A Swedish Toy Collector Contacts Me

Saturday, July 2, 2016
Cloudy with rain
17 degrees Celcius (62 degrees Fahrenheit)

A Swedish Toy Collector Contacts Me

Part II

I periodically receive e-mail from my readers accompanied with photos. When I received a recent e-mail from Mr. Mano Forsman, I naturally had to ask permission to use his photos of his excellent restoration of an Airflow toy. 

"Good Evening Stacey,

Thank you for your kind words.

Glad you liked the pictures.

Absolutely you can use my photos and my name.

Here shortly about me.

Born 1946 in Vasa in Finland, moved 1967 to Örnsköldsvik Sweden. Retired Techcnical Illustrator/Artist. In 50s and 60s car restorations since mid 1960s. 

In Jukebox (AMI-58) restorations since late 1980s. In old tin toy cars since early 2000s. Nice original ones but real difficult restorations fires me up.

Here one of my toughest one. Alps Packard, got in a real poor condition. These toys was really made of quality steel!  Rear bumper, hood ornament, rear tail lights and deck lid ornament was all new made. Maybe not like new, but better than before. And was saved. 

Enclosed here also:

Our daily driver to day, Opel Olympia delivery 1957.

Also some about my recent restoration of our long time Eldorado 1963.

If you GOOGLE search on Mano Forsman Art Album, you will find some of my drawings and paintings.

Hope you enjoy.

Kind regards Mano"

Mr. Mano Forsman

As you can see, Mano has done a fine job with the restoration. The first step involves bringing down the rust from the old toy. Secondly, once the bare metal is exposed, an auto paint primer is applied. Auto body filler is applied to fill in the heavier indentations from extensive rust pitting. Later on, the car parts with the auto body filler are buffed to a fine finish.

This toy is a Japanese-made Kuramochi/Kosuge Chrysler Airflow, 

probably from the late 1930's-early 1940's

You  can easily compare below the "before" and "after" photos to see the extensive work

 that Mano has done to this toy.

And finally the finished and restorers toy!

That's it for part I of a 3-part series from Mr. Mano Forsman. 

The final result looks great and a lot of work went into this restoration

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or not,

wherever you may be.

Stacey

Toysearcher@gmail.com

An Exceptional Story - Part I

Sunday, September 14, 2013

An Exceptional Story 

(Part I)

   Earlier this week on Wednesday, I added a post about  the Cor-Cor toy company. A reader had asked me about whether or not he should restore his newly-acquired set of 5 Cor-Cor toys. Initially, I said no, since "purist" old or antique collectors of all types of collectibles, never want restored toys.

At the time, I noticed today's toys but didn't mention them. I should have, because there is an exceptional story here. Not only that, but I will be writing the reader again, to present him with a newer revised opinion.

    I had seen the words "New Era" before. They were written with many different toys that I've seen in the last years. However, I misread the words. They didn't mean that these toys were new  in the sense that were built recently (there are people who do this) What it meant that there was a company by the name of New Era Quality Toys, and owned by Mr. Marv Silverstein. Sadly, as I later found out, Mr. Silverstein passed on several years ago.

  "He was a great guy and enjoyed the antique toy business and restoring pressed steel toys (e.g. Buddy-L, Keystone, Cor-Cor, etc.).  His real love was creating pressed steel toys that were never made and there are a multitude of these. He started restoring toys in 1975. He never bought into the taboo of never touching an original.  If a toy was in good condition he would never think of touching it, but he couldn't stand seeing the very rough, well played with, missing parts hulks that were available for very little money.  Having played with cars and trucks (real & toy) from childhood on, he "repainted" a couple of trucks and brought them to our booth in Renninger's Antique Market, Adamstown, Pa.  Many of the antique toy dealers were fascinated with his work and soon started to ask him to do work for them and thus a business was born.  New Era Quality Toys was the name of the business.  This label should be found on all of the custom trucks.  He worked until 2000 when he closed the business but did a few special things for friends.  There is an article in Antique Toy World sometime in the 2000's that shows the last fire engines he created.

   I have a book about the business that he wrote and was edited by Peter Eisele that has never been published.  There are literally hundreds of photos that have to be added to this book.  Maybe, someday.  My suggestion is to to use the Cor-Cor pictures as examples.  There are also examples of his work in the catalogues from the Donald Kaufman auctions.  In his book, he states that he believes he was the first to professionally restore toys, although he admits there were other people repainting for themselves.  For many years he advertised with the slogan "First & Foremost in Toy Restoration"*

* Written by Fran Silverstein (Marv Silverstein's Wife)

Please click here to visit the fine website of Bertoia Auctions

(When you arrive at the Bertoia site, enter the words "new Era" in the search area.What will show from the search is a marvellous collection of toys made by Mr. Marv Silverstein. 

