A Book by Pim Piët

Wednesday, April 28, 2020
Sun with cloud
10 C 50 F

A Book by Pim Piët

    I've often thought of "making" a book. There are several companies that you can make your book. You go to their website, use the tools available, upload photos, write, and after a few hours, you press the button - "make the book".

   The publishing company that Pim used was Blurb

Please click here to see Pim's book and Blurb

The book shows much better on the link above than they do on this post!

Copyright 2020              Pim Piët

Please do not  copy without his written permission

As you can see, that the design is well done, in terms

of how the written description and photos are laid out and positioned

So that's it for today.

Thanks for visiting, and

have a great part of the day or night

wherever you may be.

I can always be reached at my e-mail address below:

Toysearcher@gmail.com

Stacey

Bill Buttaggi's Barclay Toys

Thursday, April 23, 2020
Sunny
7 C  43F

Bill Buttaggi's

Barclay Toys

Please click here to visit Bill's fine collection of slush (die-cast) toys

     The last post that I wrote about was Bill's excellent collection of die-cast (slush) toys. If you haven't followed 4 posts about Bill, then I'll explain. Bill asked me if I would write a post to promote a very good book on his toy collection of these toys. I did so, then asked if I could use his other photos to post more about him and his toys. This is part II of a four-part series. First I did the Tootsietoys, Now Barclay, then C.A.W., Kansas Toy and Novelty .

A History of the Barclay Toy Company

"The Barclay Manufacturing Company was an American metal toy company based in New Jersey that specialised in diecast toy cars and hollowcast toy soldiers. Due to their common availability at five and dime stores, collectors often refer to Barclay's toy soldiers as "Dimestore soldiers"."

"Barclay Manufacturing was formed by Leon Donze and Michael Levy in about 1922 (O'Brien 1997, 62). The name of the company came from Barclay Street in Hoboken, New Jersey. During the 1930s, the company was later based in North Bergen, New Jersey."

"Some of Barclay's first vehicles were slush cast white metal made in the 1930s. Some of the most interesting models were in art deco style. One intriguing selection was a "Coast to Coast" art deco style bus – another a two tone oil tanker with pontoon fenders – on both models, fenders were different colors from the bodies. One available set had a cartoon-like strip on the box lid that stated it was a "Build and Paint Your Own Auto Set" which was "Loads of fun". The set included a four-door sedan, a two-door, and a tanker truck. It included paint and the cars had white rubber wheels.

Also about this time, and into the 1940s, the company made a variety of military vehicles – tanks, trucks with cannon and other cars painted brown."**

Please click here to learn more about the Barclay company (Wikipedia)

What made these toys so popular was their design and cost.  They were nicknamed  

"dimestore toys" because most small toys in the dimestores  of the time would  cost 10 cents.

Interestingly, these toys are still very much in demand. However, for some of these toys, they would cost you 100-500 times their original cost of 10 cents. 

Talk about what investments you could invest in to retain the value of your money!

That's it for today.

I phoned a couple of friends that I meet at McDonald's every day (before the Covid-19 virus came. 

They're fine, and some of the other people are fine also. I've been trying to get more facemasks and latex gloves, but it's impossible to find them!

Thanks for visiting my blog,and please take care of yourselves and loves ones.

As always,

Have a great part of the day or night wherever you may be.

Also, I can always be reached by e-mail at:

toysearcher@gmail.com

Stacey Bindman

Bill Buttaggi's Fine Collection of Slush Toys

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Cloudy with rain,
10 C 50 F

Bill Buttaggi's 

Fine Collection of Slush Toys

Please click here to visit this  excellent website about slush toys

Yesterday, I posted a blog post about Mr. Bill Buttaggi's new book.  Bill had asked me if could write a blog about a book that he was writing and would be selling, and of course I said yes. While researching his website, and where one could buy his book, I came across  his website that was all about slush toys. Bill had been collecting since he was 16, some 34 years ago, and had amassed an excellent collection.

When I went to Bill's website, there was a fantastic collection of "slush" toys. I wasn't sure how I would present them, so I decided to present them by brand name. The ones presented today are:

Tootsietoys

A Brief History of the Tootsietoy Company

The Tootsietoy company was created by Samuel Dowst. He visited the World's Fair in 1893,and saw a new casting machine (die-casting). Mr. Dowst was in the business of making buttons for the collars of shirts of the time. He decided to buy one of the new casting machines, and see if he could make buttone from them. He most certainly did. As well, he decided to get into the die-cast toy making business. From there, as they say, "the rest is history". Initially, made miniature trinkets, such as miniature irons, shoes, and frypans.These "charms" would be sold to candy companies who would place these miniatures as a "treat" for having bought the candy. The name "Tootsetoy" was not always used for all of the toys. However, when one of the Dowst brothers had a grand-daughter who was named "Toots", the name "Tootsietoy" was used for all the toys that would be produced by them.

Notice the prices for 1929

For example, the top-most upper left convertible

sold wholesale for $ 9.25 for a gross (144 toys), or

80 cents for a dozen.

This post will be the first of 4 posts based on Bill Buttaggi's fine collection of die-cast(Slush toys). 

The other brand to follow will be: C.A.W., Kansas, and Barclay.

So thanks for visiting,

And as always, have a 

great part of the day or evening.

And for sure, "play it safe", during this terrible Corona Virus (Covid-19) pandemic!

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com

Some Early Dinky Toys

Friday, November 4, 2016
Cloudy with Rain
8 Celsius 46 Fahrenheit

Some Early Dinky Toys

I've been posting about Dinky Toys lately, and this week, I was able to find some very early Dinky Toy photos along with some of their original catalogue drawings). So that is what I wanted to post about today.

I was fortunate enough to find 2 exceptional websites. 

Please click here to visit the Brighton Toy Museum

Please click here to visit this excellent auctioneer

Please click here to see the Special-Auction-Services photos on The-Salesroom

One is the  Brighton Toy Museum. This great website has a large amount of photos, catalogue photos, and a lot of information about toys.The other fine website was found through The-Salesroom. The-Salesroom website has a fantastic amount of high-quality and large-sized images of Dinky Toys. The-Salesroom wrote to me to say that they could not give me permission to use the photos because they were not the owners-Special-Auction-Services was. Having received permission from both websites to use their photos and drawings, I was able to cross-reference original photos (or scans) of catalogue drawings with real Dinky Toys from the 1934-35  and the 1939-1940 catalogue.

 Mr. Nick Gibson is the Museum Manager of the Brighton Toy and Model Museum.  I've visited the website, and it's encyclopaedic in scope in terms of the photos and information available about Dinky Toys.

Old Dinky toys are in high demand as collectibles, just like Tootsietoys, but more so. They're especially in demand in the U.K. Considering most of the toys presented today are more than 70-80 years old, they're still in great shape!

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