An Easy Way to Identify a Bing Toy

Saturday, December 2, 2017
Overcast and Un-seasonally Warm
3C  38 F

An Easy Way to Identify

a Bing Toy

Please click on this sentence to see this exceptional auction company

Below:

Bing German Tin Large 11 Inch (280 mm) Open Limousine. 

Period driver not original to car but looks good, missing an arm. GBN mark.

Below:

Bing Open Tourer Limousine 9 inches (228 mm) with Driver. 

Fine working German tin toy

The above scanned image is from the 1912 Bing Catalogue.

The image is of the Bing logo that was lithographed on Bing toys.

The blue arrows in the 2 photos below are pointing 

to the Bing logo at the back of the 2 toy cars.

The History of the Bing Toy Company

Bing or Gebrüder Bing ("Bing brothers") was a German toy company founded in 1863 in Nuremberg, Germany by two brothers, Ignaz Bing and Adolf Bing, originally producing metal kitchen utensils, but best remembered for its extensive lines of model trains and live steam engines. Ignaz is also known for his discovery and development of the Bing Cave, a show cave in Germany.

The company produced fine pewter and copper tableware before embarking on toy production in 1880, their first teddy bears were released in 1907. By the early 20th century, Bing was the largest toy company in the world, and Bing's factory in Nuremberg was the largest toy factory in the world. Although Bing produced numerous toys, it is best remembered today for toy trains and liver steam-powered toys. In addition to toys it made scientific and educational novelties, and a huge range of kitchenware, tableware, office equipment, record players, electrical goods and so on.

The "Nuremberg Style" of manufacturing toys on steel sheets with lithographed designs that were stamped out of the metal, formed, and assembled using tabs and slots, was perfected by Bing. This manufacturing method remained in widespread use well into the 1950s, long after the Bing company had been dissolved.*

*Please click here to visit Wikepedia and the History of the Bing Toy Company

OpAmerica to the Rescue

Sunday, October 22, 2017
Sunny with some clouds
21 C  70 F

OpAmerica

Please click here to visit this exceptional ebay seller

     The autumn weather continues to still amaze everyone. The sun is shining a lot, and the  temperature is still above normal for this time of year. I've continues to cycle, although have my fall thermals on to keep me warm. The mornings are usually cold and damp, so I always follow the old expression - "it's better to have to take off clothes than to not have the proper clothing on a cold day".

I decided to visit an old company on ebay who has helped me out in the past. I haven't blogged as much as I used to , but I still get motivated to write the occasional post.  And if you don;t know by now, I'm always happy to have anyone volunteer to send me their toy photos, and to write a short narrative accompanying the toys.

It's hard to remember all of the toys that I have written about, but occasionally, I do know what I have not written about. The fine toy racing cars from 1947 are definitely toys that I have not written about.

Description:

a set of four (4) Captain Marvel Lightning Racing Cars.  These cars are numbered 1 - 4 and feature great colorful litho graphics of Captain Marvel on the sides.  Each car measures 4" in length and has a side wind up slot for keys.  No keys are included.  Sides marked "Automatic Toy Co., NY", and "Cop 1947 Fawcett Publications, Inc".  Parts are all original.

  What interested me was the story behind these toys. 

Fawcett Comics, a division of Fawcett Publications, was one of several successful comic book publishers during the Golden Age of Comic Books in the 1940s. Its most popular character was Captain Marvel, the alter ego of radio reporter Billy Batson, who transformed into the hero whenever he said the magic word "Shazam!".

Fawcett Publications began in 1919 with the magazine Captain Billy's Whiz Bang and eventually expanded into a line of periodicals with a combined circulation of ten million a month. The company joined in the explosion of comic book publications in the United States in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Its initial entry, developed by writer Bill Parkerand artist C. C. Beck, was Thrill Comics, a single issue of which was published only as an ashcan copy. The content was then reworked (for example, the lead character of Captain Thunder was renamed to Captain Marvel) and published as Whiz Comics #2 (Feb. 1940).

