A Case of "What Might Have Been"

Sunday, January 12, 2025

Sunny and Cold 

-9°C / 16° F

A Case of What 

Might Have Been

Mu usual blog time starts with scrolling through the 1667 posts and

checking to see who I haven't written about. So when I saw that 

I  hadn't written a post about Model Cars of The World,

 I decided that they would be my next post.

Model Cars of The World are located "down under" in Australia.

If you're wondering who created the expression "down under",it was from 

Matthew Flinders. 

"The nickname "Down Under" came as a result of the European explorers

who were looking for a land located below the continent of Asia.*

*Reference from a Google Search

He was part of the team that coined the name "Down Under" with reference to

Australia, although New Zealand is also sometimes referred to in the same way.

You can find his autobiography on Wikipedia

Click on this sentence to redirect to Wikipedia for Matthew Flinders biography

Today's post is about 2 companies in Australia who were going to 

work with the American company Tootsietoy to create die-cast based

on several models of Tootsietoy vehicles. Tootsietoy was an American company 

that produced small-sized die-cast toy cars and other vehicles. 

Model Cars of The World is an excellent ebay  company. 

They specialize on selling small-sized toys. 

Please click on this sentence to redirect to their store 

Description:

"TootsieToy Jumbo Tow Truck 140 mm long.

This toy was to be made by Winna Toys Australia. The Australian

version of this model was advertised in the toy retailer as being

manufactured by Winna toys in the 1940's and was called 

"big brother tiny toys family",but after 60 years of collecting, I

have never seen one by stamped Winna"*

* Courtesy of the owner of  Model Cars of The World

"TootsieToy Jumbo Saloon in red 140 mm long

was to be made by  Winna Toys Australia. The

Australian version os this model was advertised in

the toy retailer as being manufactured by Winna toys

and was called big brother tiny toys family;

so I am not sure if it ever was produced by Winna or was it?????

* Courtesy of the owner of  Model Cars of The World

"TootsieToy Jumbo Saloon USA 140 mm long in orange

was copied by Tink-E Toys in New Zealand in heavy cast metal,

it is approximately 138mm, so it is a bit smaller than the Tootsietoy".

The one for sale is in cream, missing wheels and axles with some damage"

The Tootsietoy was copied by Tink-E Toys in lead in New Zealand"

I did a search and found the toy website below that

wrote about Tink-E Toys

Please click on this sentence to read some history on the TINK E TOYS Company

Well, this was a very interesting story about the 

Tootsietoy and the Tink-E Toys toy companies.

As I once wrote in another blog post about a famous movie quote by 

Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump (1994):

"My Mom always said life was like a bowl of chocolates. 

You never know what you're gonna get."

Thanks for visiting my blog, and as always

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

My name is Mr.Stacey Bindman,

and I can always be reached at:

toysearcher@gmail.com

 

 

An Inquiry From Down Under (Australia)

Sunday, April 12, 2020
Cloudy with Sunny Periods
14 C   57 F

An Inquiry from Down Under

(Australia)

It's always exciting when you get an inquiry from a place you don't usually expect. And so it was with this inquiry - it was from Australia, or as they say there, "down under". The writer , who  happens to have a fine ebay store, also has an excellent reputation. He goes by the name of Australianmodelcars.

You can visit his excellent store on ebay by clicking here

    I would normally write about the superb merchandise that he has on his ebay store, but his question was one of the more interesting questions (and discovery) that I have not heard in a long time. He has a group of cars that were manufactured in Australia by the name of  Winna.

"Hi I Found your site browsing the Internet

Being a collector of Australian made toys for over 60 years I have been trying to find out if

the Australia Winna toys that made in the 1940s being almost identical to Tootsietoys.

Were they licensed or made by Tootsietoys with Winna  stamped on the base plate.

Or if they were copied by Winna. Also Bentoy did the same thing.

As Australia was so far away in the 1940s who knows what went on

Up to now not much is known’

I have examples of both Winna, Brentoys, and Tootsietoys.

Any information would be helpful in my research;

Keep safe in the current virus situation.

Thanks

"Australianmotorcars"

As you can see above, the red toy (Tootsietoy), and the 3 other toys (Winna) are quite similar.

The inside of the cars are marked with their respective identifications

of Tootsietoy and Winna.

Tootsietoys and Winna

Descriptions:

"he red toy  is a  Tootsietoy 1939 LaSalle sedan ( 83 mm / 3 1/4" long)

Solid rubber wheels, die cast , made in the USA, 1940's.

The other 3 toys were manufactured by Winna.

Closed sedan, made in 1940's,(83 mm / 3 1/4" long.

Die cast, made in Australia, 1940's.

With bakelite or plastic wheels.

Winna stamped under the inside of the roof, F.H.E. stamped under the bonnet (hood).

Came in various colours.

Type of packaging unknown, original price not known.

Place of manufacture not known, but possibly Melbourne, Victoria (Australia).

Manufacturer's name nt known; trading name not known.

Tootsie and Winna look to be the same casting with different wheels."

