A Fine Collection of Matchbox Toys Comes to The Lloyd Ralston Gallery

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Overcast with Rain

3 ° C / 38° F

A Fine Collection of Matchbox Toys

Comes to The Lloyd Ralston Gallery

One of the ways in which I select my next blog is to see when the last time was, 

when I wrote a blog post for the person or company. As it turns out, the last time I wrote about the Lloyd Ralston Gallery was on August 3 of this year. 

Wow, how time flies. This post is close in time to August 3, nevertheless, to see so many Matchbox toys at one time, most certainly merits a post!

This auction is set for December 14, 2024. There are lots and lots of 

Matchbox toys, and it appears that they came from a collection. There are plenty of toys in the collection, and it's quite interesting to see so many 

Matchbox toys at one time.

Matchbox was a name of the Lesney Products company from Britain. It started in 1953, and was purchased by Mattel (USA) in 1997. The name of the company (Matchbox) was created from the size of the toys, which were small. As such, they might fit into an actual matchbox  containing matches

for lighting cigarette or cigars.

Please click on this sentence to redirect to a more detailed  biography of the MatchBox Company

Description (Above)

" Contains orange Prime Mover w/green engine covers. 4 3/4" (12.06 cm),

blue Trailer with 2 removable ramps 8" (20.32 cm), yellow & red bulldozer

w/ green movable treads, 4 1/2" (11.43 cm)."

Circa 1958

Description (Above)

" Contains 47A2 Brooke Bond Tea, 5B2 Double Decker Bus, 40A3

Bedfoird Tipper, 35A2 Marshall Horse Box, 25A2 Dunlop Van, 

60A3 Morris Pick Up, 11B3 Road Tanker, 21B2 Long Distance Coach, 

original box worn & taped, w/insert, ca (circa) 1959, C8-9."

Description (Above)

Matchbox Moko 27C1 Cadillac 

with original box

Circa 1960

This particular toy came in several different colours, 

and  have a high-price value, depending on the condition,

 and the colours.

So that's it for today. 

Have a look at the collection. It's quite interesting,.

and AI'msure you'll find something that gets your attention.

My name is (Mr.) Stacey Bindman

and I can alwaysbe reached at:

toysearcher@gmail.com

Thanks for dropping by, and have a great part 

of the day or night, wherever you may be.

I Get Lots of Help From My Toy Friends

Sunday, January 20, 2013

I Get Lots of Help From My Toy Friends

(Thanks Lloyd Ralston Gallery and Bertoia Auctions)

    Yesterday, I was visiting  Live Auctioneers when I very interesting "pattern" caught my eye. It was the uncut castings of toy parts. As a photographer, lots of things "catch your eye" when you're photographing people, places, building or things.  That's one of the reasons, among many others (personality, skill, experience, and knowledge), successful photographers earn the "big bucks", and take excellent photos.

   Anyway,  when I search for my next post or an even later future post, I'm looking very fast, and scrolling pages fast.  I know what  images I've posted (memory helps as a photography trait), and anything out of the ordinary will certainly attract my attention.

   In a past auction listing, on April 4, 2009,  the Lloyd Ralston Gallery had some interesting listings. 

These were uncut parts that would be cut, polished and later painted to assemble their highly successful mechanical banks. It turned out the the parts were made from brass, which I didn't know (place that in my brain somewhere!). I thought most companies at the time use cast iron.

Please Click this to go to the Lloyd Ralston Gallery

  Presenting just the pieces would have been just "so-so", and I did find an article on the Net that wrote about them. So I decided to try and find the finished items-painted mechanical banks,from my other friends at  Bertoia Auctions, I found 3 of the 4 banks. The forth is "close" but not identical, and I'll try to remember to find the exacting match.

Please Click this to go to the Bertoia Auctions Website

So for today's post, here most certainly are some very interesting auctioned items both complete and as original parts! 

The above 2 photos do not match in content.

I'll have to try and find the identical matches in the near future.

The above J. & E. Stevens Toy is very rare, and its casting was very complex to pour. I also wrote from the Bertoia Auctions description, that this toy was not a "big seller" at the time. These combining factors led this particular toy to be sold at a much higher final sale price than the rest.

If you go to either the Live Auctioneers / Bertoia Auctions or the Bertoia Auctions websites, you will get a much more thorough explanation as to how this great toy operated. By the way, the auction date was on Friday, November 11, 2011.

   I just heard thunder outside. Yesterday, we had  6 cm (3 inches) of snow after a few days of very cold (-20 C or -4 F). Today, rain and thunderstorms, but with a high of +6 C or + 49 F, and later in the week back to even colder temperatures. Nothing like a yo-yo weather effect to have the flu and colds, not to mention tripping on ice! So everyone, please take care, if you are living in the Western Hemisphere!

That's it for today.

Thanks for visiting,

and have a great day wherever you may be.

Stacey

Orkin Toy Ships

Wednesday, December 12,2012

Orkin Toy Ships

The Orkin toy company in Cambridge Massachusetts was created by Mr. Samuel Orkin abou the end of WWI. The company produced large metal ships of tin and pressed steel that had mechanical wind-up mechanisms to propel the ship on water. Most of the toy ships were quite large ranging approximately  from 15" - 35" (381 mm - 901 mm). The company lasted about 15 years but their beautiful toys still are around.

I was looking on the Net when I found the Lloyd Ralston Gallery was listing an upcoming auction for December 15, 2012. IN the listings were these nice Orkins toys, among hundreds of other toys.

