A Fine eBay Store with All Kinds of Toys

Sunday, April 21, 2024 

5° C / 41° F

Overcast with rain

 A Fine ebay Store 

with all kinds of toys

stripe4107

I was searching ebay for Meccano toys when up came an interesting store. 

As I was looking at the many toys that this store had, I found 

Meccano airplanes and cars, whereupon , I knew instantly 

that Meccano airplanes and cars would be my topic for today. 

The airplanes would be my introduction to this store,

who's name is 

stripe4107.

Please click on this address to redirect to this nice ebay store

I had forgotten that Meccano not only made erector building kits 

(to build houses, ferris wheels and so forth), but they also 

manufactured airplane kits, and car kits.

Description Below

Meccano Aeroplane TinTin Litho Toy Sea Plane

Biplane w/Pilot Airplane

Height x Length x Wingspan

4" x 11" x 11.5"

10.16 cm x 27.94 cm x 29.21 cm

Description Below

Meccano Aeroplane Tin Litho Sea Plane

Biplane w/ Radial Engine & Pilot

A very rare Meccano Aero plane dating from the 1930's.

This pre-war Meccan biplane is presented on floats.

Description Below

1930's French Meccano Red Boat Tail

Race Car Racer Model Kit 

14" / 35.56 cm

This blog post most certainly was an invigorating one,
as well as being a nice introduction to a very interesting 

ebay store.

Thanks for visiting my blog,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night, 

wherever you may be.

My name is (Mr.) Stacey Bindman

and I can always be reached at:

toysearcher@gmail.com

It's Always Great to Discover Something New

Monday, February 19, 2024

Clear and sunny skies

-11° Celsius / 12° Fahrenheit

It's Always Great to Discover Something New

I'd like to begin by mentioning the weather. The weather this year, up here in Montreal Quebec,Canada, and many parts of the world has been very odd. In Montreal, the summer weather was "scattered", with cold and rain, and some warm days with no rain. Then winter came along, and we've had rain, snow, warm and cold. 

I think it must be my age when I mention the cold.

 

I'm a "senior" up here in Canada, and  cold weather seems to be very cold for me. 

A measly (meager, paltry, scant) temperature of -6° C (21.2° F), makes my toes cold, my nose red, and overall, I'm shivering!

Oops, please excuse me, I deviated from writing this post!

I was searching Bertoia Auctions, one of the fine toy auctioneers in the USA, when I saw this fantastic metal assembled seaplane. It most certainly looked like a British Meccano assembly. However, when I read the description, I was wonderfully surprised, and I instantly knew what today's post would be about.

Bertoia Auctions had described the airplane as an "Enormous Märklin Erector Seaplane", which caught me off-guard. The assembled airplane looked most recognizable as having been assembled from a Meccano set, but I know that Bertoia Auctions were 1000% correct, and I would describe this fantastic airplane (49" / 124.46 cm) wingspan from Bertoia Auctions description.

What Happened?

Please Click Here to Read the Entire Story

"In 1908, the English metal construction set Meccano appeared on the German market. In 1912 a German Meccano subsidiary for trading was established in Berlin. With the begin of World War I in August 1914 this German Meccano office, was considered enemy's property and therefore subdued to compulsory German administration. On 15th August 1917 the Märklin company acquired the stocks, protective rights and Meccano trademark from the German Reich government.^[1]
Märklin sold the Meccano sets until June 1919 still under the name Meccano.^[2] Then, from 25th June 1919 onward, they only used the name Metallbaukasten Märklin.^[3]"

I'll have to do more research to see find out what happened after WWI was over and Germany surrendered. I'm sure there were war reparations, mandates, and restoration of the ownership and licensing of the Meccano brand. 

I'll see what I can find out, so that I'll be able to write what happened to 

the use of the Meccano license in Germany, compared with what Germany did with "the enemy's property" during WWI.

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

please feel free to write me at 

toysearcher@gmail.com

My name is (Mr.) Stacey Bindman

 

 

A New Auctioneer Helps Out

Saturday, October 17, 2015
             Raining and cold, 
        with some snow to boot!