Below are 2 more different views of these very nice toys.

 

If anyone out there knows about the Australian toy brand Winna,

would you please write to me, so that I can forward the information to

Australianmotorcars.

As always, 

Thanks for dropping by.

Have a great time of the day or not

wherever you may be.

or as they say "down under in Australia"

G'day

And during these terrible times of the Corona Virus, please take care of yourself 

and your family.

All the best,

Stacey Bindman

blogwriter

You can always write to me at:

toysearcher@gmail.com

The American Antique Auctions Company

Monday, November 27, 2017
Sunny with Cloudy Periods
-2 C 28 F

The American Antique Auctions Company

Please click here to visit this fine American Auction Company

    A few days ago, I was on the Liveauctioneers website, when I came across a very nice and eclectic grouping of toys up for auction. The auction is scheduled for December 2, 2017, and promptly begins at 07:00 A.M. As with several of the auctions companies that I have written about in the past,  American Antique Auctions is conducting their listings and auction on Liveauctioneers.

Below:

3 separate listings from the auction.

The listings are for Tootsietoy toys.

Below:

2 sides (left and right) of a reproduction page 

of a 1933 Tootsietoy catalogue. 

Tootsietoy in the 1930's and later on was "the" small toy company that was very prominent in the USA at the time. It even surpassed Dinky Toys from Great Britain. These small toys (about 4" or 100 mm in length) are still very prized and are very collectible even today.

The 3 toys below are part of a diverse and eclectic group of toys from this auction. These toys also are quite collectible, and there a lot of them in the auction.

You might want to venture over to Liveauctioneers and the American Antique Auctions site. Their toys exemplify a broad array of collectible toys from a while back, and the photography from this auctioneers is excellent in terms of showing the toys and their condition. Even if you might not be interested in buying, the  bidding on this collection of toys will give you a sense as to how the bidding goes (fast or slow, in high demand or not), as well as giving you an idea as to what the prices are.

Thanks for dropping by,

And as always,

Have a great part of the day or night,

Wherever you may be.

toysearcher@gmail.com

Stacey Bindman

An Interesting Group of Toys

Tuesday November 8, 2016
Sunny with Clouds
6 Celsius / 41 Fahrenheit

An Interesting Group of Toys

Please click here to visit this interesting ebay seller

I've been using PicClick lately, and  it most-certainly helps me find what I'm looking for very fast. 
The website is affiliated with ebay, and it works  to have viewers see results for their searches. It's a fast website, that's easy to manoeuvre and easy to use.
 Mr. Hardy Littleton is the owner of this ebay store.

In a search for cast iron toys, I came across the cast iron roadster below, and I decided to investigate further. The roadster is a reproduction by Don Lewis based on the original Arcade Buick of the 1930's. These reproductions are collectible,and people like to buy them, probably as works of art or for that matter as a toy collectible.

         Arcade Buick Coupe by Don Lewis California 

LEWIS BUICK COUPE 8 ½" long. This is one of a very limited production of coupes made in the 90's by Don Lewis of California. Original Arcade Buicks were used to establish an exact mold. Finished exactly as the originals with blue-green body, black roof & running boards, and white rubber tires with nickeled spare & driver. These are fast becoming a treasured collector item because of their extreme quality and very limited production.

VINTAGE A.C. WILLIAMS AUSTIN CAR CARRIER / HAULER

Scarce 1920's cast iron Austin Car Carrier Tractor Trailer Truck by A. C. Williams. Approx. 12-1/4" long. Features 3 cast iron Austin coupes the blue and green car both embossed "Austin" on each side. Red & Green hauler, (2) blue cars & (1) green car -all have orig pt, orig wheels, some paint loss - all with no repairs or brakes. Hauler is 12 1/2"L x 2 1/2"H x 1 3/4"W - cars are 3/12"L x 1 1/2"W x 1 3/4"H. 

You don't often see the A.C. Williams tractor trailer. 

This one's quite nice with its' accompanying 3 Austin Cars.

VINTAGE HUBLEY MILK & CREAM ORANGE DELIVERY TRUCK

All original milk cream truck in overall good condition. No brakes or repairs. 

Painted cast iron, 3 3/4" long, original rubber tires. 

The  # 314 Hubley milk truck above is  similar to the # 42 Borden's milk truck. 
However, it does not have "Borden's milk" embossed on the sides of the truck. 
It's also very small, measuring  3 3/4" (96 mm) long. The numbers 42 & 314 are from a 1930's Hubley catalogue.

1935-1936 TOOTSIE TOY GREEN DOODLEBUG STREAMLINE AIRFLOW CAR TOOTSIETOY

1935-1936 by Tootsie Toy in complete and original condition showing play wear, scratches to the paint, dulling of the grill and bumpers, darkening and cracking to the wheels. One wheel missing. Measures 4 inches (101 mm) long. An unusually rare streamline prototype car of the future that still displays well in any Tootsie Toy, die cast, or vintage toy car collection.