If I was a kid nowadays, I'd prefer one of these as a Christmas present WiII or an IPhone5. Then again, I always had different "requests" from others kids.

http://www.lloydralstontoys.com

(please click on the address to be redirected to the site)

I kept this identical toy in to the one above. it

I wanted to show eberyone how 1 of these toys must mhave looked when it was bvrand new.

What's interesting about the Orkin ships is that they have many common parts to them. For example, if you look at the gun turrets on several different warships, you'll see that they're identical- unless of course, the larger ships do have larger-sized guns.

while I was doing a search I found that Classictintoy, a toy parts store, sells replacement parts for this old ships. When I was buying and selling toys on E-Bay, I  used the store. It's good to see that there are replacement parts for these old toys. 

http://www.classictintoy.com

(please click on above address to be redirected to the store)

Thanks for dropping by, 
and have a great part of the day or night, 
wherever you may be.

Stacey

Wyandotte Toys - All Metal Products

Sunday, October 21, 2012

Wyandotte Toys

(All Metal Products)

With much thanks to Lloyd Ralston Gallery from me for the use of their photos

http://www.lloydralstontoys.com

(Please click on the above address to be directed to their site)

     The All Metal Products toy company started out in 1920 or 1921 in Wyandotte Michigan. Originally the company produced air rifles (BB guns), but changed to pressed steel toys. During WWII the company produced bullet magazines for automatic rifles, as well as flare guns. In 1929, children's toys were added. The company flourished , with its best year being in 1948, with sales of 

$ 8,000,000.00.  As the 1950's approached the company had to adapt like other toy companies and went into the production of plastic toys. Eventually, sales declined, and a bank called in a loan, forcing the closure of the company. The company stayed in business from 1921-1957.

     Their pressed steel toys are quire unique in design. As you begin to look at the cars that I'm presenting today,  you'll begin to see a certain style and design to their cars. What I'd like to know is how a trained die press craftsman and toy engineer could figure out where to make cuts in the sheet metal. If you look closely at any of the toys, you'll see thin cuts in the metal body. I would assume,that as the heavy press came down on the metal, the metal specifically bent to form the shape of the car or truck. Determining the stress or tear points on a flat sheet of metal certainly required lots of skill.

Early toys had wood wheels (tires), while later toys had rubber ones. I've bought and sold several Wyandotte toys, and it's amazing that even after almost 75 years, several  toys still had their wood wheels intact!

       I had seem photos of this particular Wyandotte, but didn't know at the time that it was a LaSalle!  The real LaSalle cars were very popular at the time, as were the Wyandotte and Tootsietoy toy versions.

     Some of the Wyandotte cars also came with trailers. Of course, it's harder to find the 2 together, and when you see them, the cost of course is more for the set. 

       The tires or rubber wheels of the Wyandotte have the name embossed on them. If you ever buy one of the Wyandotte with a missing rubber tire, you can still purchase parts from them. You can try Classic Tin Toys on E-Bay or Thomas Antique Toy Parts on the Net.

  The boat-tailed racer (above), best illustrates the cuts in  the sheet metal that allowed for the form of the toy to proceed without breakage. The engineers and die pressed steel craftsmen surely know how to build toys in those days!

   Notice the hood ornament of this fine toy. I believe it's called a "rooster comb". When I first started with toys, I'd do  a search for "Wyandotte', without the word toy.  What was funny was that there is a famous breed of chicken called the "Wyandotte". Of course, it took me several times before I finally learned to do a search for "Wyandotte toy" or "Wyandotte car".  

   The above toy was more advanced because it had headlights that worked off a large-sized  "D" battery. I purchased a Kingston toy that also was battery-operated. The size-D battery is getting hard (at least in Montreal) to find! The above toy takes only 1 battery,and the design by which the power works is quite simple, compared to other manufacturers' toys. If I can find an example, I'll add that at a future time.

     I've never had one of these in my possession, but I've had the convertible. If you do a search on my blog posts, you'll fine some very nice photos that I took of the red one. These toys are just beautiful for their simple but elegant design. TH They remind me of the Porsche, Austin-Martin or Bentley design.

    This particular model is sophisticated both in it's appearance, and in its features. It has a trunk that opens and closes, and a retractible hard-top roof that hides into the body of the car. THe other model is a wind-up one.  Interestingly, there are a large percentage of these toys that always are missing the hood, or trunk lid, or both. In fact, I have one that is missing both and I couldn't sell.  I'd make the parts,but the problem is that the paint and paint design of the car was lithographed (printed) on to the metal. I'd have to find a special printer company that prints on metal, and the cost of that would be next-to-impossible!

      This "woody" is a great example a high-quality toy that theLloyd Ralston Gallery would have come to them from a collector to be sold. I've seen a few of these on E-Bay, but never with the luggage rack, the luggage, or even the great condition of the paint, and the tires.

       The above toy resembles many of the Wyandotte trucks build long ago. It also reminds me of the real Packard car  or the Rambler of that era. This is the first time that I've seen this particular Wyandotte.

       Those wooden wheels are still intact after all these years. I wonder what type of wood they used in their manufacture?

        A fire chief's car was a variation of the hard-top car. Many companies of the time (Marx and Girard), made fire chief cars. The Girard was more sophisticated with battery-operagted lights, and  awind-up  gear for allowing the toy to move by itself.

http://www.lloydralstontoys.com

(Please click on the above address to be directed to their site)

Thanks for dropping by, 

and as always have a great morning, afternoon, or evening, wherever you may be.

Stacey