Difficulty in Matching Toys to a 1937 Tippco Catalogue

Thursday, November 6, 2014
Overcast, cool with a chance of rain

Difficulty in Matching Toys

to a 1937 Tippco Catalogue

   When I receive a toy catalogue, I like to match up the catalogue illustrations or photos with original toys.  It's always been easy - until today!  First of all, the toys are German made, which makes it a bit harder. There are not a lot of german toys that are often sold at auction or on ebay. It would be like finding Hubley cast iron toys in Europe. Secondly, the main auctioneers for lots and lots of German toys are naturally - the German auction companies. I've tried to request permission from several of them - but no luck!  Now even with "some" difficult as I mentioned above, I usually find toys to match up. But this time, I didn't. I could have found only 100% matches, but this time I decided to do what I could.

  If you read yesterday's post, I was impressed with how many models of army vehicles, cars, and fire engines there were that all looked quite similar. The reason I mention this is that the year was 1937. The world was going through a terrible depression, Germany under Hitler is creating tension in Europe, and Hitlers' future war machine to come is working round the clock making armaments which were not allowed under the germs ending WWI.

Please click here to visit this very interesting group of toy collectors

I've used new scans of the reproduction catalogue that the ATCA group published in 1971. They sell these excellent-quality reproductions when they hold their meetings in the USA and  even occasionally in Europe. Meetings are hosted by members two times a year - in the spring and in the fall. I learned this from a member - Mr.  Derrick Clow, who is a member of this excellent group.

I just realized that I made a mistake. The yellow and red arrow should have pointed to the middle image. The top one was made without batteries ands actual lighting for the headlights. The middle one was.

I matched the m up - real toy and the catalogue!

Not a  100% match!

The catalogue illustration has batteries and real illuminated headlights,

 while the toy doesn't have them, and not even pseudo headlights.

Finally - a match - almost!

The illustration and the real toy match,but 2 soldiers are missing.

As I mentioned earlier, there are 4 toy illustrations that are quite similar,but for the number of soldiers in the Jeep-like  auto, and the items that the autos are pulling.

The camouflage is superbly done via the lithography.

Another no match!

In the illustration the firemen are more three-dimensional (#D), whereas in the actual toy the side firemen are compressed like almost 2D figures.

The illustration has 6 firemen, and the real toy 4.

Also,on the toy, there is no front bell.

Finally - a 100% match!

Although the toy is mostly lithographed, compared with actual moving parts, the impression os excellent. Your eyes could easily trick you into believing that this you had moving parts, when in fact it was lithographed.

So that's it for today. 

As for now, my fall (autumn) chores are almost finished. I took in all of the summer furniture into our house - my wife doesn't like those nice Rubbermaid outdoor storage sheds.

Today, I placed the front staircase runner on the steps, and lifted a 60 pound flat piece of recycled rubber for the landing before entering the house.  Then it was hammering in poles with fluorescent reflectors to the sides of our driveway. That's so our winter gardener (I'm the summer gardener) doesn't rip out the grass to the sides of the asphalt driveway when he plows the snow to the front of our  driveway,and removes the rest.

Now as I am ending today's post, it's loading my winter tires on rims into the car and  off I go to the mechanic to change summer to winter, and get an oil change, and change windshield wipers from summer to winter.

Ah - the pleasures of living in a northern climate!

Thanks for dropping by and as always,

have a great part of the day or night

wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com

Tippco Toys

Sunday, March 17, 2013
(St. Patrick's Day) 

Tippco Toys

(Germany)

    When you look at toys too often, they begin to look alike. I guess you could say that for alomost any topic such as cars, flowers, cloth sees, and so forth. However,  if you look close enough, you can see the differences among the manufacturers. 

    The Tippco Toys company was established in 1912 by Mr. Philipp Ullmann. The company  established itself as a major producer  of lithographed tin toys in Europe. However, in 1933 Mr. Ullmann, being Jewish was forced out of Germany during the rise of Naziism.  The company continued to produce toys without its Mr. Ullmann.

     The company produced interesting and complex toys such as its airplane bombers with working bomb doors. It also produced some of the first battery-operated cars with front headlights.  During  WWII, many toys were melted down for scrap to provide arms for the war effort, both in Europe and in North America.  As a result, many toys that were more expensive and rarer at the time, became even rarer and more expensive on the used-toy market.

     With the end of the war, Tippco made very detail-oriented tin toys of common civilian aircraft.

http://www.bertoiaauctions.com

(Please click on the address above to be redirected to the fine Website of Bertoia Auctions)

   You can see how these particular toys (Tin Lithographed - European) of the 1930's and later,  may look similar to most other European toys of that era. However, when you look more closely and even compare,they  are a much better than the others. Colour, design, design features (doors open, detailed human figures, bombs drop from airplane) all add up to separate this particular Tippco brand from the rest.

Well that's it for another Sunday.

Thanks for dropping by to visit.

Have a nice restful Sunday, and if you're here on any other day,

have a great part of the day, wherever you may be.

Stacey