A New Auctioneer Helps Out

  This week, I had a reader write to me about my April 30, 2011 post. Phew, that certainly seems so long ago. The reader commented that one of the toys that I was comparing was not what I said it was. Naturally, I thanked the reader and will have to do a search to corroborate (confirm) her keen observations. I did a cursory check, and she's correct.

   I had ventured over to Liveauctioneers because that website is great for viewing all toys from many different auctioneers. In doing so, I found some nice toys from Stanton Auctions. Their recognizable toy listings usually have an accompanying aluminum can of Coca-Cola, and I'm sure I've written as bout them before. However, I could not find their name on my computer, so I wrote to them. I got their permission, and hence this post today.

   What I liked about Stanton Auction's auction which is set for next Saturday, October 24, 2015 @ 07:00 A.M. EST (Eastern Standard Time) is that they have non-toy listings as well. If I had 8 more lives like a cat, I'd be writing 8 more blogs. Antiques are a marvellous realm into our history, and what we were 50, 100, 1000 years ago.  It tells us about ourselves, and sometimes, old is in fact better than new.  

 As an example, I  met a new acquaintance named Mike who is an early-morning riser (4-5 A.M.) at Tim Horton's that Canadian icon for fast food. One of his hobbies still (he's in his early 50's) is models.  Todays' kids want fancier toys - a.k.a. cell phones, tablets, computers, and for myself, the loss of chemistry kits, Radio Shack electronic parts (making a radio), or toy models is a big loss for today's generation. Having hand-eye coordination, skills in interpreting plans, and dexterity with painting are important in developing our next generation of people. I'm sure the counter argument would be that new technology or new toys (e.g. drones) do just as well.  I would agree up to a point, and as an example here's one. Several years ago, I read that children who grew up with game consoles were more adept and faster learners with  arthroscopic surgery than older doctors who did not grow up "playing games" on game consoles.

  The  first item that I selected for today's presentation is a Hornby Meccano speedboat. Meccano was the catalyst that led me to start to write this blog. If you go to my first post, you can read up on how I started. I had a Meccano set when I was young, as did most kids. It was great to assemble, but I would have needed more kits to create the mega projects such as a Ferris wheel! SInce I also had the Minibrix kit, a chemistry kit, the Lionel train set, and a few other toys, I wasn't going to get a second Meccano set. Also, with all the other toys, I didn't have the time. And, of course,being from parents (mostly my mother and grandmother) who liked the house to be tidy (there were 4 children in all) I didn't have the "luxury"of keeping my projects on the floor. THey had to be dismantled and reboxed!

Antique Mecanno Hornby speedboat "Viking" 

with original paint & decals 

Length x Height: 18"  x 5"  458 mm x 127

Carpenter is one of the classic American brands of cast iron companies who existed in the early 20th century America. THe only other country that ever made cast iron toys was Sweden,and perhaps even Canada.  Cast iron toys were inexpensive to make compared to the more advanced lithographed tin toys of Europe , especially Germany. Also transportation was very inexpensive at the time in America. The government wanted the vast areas of the country to be developed, and so the railroads had been given great "leeway" in building the railroad and charging lower fees to move people to the new states.  In  fact, some of the American states did not enter "the Union"until the early 20th century. Oklahoma (1907),  New Mexico (1912), Arizona (1912) are 3 examples.

  I had never heard of an "automaton" until I started to write about antique toys.  An automaton is a mechanized toy that goes through a series of movement. Built into the interior of the toy or figure are a series of chains or strings. When wound, the automation will move through the series of movements. Many of the European automatons are quite "real-looking" relative to people, and were carefully handcrafted. Some of them receive high bids at auctions. THese toys are a "special" category of antique toys unto themselves, and this one by Stanton Auctions is in excellent condition.

   The late Malcolm Forbes was a big collector of toys, especially mechanical models of ships.  THese toys were mostly made in Europe, and are exceptional in detail, size, and movement.  The toys were actually able to float and would be placed in park ponds and lakes to move. I haven;t heard of the name Faulk", so this listing from Stanton Auctions will give me impetus (incentive) to write a future blog on this name of mechanical ship toys.

  If you look at the written description, you will see the name of Mr. Dick Claus.  Mr. Claus was a collector of exceptional rare and antique toys. His toy collection was sold by the esteemed toy auctioneer Bertoia Auctions, and now some toys are being resold from collectors who purchased them years ago.  

