Zeppelin Revisited

Wednesday, February 28, 2018
Clouds with rain
4 C  39.2 F

Zeppelin Revisited

A "Zeppelin" was a type of rigid airship named after the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin

who pioneered the develop of the rigid airship at the beginning of the 20th century. The idea s were first formulated in 1874, and developed in detail in 1893. They were patented in Germany in 1895 and in the United States in 1899. Zeppelins were first flown commercially in 1910 by Deutsche Luftschiffahrts-Ag (DELAG). During WWI, the Zeppelins were used by Germany in WWI to bomb Britain, and sadly killed 500 British  people. These airships were BIG! The Hindenburg measured 245 M or 803 feet, with a diameter of 41.2 M or 135.1 feet. The gas capacity (hydrogen*) was 200,000 cubic meters or 7,062,000 cubic feet.

* Hyrdrogen is a very flammable gas, and a spark probably ignited the tremendous amount of gas of the Hindenburg. 

After WWI, the Treaty of Versaille prohibited  Germany from building large airships, but by 1926

the restrictions were lifted.  This revived the company DELAG's fortunes . and hey built huge airships thgat crossed the Atlantic ocean from Germany to the USA. With the famous Hindenburg disaster in 1937, in New Jersey (SA), and with the world political climate changing, leading up to WWII the Zeppelins  were doomed to extinction.*  It was rumoured that the Hindenburg might have been sabotaged  because of tensions with the Americans and European countries. The captain and the first officer of the Hindenburg were aware of rumours about the potential sabotage of the airship.

*Please click here to read Wikipedia's interesting article of these famous airships

Please click here to visit the results of Bertoia Auctions sales on Liveauctioneers

Boxed Ubelacker Zeppelin With Pontoons

AN unusual and interesting design with multiple playing options.

Top crank has a rack and pinion that moves the toy along a wire.

Very rare, only one had ever been seen by Bertoia Auctions

Length:  9"  228 mm

Sold for $ 20,000 U.S. (MArch 25, 2017

Carrette Large Scale Zeppelin

Clockwork driven, rear paper propellers,

Very rare.

Length: 25 1/2"   64.8 cm

Marklin Zeppelin # 5401

Clockwork driven

Celluloid propellers, the toy moves along a guide wire

with pulleys. Key wound.

Length:  9 1/2"  242 mm

Sold for $ 5000 US (November 10, 2012)

Early German Tin Zeppelin

Likely Eberyl or Heyde

paper propeller at rear, clockwork driven

Length:  9"  229 mm

Orobor Zeppelin with Box

Lithographed tin, clockwork movement, green celluloid propellers.

Has top hook to connect with a wire.

Length:  6 1/2"  165 mm

Muller & Kadeder toy air ship (Zeppelin)

Paper propellers at rear.

Clockwork Driven

Length:  9 1/2"  242 mm

Sold for $ 1500 US (November 12, 2016)

Marx Mammoth Zeppelin

Lithographed tin,

4 small propellers

Length: 27"  68.6 cm

Steelcraft "Akron" Zeppelin

Pressed steel with metal wheels

Hitch at front for pulling with a string

Length:  24"  61 cm

Buffalo Toys Zeppelin

Tin plate

4 hanging airplanes on sides

Clockwork activated by rear pull lever

Red disc wheels

Length:  24"  61 cm

Sold for $950 US (April 17, 2010)

Lehmann Epli Zeppelin with Box

Germany, lithographed tin, celluloid propellers

Suspended string allow ship to travel its course

Length:  7 1/2"   190 mm

Sold for $ 600 US  (May 21, 2016)

I was surprised just how many Zeppelin toys were auctioned on Liveauctioneers website. 

At the height of the Zeppelins' popularity, many toy companies made these interesting toys.

I only selected 10 examples from 10 different toy manufacturers. However, if you venture over to Liveauctioneers, you will see many more examples from a myriad of manufacturers.

So that's it for this rainy day, and I hoped that you enjoyed this post.

Have a great day or evening.

Stacey Bindman

Toysearcher@gmail.com

More Zeppelins

Tuesday, December 23, 2014
Overcast, light snow to freezing rain, warm.

More Zeppelins

Yesterday's post  was about Zeppelins.What was interesting about the search was that there were so many different zeppelins on Liveauctioneers from so many different toymakers. Also,you need to do another search using the word "blimp" to find even more. What I lied about searching for zeppelins was that the manufacturers added some "poetic license" to their designs.The term "poetic license" simple means to mean away from the norm. So when you do a search on Google or Bing,or go to Liveauctioneers, you will amazed at how many different toy zeppelins you can find.

Please click here to visit this very interesting American auction company's website

Relatively speaking, toy zeppelins are not expensive compared to other old or antique toys. I had seen dan Morphy's latest zeppelin sale below, and eventually decide dot add some posts about these most fascinating original airships,and of course toys.

The one is the most expensive of all the listings by Morphy Auctions on Liveauctioneers.

What amazes me is just how huge these airships were., and the one below gives you a great idea just how large. The toy itself is long,measuring 26" or 660  mm. When you imagine people being in the front compartment (gondola) you get an idea of the scale (relative size). 

The cast iron zeppelins always bring a smile to my face. There's such a contraction her win terms of having a lighter than air airship made of cast iron which is so heavy!

