Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Sunny with clouds
19 Celsius / 66 Fahrenheit
Sunny with clouds
19 Celsius / 66 Fahrenheit
Mr. J.E. Brubaker's Creations
Today, October 4, I hit the 400,000 page views milestone, and decided to write about toy patents. This is where the genius of talented people comes from in order to make successful toys. The creator of the patent was Mr. Brubaker, and the Original Assignee" was the Hubley Manufacturing Company.
I selected these visual patents because they represent the ingenuity of inventors and toy designers like Mr. Brubaker. Also, these patents made excellent wall decorations when framed. You can find many of these patents either at the US Patent Office or on Google.
When you type in "Google toy Patent Inventions", you will find many toy inventions on a Google sub-website. Interestingly, there are several people and companies who actually sell these patent sheets on the Internet and on ebay! So now you know where to download them at no cost!
You probably never ever heard of J.E.Brubaker. Mr. Jacob Brubaker was the chief toy designer and created for the Hubley toy company in the 1920's-1930's. If you've been following my blog, you'd know that was a great time period for cast iron toys, and Hubley was one of the larger companies to make these wonderful toys at the time.
The U.S.Patent office website is very complicated when it comes to finding patents of any kind. If you like the patents screen-captures below, then an easier way to find them is to type in search words such as "toy patents" in your search engine, and then change the viewing from "all" to "images". I use Google as my search engine, and it's the best for finding the patent screen-captures that you'll see below.
Toy cap guns were very popular in the 1920's-1930's,and Hubley and Mr. Brubaker certainly made and patented several. For those who don't know, a "cap" is a small double-sided piece of paper that has a small amount of powder in it. The cap is placed in front of a "bullet", and when the gun hammer strikes the bullet, the cap ignites and makes a large "bang" noise. I used to have a "cap gun" six-shooter as a child, and every Saturday morning, I would go through a several dozen caps and fire off the gun. Nobody ever complained, but I'm quite sure that I certainly woke up some people on the street!
The Hubley grasshopper was a very successful and unique type of "pull toy". As a child pulled the grasshopper, the legs moved back and forth,and up and down. At the same time, a small metal strip (part 18 in the diagram) and a small gear with teeth (part 17) would rotate. This created a "clicking sound" that resembled a cricket-like "chirp". Since this toy was patented, it was the only cast iron grasshopper toy at the time.
The airplane below is pressed steel and was patented in 1939. What is unique to this toy is that the landing gear (tires and rims) are able to be position in the horizontal or vertical positions. In the horizontal position, the landing gear would be parallel with the wing and flat. In the vertical position, the landing gear was in the vertical position, and the toy could be rolled on the ground.
The toy below was patented in 1934 and was modelled after the Chrysler Airflow. THe "real" car was made by Chrysler and is very beautiful, and advanced for its' time. However, it was never a success in terms of sales, and was discontinued afar only 3 years of production.
On the other hands. tens of thousands of these cast iron Hubley toys were manufactured. What made this toy unique is the fact that the undercarriage (underneath the top body of the car and includes the tires and rims) could be separated from the car body. By removing the spare tire (6b), from the rim (6), the car could be dismantled (taken apart).
I purchased one of these toys on ebay, and it certainly was a fantastic toy to have in anyone's collection. I enjoyed it, by taking it apart!
The cast iron convertible below also could be taken apart. A strong flexible wire (part 4) could be hooked to part 3, which resembled a small hook. IN this position, the undercarriage and the upper car body were together. When the wire was positioned "off the hook", the 2 parts could be separated.
Some of the Hubley cast iron toys has a light or pair of lights at the front.THese were battery-operated, and could be turned on or off. Below are a car racer and a motorcycle. Part "L" is the front headlight and part "D" is the battery.THese toys were also very popular, and are highly prized as collectibles 83 years later. They also happen to still work as well!
I would like to thank all of you, my readers, who have discovered my website and who have allowed me and my blog to reach this milestone. Relatively speaking, by far, I am not hugely successful as a website, but 400,000 page views is nothing to be ashamed of either. I hope to keep writing, and I always invite any of my readers, auctioneers, or collectors to write to me if they would like me to create a post for you. ANd for all the people and companies who have contributed ,
I thank you very much.
Thanks for dropping by today,
and as always,
Have a great part of the day or night,
wherever you may be.
Stacey Bindman
toysearcher@gmail.com