The whimsical adventures of Captain Marvel and the Marvel Family (which included Captain Marvel, Jr., Mary Marvel, theLieutenants Marvel, etc.) eventually outsold those of Superman. National Comics (as DC Comics was then known) sued Fawcett, claiming that the Captain infringed on the copyright of their original costumed superhero. National Periodical's 1941 copyright hearing against Fawcett was dismissed on a technicality; National had failed to secure the copyright to theSuperman newspaper strip.

Please click here to visit Wikipedia and the nice story behind Marvel Comics

So that's it for today. I'm writing this post at 10:00 a.m. in the morning. The current temperature is 12 C  (54 F0, and I'm waiting for the temperature to rise a few degrees more.

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

Toys-Part 2 (Die cast Toys)

Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Overcast with some sun
-4 C 24 F

Toys -Part 2

Die-Cast Toys

The term die-cast toy here refers to any toy or collectible model produced by using the die casting method. The toys are made of metal, with plastic, rubber, or glass details. Wholly plastic toys are made by a similar process of injection moulding, but the two are rarely confused. The metal used is either a lead alloy (in the first toys), or more commonly Zamak (or Mazak in the UK), an alloy of zinc with small quantities of aluminium and copper. Lead, as previously so widely used for cast metal toys, or iron are impurities that must be carefully avoided in this alloy, as they give rise to zinc pest. These alloys are also referred to casually as white metal or pot metal, although these terms are also confused with the lead toy alloys. The most common die-cast toys are scale models of automobiles, aircraft, construction equipment, and trains, although almost anything can be produced by this method.

History:

Diecast (or die cast, or die-cast) toys were first produced early in the 20th century by manufacturers such as Meccano (Dinky Toys) in the United Kingdom, Dowst Brothers (TootsieToys) in the United States and Fonderie de précision de Nanterre (Solido) in France. The first models on the market were basic, consisting of a small car or van body with no interior. In the early days, it was common for impurities in the alloy to result in zinc pest; the casting would distort or crack for no apparent reason. As a result, diecast toys made before World War II are difficult to find in good condition. The later high-purity Zamak alloy avoided this problem.

Lesney began making diecast toys in 1947. Their popular Matchbox 1-75 series was so named because there were always 75 different vehicles in the line, each packaged in a small box designed to look like those used for matches. These toys became so popular that "Matchbox" was widely used as a generic term for any diecast toy car, regardless of who the actual manufacturer was.

The popularity of diecast toys as collectibles developed in the 1950s as their detail and quality increased. Consequently, more companies entered the field, including the Corgi brand, produced by Mettoy, which appeared in 1956 and pioneered the use of interiors in their models.

In 1968, Hot Wheels were introduced in the United States by Mattel to address the complaint that they had no line of toys for boys to balance their line of Barbie dolls for girls. Because they looked fast and were fast (they were equipped with a low-friction wheel/axle assembly), Hot Wheels quickly gained an important niche in the diecast toy market, becoming one of the world's top sellers and challenging the Matchbox 1-75 series in popularity.

Although this practice has been used by Meccano (Dinky Toys) as far as 1934, during the 1960s various companies began to use diecast vehicles as promotional items for advertising. The idea that children can play a large part in a family's decision as to what products to buy came into wide circulation. In addition, by the 1980s it was apparent that many diecast vehicles were being purchased by adults as collectibles, not as toys for children. Companies such as McDonald's, Sears Roebuck, Kodak and Texaco commissioned toymakers to produce promotional models featuring their names and logos or licensed their use. One early example was an American Airlines London bus produced by Matchbox, an idea some other airlines quickly copied.*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die-cast_toy*

All of the toys below are Tootsietoys - an American company manufactured them. It's name was Dowst Manufacturing Company that was located in Chicago, Illinois (USA). THese toys were manufactured in the 19209's and 1930's. Most of these toys are about 3 inches long.Becuase of their small size, the name Tootsietoy was used, with "tootsie" being used to describe something small.

Copyright © 2016              Stacey Bindman

Please do not copy without my written permission

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

Stacvey Bindman
toysearcher@gmail.com