As a child of 8 years old, I had a Meccano (Great Britain) set.  My parents kept buying me different toys all the time, that I never "specialized" in any one genre. Had I took an interest in Meccano or A.C.Gilbert, I would have wanted either the Meccano auto sets, or the zeppelin set below.

The wood base (below) measures 53"  or 1.365 M.

Now that's a toy to assemble!

As you can see from yesterday and today's post, there are no toy toys alike.

This toy is interesting because it combines an earlier "lighter than air" hot air balloon with the later lighter than air toy - the zeppelin.

The description for the toy below says "string operated", but I have no idea how it works.

AS a toy, both the upper zeppelins and this one would most likely be not to scale.I doubt if a zeppelin of this length could actually carry such weight. Of course, these were toys, so the criteria for "accuracy" wasn't necessary.

I like the contrast of the airplane with the airship and the inclusion of the Empire State Building.

At one time,that was the largest building in the world. However,when I look at this toy's photo,I keep seeing "king Kong" climbing the building, with that airplane attacking him!

Don't ask me why!

My favourite small toy is Tootsietoy (with apologies to Dinky toy fans). I first saw the Tootsietoys on ebay, and clamoured to buy and resell as many as I could.I never had the chase to buy the top zeppelins or the bottom Buck Rogers toys.

The 2 silver zeppelins worked with 2 guidelines on their tops.A string was tightened across the room or outdoors, and by gravity, the toy would descend along the length of the string.

THis is certainly a nice tabletop toy that would have fascinated very young children. I like the children who are seated against the vertical blue column and the three pairs of children riding under the miniature zeppelins.

Not to scale, but a 2-5 year old would never know this

and I'd never tell them either!

It's almost  06:00 a.m.in the morning and today's weather forecast is for snow changing to freezing rain. Not a day for  going somewhere in a Zeppelin. You would have to take a train!

Thanks for dropping by and as always,

have a great part of the dy or night,

wherever you may  be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com

The Zeppelins

Monday, December 22, 2014
Partly sunny, seasonable temperatures

The Zeppelins

  Once upon a time,log ago,there were these gigantic football-shaped (American football) that flew across the ocean and across countries,and they were called Zeppelins. Their namesake derived from the inventor Count Ferdinand Von Zeppelin from Germany. He came up with the idea in 1875, seriously developed and planned the details and design in 1893, and subsequently patented in Germany in 1895, and later in  1899 in the USA. Sadly of course, it was used in WWI to drop bombs on Great Britain and killed people.  The category of this lighter-than-air machine was called a rigid airship,but everyone called them zeppelins.

   They were filled with hydrogen gas, and as most people know,there was a terrible explosion of the airship Hindenburg in Lakehurst,New Jersey (USA) on May 6, 1937. 35 of the 97 passengers and crew died, while 1 ground crew member also perished. Many theories abound, and even a movie was made as to what might have happened. The official cause of the disaster was attributed to static electricity in the air at the time. This ignited the volatile hydrogen gas leading to a massive explosion. Non-official and speculative stories later arose leading to suspicions of a plan to sabotage and destroy the airship.

   What I specifically like about these old toys is that there was lots and lots of "poetic license" when it came to making the toys. The term "poetic license" simply means that a writer  or in this case a toy designer "deviates" from the normal way of writing or design of the actual real item (the zeppelin) and comes up with a different story or design. I'm going to present several posts on these toys because there are so many different zeppelins. 

Please click here to visit this fine American auction company

The selection of toys for today's post are the same as my usual method of selection - by the highest final bidding price at auction. However, even the least costly toys are fascinating to look at.  I can;t even imagine some small child living near an airport or in a large city seeing these huge airships moving in the sky.

In the case of Mr. Louis Marx' entry into this type of toy, he chose a game.

Louis Marx at one time produced 1/3 of all the toys that were made in the USA!

THe original photos were small-sized, so it's hard to see detail by looking just at the post. If you double-click on any image,you will be redirected to the slide view mode of Google Blogger. Then you'll be able to see th e4 small green airplanes hanging from this Buffalo Toy zeppelin.

If you had read my recent post on the Buffalo Toys racing cars, you would have read and seen their

patented pull design ring that you can see at the back of the last photo below.

Pulling the ring would create built-up energy that allowed the toy to move on its own.

I always laugh when I see a cast iron toy, especially an airplane, but in this case zeppelins. 

The irony of having very heavy toys made into gigantic airships that lifted off the ground by themselves is just "funny".

If I understand thee mechanics of this toy correctly,a child lifts the zeppelin and counterbalance ball up a spiral vertical column. Gravity cause the 2 to fall, but because the column is spirally notched, the airship slowly descends to the bottom.

Simply ingenious, and of course that's why I like these toy airships - there's just so many different designs and manufacturers that made them all so differently.

Real airships never had gigantic propellers as this one has at the end of it.

Of course, being a toy, that was allowed.

Even the  companies that produced penny toys got into the business of producing these zeppelins. This toy is tiny, but for a penny some child could have fun playing with it as the real thing passed by overhead.

And once again, the design of the toy had nothing to do with accuracy of the real zeppelin. 

I doubt that giant propellers on the side of a zeppelin would move the airship forward. Also if the weather was stormy, could the these giant propellers possibly cut into the steel frame and skin cover of the airship?

Of course, this was a toy,and imagination and "poetic license" were allowed!

That's the fun of toys - they don't have to be real to have fun with!

Thanks for dropping by,and as always,

have a great part of the ay or night,

wherever you may be,

Stqacey

toysearcher@gmail.com