  I wrote earlier that I would be writing two posts about these customized toys. This first one is just about the Cor-Cor automobiles and trucks.  If you ever come across any of Marv's  fabulous "creations", there is a label on his custom trucks.  Some of the toys presented today are"attributed" to Marv, and other are most-likely his creations. However, when auctioneers cannot tell with 100% certainty,they will either write "attributed to", or not write at all. However, with most of the Cor-Cor toy made by Marv Silverstein are "one-ova-kind". Windshield frames were added or nickel-plated, custom decals were added, car bodies were modified and so forth!  If you study today's toys, and in the future see a beautiful Cor-Cor "variation", you will for sure know who made this toy!

  I also wriote earlier, that I would send an e-mail to the person who wrote to me about restoring his 5 Cor-Cor toys that he acquired.  After seeing Marv Silverstein's masterpieces, perhaps the reader will proceed with his restorations!

There is no written description of the above model to attribute it to Marv

nevertheless, I did include it.

As you can see, there are certainly some Cor-Cors that were never built originally, but were  indeed made by Marv Silverstein. An unbelievable amount of work went into the crafting of these toys, and in time, I'm sure they will become true collector's items. The Late Donald Kaufmann - a famous collector of antique toys had many of today's toys in his collection, and many others. You'll see those when you search out the link that I've added under Bertoia Auctions logo.

Don't forget to view these toys in slide mode via Blogger. They're larger, and you can really see the skill that Marv Silverstein transferred into these "works of art".  If anyone out there has the pleasure of owning one of these exceptional toys, please e-mail me, 

and I will gladly add it to today's post.

Thanks for dropping by,

and have a great part of the day,

wherever you may be.

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com

The Cor-Cor Toy Company Revisited

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

The Cor-Cor Toy Company Revisited

     Earlier in the week, I received an e-mail from someone who had come into  a set of 5 Cor-Cor toys.He had asked me if the toys  should be restored. I didn't have any photos,  but I suggested not to because restoration old toys is not always worthwhile when they go on the resale market. Just as I sent that reply, there was another e-mail from the same person. I had not looked at all my messages. The 5 Cor-Cor toys appeared to need a lot of parts, and also 2 of the toys were looking the wrong paint colours. One was metallic copper or gold while the another was yellow. I'm no authority on toys, but the colours looked too bright. I didn't remember Cor-Cor going for such bold and "off (copper/gold) colours. I wrote back to the viewer to now say that if these toys were family heirlooms and important to him. that he might now think of restoring them. As well, as I told the viewer to check some of the auctioneers websites that I have the permission to use their photos.

   Naturally, this set off that light in my head (e.g. old logo for idea), and I checked to see what I had once written about Cor-Cor. Sure enough, I had written, but at the time, did not include the nowadays "usual" 10 photos.  What was even more interesting was the fact that when I went to search Bertoia Auctions website, there were plenty of restored Cor-Cor automobiles. Of course that will be another post - for sure! I hope the viewer went to check out Bertoia Auctions, since this might encourage him to restore.  I also asked if he'd send lots of photos, so that I could write a post about him and his toys. I'm still waiting to hear back from him.

History of the Cor-Cor Company

   The Cor-Cor  toy company or Corcoran Metal Produts was located in  Washington, Indiana (USA) and was in business from 1925-1941. They made very nice large-sized toys, as you'll see from the descriptions of the toys about each photo.  There's not much else that I seem to be able to find, but I'll be searching for more history.  The toys that you'll see today, and at a later date (restored automobiles) are very beautiful, and are well worth finding about. their history.

Please click here to visit Bertoia Auctions fine website

You have to look at the hood side to see compare the above 2 cars. Comparing, you'll see that the ari vents are totally different between the 2 ars. 

The truck above is my favourite. I played around in Photoshop to emphasize the grill and the side air vents. I especially like the service platform (step-up) at the back of the truck, and all of the embossing, which you can always see on most of their toys.

Since I will be writing a future post about restored Cor-Cor automobiles, I had to select this particular  Graham as the final image. It was customized insofar as the colour of the car goes (gun-metal grey). I'll also have to check about those outstanding nickel-plated hubcaps.  Have a look at my posts on the Tootsietoy Grahams and LaSalles.  Those are also some of my favourite toys.  When you visit that post (just do a search on my blog), you'll immediately understand why I like them so much. Also, I had the pleasure to buy and sell many, so I actually saw them first hand!

And if you have more time, do a Net search for the Chrysler Airflow cars. If you can search out large images in your search. The Airflow was a beautiful car, but failed to sell well . Consequently, the car stopped being  produced. It's a beautiful-looking car!

Thanks for dropping by,

and have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com