An Unknown Cap Pistol

 Saturday February 4, 2023
 -24° C / -11.2 F
 Sunny

                    

A Rare and Old Unknown  Cap Pistol

  It's -24° C or -11.2° F, on a very cold day. 

When I awoke today, it was -30° C or -22° F.  

What a great day to be indoors and write a few blog posts! 

 

This week, I received an e-mail  from a reader. 

He sent me a well-photographed photo of what most-likely is an early 20th century American cast iron toy cap pistol.

    I thought it might be easy to find information about this most-interesting toy pistol, but it hasn't been easy. I've spent a long times searching for this toy, and I was certain that I would find information and identification about it. But I haven't!

    Toy cap guns were very popular in the late 19th century and 20th century, and there are hundreds and hundreds. of different cap guns that were made during those times!

The first place on the Internet was ATCA, The Antique Toy Collectors of America.

ATCA is an exceptional website for doing research. Their exceptional collection of old toy catalogues is a great asset when searching out information on toys. I selected several American toy catalogues whom I knew had manufactured toy guns.

I then did a search on Pinterest

 Nothing was to be found!

Finally I chose Google.

However after looking at pages and pages of "antique toy cap guns", "antique cast iron cap guns", antique American cap guns", and so on,

I was out-gunned!

So, my dedicated readers; thanks for visiting me once again.

And if there is anyone out there who can identify this very rare

toy cap gun, would you be so kind as to 

write to me.

From there, I will write to and send him the good news!

As always,

Thanks for dropping by,

And have a great day,

wherever you may be.

 (Mr.) Stacey Bindman

My e-mail address is

toysearcher@gmail.com

 

Matching 1928 Keystone Toys to a Butler Brothers Catalogue

Friday, March 21, 2020
Sunny
27 C.  81 F

Matching 1928 Keystone Toys

 to a Butler Brothers Catalogue

It's always fun to find toys on the Internet and match them up to a catalogue.

Bertoia Auctions is having a current auction now with a lot of Keystone toys.

However, my 1927 Butler Brothers catalogue does not have these toys.

Coincidentally, when I did the Internet search, I came up with the page that I was looking for.

I found page 266 of the Butler Brothers 1928 (December) catalogue.

All of the toys are pressed steel with  rubber tires, and some of them have been restored.

Please click here to view this June 18, 2020 auction

If you are reading this after the end of the auction, then simply

go to the Bertoia Auctions website, and search for past auctions and June 18, 2020*

The "Packard Combo 49 Truck measures 28" (710 mm).

The other toys seen above are also large toys.

If anyone has any of the other Keystone toys featured above,

please feel free to send me your photos, and I will add them to this blog post.

Just e-mail me beforehand, so I can tell you the size of the photos, 

and how to light the toys for best results.

Returning to reality, up here in Canada, and my province of Quebec, 

The Covid19 virus statistics are starting to show the data stabilizing 

and/or the falling. The governments  (federal and provincial) are starting to 

ease up on the rules. Soon, I will be able to get a haircut and to 

go to large stores that were previously closed.

Nevertheless, if people start to go beyond the rules, then they will

endanger everyone. I hope people understand this.

So that's it for today.

Thanks for visiting,

and have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey BIndman

toysearcher@gmail.com

A Great Story Behind a Great the Story

Thursday, September 18, 2014
Partly sunny and unseasonal cold weather

A Great Story 

Behind A Great Story

   Yesterday, I received a reproduction copy of a Toys catalogue that had been printed by a printing company on behalf of the Washington Dolls' House & Toy Museum. The owner of the museum was Flora Gill Jacobs. I've been busy lately, so I couldn't research either the Museum or Flora Gill Jacobs. When I just did earlier, before I started to write was just that - find out about the Museum and Ms. Jacobs. The story is unbelievable.  I'm not going to write the story, because I'd prefer you, my readers to visit the links that  I've added below. I've added a précis (A brief summary)  in the next paragraph, but this post most assuredly is "A Great Story Behind a Great Story"!

   Ms. Jacobs was born on December 22, 1918 was a very intelligent woman who even while at George Washington University worked part time at the Washington-Times Herald writing film reviews. She eventually dropped out of University to write for the paper, became the fashion editor,and later moved on to become a reporter on women's fashion for the Washington Post. In the later 1940's she left this excellent newspaper to write a book about dollhouses, even though she had never owned one. I'll stop here, and not give away the whole story! 

Please click here to visit the well-written Obituary of Flora Gill Jacobs

    The "story within the story" is today's post. Ms. Jacobs decided to reprint the catalogue that I am posting today. It is the L.H.Mace & Co. (New York). The reprint was made in 1977 and copyright for the Washington Dolls' House & Toy Museum.  I've purchased toy catalogue reproductions recently and before because they provide a great resource for any collector or writer. Also, it's very hard and very expensive to find the originals.  

   What makes this story so interesting is that Mr. Jacobs chose to bring back the catalogue through the reprint to share with everyone what is truly a most interesting catalogue, as well as a "piece of American History". I'm writing from a personal perspective. Toys offer the reader an opportunity to see what "real" items were like at the time of the toys. Clothing, furniture, horse carts, fire wagons, cars and so forth. 

   What's most interesting in the catalogue is to see some pages that offered so many choices as to the size of toys, especially dolls. I was just mentioning to one of my Tim Horton's (A Coffee shop)  friends about the real lack of selections and choices in hardware stores anymore. Lumber is from but a few saw mills, acres are all from 1 company, and so on, and so forth.

   I couldn't find must history as to what happened to the L.H.Mace & Company company, but when I have the time, I shall purse the story! I'm always interested in details, and this story certainly is a great story!

I like when publishers reprint old catalogues with yellowed and  browned paper stock, as well as a front cover page (grey) that symbolizes "old". When I received the catalogue yesterday, and looked at the photos, I was very excited. So much so, that I though that the ebay seller had sold me an original 1907 catalogue and not a reprint. Of course, when I then read Ms. Jacob's introduction above and saw 1977, I returned to reality!

What I seem to be noticing in old toy catalogues is that the catalogue seldom identity the manufacturer of the toys. I recent mention this is an earlier post this week. It's the same with this L.H.Mace & Co. catalogue.

It's not a "big deal",but it makes my job all the more harder, when I want to cross-reference "real toys' with illustrations or photos in toy catalogues of department stores catalogue merchandise company's 

I'm sure by now, you're wondering where the scanned pages are for dollhouses, since this story 

is in fact about dollhouses! I forgot about 100 words ago. I did just check and there is only 1 page of dollhouses for sale. Of course, there are plenty of dolls, toy furniture, real children;s furniture, and many other things. 

For sure "I shall return" (General Douglas MacAuthor - March 21, 1942),  and "I'll be back"

(Arnold Schwaezennegger-The terminator Movie-1984).

I'm surge any book reviewer or blog reviewer would  criticize the previous sentence as being bad writing, and I agree, but sometimes I just like to be "funny" or think that I'm funny!

Thanks for dropping by to visit,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com