it. At the time, I never even thought of restoring it!  Now that I think why (to myself), I realize that I'm I liked the fact that here was a toy that probably was passed from generation to generation for who knows how many years. With character like that, I won't want to alter the toy in any way, and I didn't

Self-evaluation of this almost 2 year old post:

When I look at this post, I realize how much I've changed my writing and my photos. Of course, I don't buy and sell anymore,  but I have 1000's of my own photos that I have not used before.I use many more photos in each post and I write more, although I'm sure a few of you (my readers) think I ramble on or talk too much! 

Also, at the time 2 years ago, I liked to use more dramatic lighting on the toys. whereas today, most of the photos that I use had simpler lighting. As well, I have removed most backgrounds and foundations (what something sits on ), but left a few shadows.

The best judge of this blog would be my readers, so if you have any suggestions, I'd be happy to hear from you. You can write to me at my address below, and I will keep your name confidential.

Thanks for dropping by, and have a 

good morning, afternoon, or evening wherever you may be.

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com

Some More Beautiful Cast Iron Cars

Thursday, April 3, 2014
               (Sunny but cool)

Some More Beautiful Cast Iron Cars

When warmer weather and  the spring season begins,  you can start to see more activity in the action marketplace.  Bertoia Auctions is having their second auction of the new year, scheduled for  May 10. It's called the Spring Toy Break auction. People like to get out was the warmer weather approaches. Of course, if you live in the warmer parts of the world, you may not know what snow and more snow, and very cold temperatures are. At least up here, it looks like it may not snow anymore-finally!

Please click here to view the fine items up for auction at Bertoia Auctions

Many of the auction companies are settling into their newer version of their auction presentations. The older versions are still available. The basic difference is in how the items are presented.  In the older version, the images are presented on a single page, along with the description of the item. With the newer version, the images are presented separately and are viewed one at a time for each of the images provided per listing. Also, a double-click of you mouse allows you to view a magnified version of the item against a complete back window. You can always press the escape key to return to the descriptions.

I haven't seen this particular A.C. Williams model sedan before. It's one of those take apart cast iron cars from the 1930's (estimated). Most of the cast iron toy companies made similar versions of this type of toy. With it, you could dismantle the upper body and lower chassis,and exchange parts. YOu could for example change this perhaps into a convertible or even a truck.

Here's another cast iron toy that I've never seen before. It appears to look like a take apart, but without a description, and no catalogue, I can be 100% sure. I also assume that it may not be tat rare as the estimated price range (low and high) and the starting price are relatively low .

 Here' yet another race car that I haven't seem until recently. If you look closely there are 2 passengers in the car. At one time in the sport of racing, there were 2 people in the car - an assistant and the driver.

 And yet another "treasure" that I've never seen until recently. It looks like the cars that would appear in very old comic books of the 1930's.

I have seen the Vindex, but I still presented it for today. Iy's very rare, and has a much higher starting bidding price than most of the other cars. I never tire of  this toy.

I once bought and resold a Hubley racer with a similar  hood that could open. The above sedan has been  restored and had some replacement parts.However, even that will not deter collectors from bidding on this fine toy. It too has a very high starting price, and is quite rare.

If you're a regular reader of my blog, you should know what this car is and who makes it. It's a Hubley Airflow, but this one is a larger sized one with electric (battery lights).  This one is in superior condition, and it too has a high staring bidding price.  The Chrysler "real" Airflow is beautiful, but unfortunately did not sell well in the marketplace of the 1930's. Sadly it was discontinued. If you do a search for Chrysler Airflow, you will see a very beautiful car. Many of the cast iron toy companies made the Airflow, and for sold more of these "toys" that Chrysler sold their "real" car.

You have to check out this Bertoia auction because there are just so many fine toys to see. I'll be posting more in the coming weeks with the many different  classifications of toys. There are an amazing amount of pull toy bell toys that I also haven't seen before!

Thanks for dropping by,

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

wherever you may be,

Stacey.

My e-mail address is toysearcher@gmail.com