1930s METALCRAFT Toy Truck " St. Louis " Delivery Truck VG Original Condition

Nice all original Metalcraft Corp. delivery truck, made in St. Louis, in very good original condition. Still has tailgate attached & intact. Appears that the windshield frame is missing. Truck measures approx. 11 1/2" long, about 5 1/4" tall, approx. 4 1/4' wide. 

Metalcraft was a successful company inn the 1930's and later. It produced nice pressed-steel toys.

VINTAGE HUBLEY CAST IRON SLANT NOSE OPEN WHEEL RACER 

MARKED HUBLEY, 4-1/8" LONG, ORIGINAL RED PAINT, NICKEL PLATE STEEL WHEELS 

The red racer above is also from the 1930's catalogue and is # 331. This toy came in 2 colours - orange and red. Those rectangular parts between the wheels are radiators.

So that was a nice eclectic grouping of toy cars and trucks, and if you venture over to ebay and this seller, you'll see more interesting toys as well.

An Excellent E-Bayer Revisited

Monday, February 22, 2016

An Excellent E-Bayer Revisited

   A while back, I was perusing ebay when I was attracted to some nice photography. As I expanded my search, I came across excellent photography, even for low-priced items. Naturally, this had to be a post, and so I wrote Malinda Trollinger for permission.  As it turned out, Malinda was helping sell her father's toy collection and other collectibles that he had amassed over a wide span of time.

   If you've been following me recently, I've been doing a "retrospective", and have been researching old posts to revisit old friends and to write about them. And so for today, I present to you Malinda Trollinger.

Please click here to visit Malinda Trollinger's ebay page

Below:

1934 Tootsietoy Ford Sedan.

Length:  3"  ( 76 mm)

Tootsietoy was a company that rivalled the British Dinky toy company. It was an American company that produced small-sized die cast toys for the market. Cars were especially popular, and with a low price, children could collect many cars to play with. The company existed from the 1920's - 1960's and eventually succumbed to the times, higher labour costs in the USA, and to the Aisian marketplace.

What I like about Malinda's photography jus that even for a lower-priced item, she takes the time and makes the effort to present the toy in its best manner, and to illustrate the features of the toy. 

That's dedication, and  "setting the bar high" 

(an American expression meaning high standards are set).

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

Tootsietoy Furniture

Sunday, November 22, 2015
      Partly sunny and seasonally cold.

Tootsietoy Furniture

   The Tootsietoy Company manufactured the best small toys at the time in the United States. They are my favourite small toys, and were die cast. However, the company also manufactured miniature furniture for children to play with. These too were die case. In the upcoming Lloyd Ralston Gallery auction (December 5, 2015), there is a fine collection of 8 small boxed sets of miniature furniture.

Please click here to visit this fine American auction company

I would think that most of the furniture sets were manufactured about the same time. However, I have no references to corroborate (substantiate) this statement. THe kitchen sets allow me to date the toys, so long as the toys were made at the same timeas the real life-size furniture. 

If you knew American furniture and American upholstery patterns and their history, I'm sure you could date the period of these toys. I would say (based solely on the kitchen furniture) that these sets were manufactured around the late 1920's and early 1930's.

The light stands are certainly old from the first quarter of the 20th century.

The kitchen stove and countertops definitely are late 1920's-early 1930's. Also, the "icebox" in the lower right corner helps to date the furniture. The electric refrigerator did not come along yet, and was invented later. Of course, toys could in fact be manufactured at a later date, but provided a "retro" look for children wanting an "older" play set. The kitchen sink with its' side preparation side certainly again was an early design. The kitchen sink in North America did not change until the later 1940's and progressively later into the 1950's.

What's interesting about the set below is that the insert could be removed. The insert shown is the wooden floor and the blue and yellow patterned carpet.

There is no reference to the size of the furniture, but if the sets are similar in size to the Tootsietoy cars and trucks of the era, then the chairs are about 2" (50.88 mm) high, and the above table is about 4"  (101 mm) wide).

What I'd like to know is whether or not there were Tootsie miniature people to go along with see wonderful room furniture sets. It would be interesting to see how the designers created different characters for the play people, as well as their clothing.

Whomever had collected these 8 sets certainly was highly motivated to collect them, and was certainly interested.

Addendum:

I was able to actually find 2 furniture pages in a reproduction catalogue reissued by Noble House of Mundelein, Illinois (USA) in 1989.

Below are the 3 pages (catalogue face cover, the page of furniture illustrations, and the page of descriptions and catalogue numbers. The catalogue is from 1933.

My date "guesses (please read at the beginning) estimated the toys having been manufactured from the late-1920's - mid 1930's. I was "close". However, the screen-captured LLoyd ralsotn photos have the box cores,. These box covers are an earlier "style" and design as far as the style and type go. Therefore, I wouldn;lt be surprised if the 1933 catalogue was updated, even though the toys continued to be made and were made originally in the late 1920's.

Such is the value of having original catalogues or reproductions.-

they always help with the identity of toys.

Thanks for dropping by on this day,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com