   I wrote about the Bertoia Auction/Dick Claus auction several times. However, what is even more interesting are all of the different toys that were made from the real-life speed machines of the time. In the 1920's-1930's land, sea, and air speed records were being achieved every 6 months, and the British were quite avid sportspeople.  SIr Malcolm Campbell was one of Britain's great land and sea speedsters who achieved innumerable records racing cars and boats in the 1920's and 1930's. 

  There is no date attributed to this toy in the description. However, I would opine (guess) that this toy is from the early both century.  Both the style of toy, modelled after the real train, as well as using "live steam" to move the train helps me date the toy. I've always been amazed that steam toys would be around at the time. Steam is in fact safe when under a parent or parents' supervision,but it can be dangerous both from the fire source to create the stem, and well as the tremendous heat to propel the machine.

  I haven't written a post in a long time, so this was both enjoyable ( I like to write) and also helped me see if I still know how to use Blogger (a Google product) as well as to use my skills in Photoshop.

I was a bit "rusty", but both sets of skills came back very fast.

  I was also happy to have  has Roxanne from Stanton Auctions return my e-mail so fast. I'm sure I've written about Stanton Auctions before, since that "trademark" reference (the Coca-Cola aluminum can) is very hard not to remember. I'll have to have  do a better search on my computer or through Blogger and past postings.

Thanks fro dropping by to visit,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com 

Some of the Winners of a 1914-1915 Meccano Contest

Friday, October 3, 2014
     Partly sunny, chance of rain

Some of the Winners of the

1914-1915 Meccano Contest

   I recently received a CD that I had ordered from . There are a fair amount of companies that produce very old toy and hardware catalogues. Most of the companies that once produced the catalogues are no longer ion business, so unless a modern company buys the rights to to the defunct company, anyone is free to reproduce theses materials. I'm not sure what the "rights" of these companies are, but I respect their mention of copyright ownership, and thus I add both the copyright notices and the logo on the images.  I found this CD on ebay, and the the sot re's name is Bygone Days Collectables Genealogy. The owner's name is Mr. Trevor Williams. I feel that if they went through the effort to reproduce the material to make some money or a living, so good luck to them! I'm also unsure if Meccano, now owned by Hornby (Great Britain) have any "right" to these materials either. I contacted Trevor, and he was quite knowledgeable enough to say that I need not add his name or copyright notice since the catalogue had been in the "pubic domain".

  Today's post is from a small Meccano magazine or pamphlet that  was produced in I assume 1915. What's of interest to anyone who might like to collect such material is that this  pamphlet was originally in a library and was found or purchased later. Libraries are always selling off old books to make way for new books. I even purchased on ebay, an old book that was also purchased form a library.

I used this photo first for Trevor's  Logo.

This is the actual logo that Trevor uses on ebay for his store.

Please click here to visit this very interesting ebay store

You can see the Dewey Decimal classification library identification number in the upper left corner of this pamphlet. I left the cover in the same presentation as I received it with the aged brown/yellow tones. However, I decided to enhance the rest of the presentation in order to best show you the winners of this contest.

One day, I'll add a post about how I remove the aging paper colour as you can see below.

I'm goint to check my other blog that I rarely post to and see if I'd did a post about this.

If not, I'll add one.

That blog is called ProphotographyLearning and the link is below:

Please press here to visit my blog on Pro Photography

I stopped my 2 other blogs because I wasn't receiving enough readership. Consequently, I decided to concentrate on the antique toy blog.  I would have liked to continue the 2 other blogs (the third one being Photoshop made easy). Personally I had found that most book on Photoshop were too large and too complicated, and never really went into simpler explanations to get people to be more familiar and at ease with this program!

Wow! A Weaving loom. 
This certainly was a great entry by F.Businger for "thinking outside the box". 

Another exceptional entry. I've seen  actual antique toys almost similar to this one. 
I think Meccano actually adapted this winner into a kit. looking very much similar to this.

A few more great winning entries.
Of course, some of these entries had to have lots of parts, and probably from several different kits.
Considering the average salary for anyone in the western world in 1914-1915,  most people could not afford to buy their children such luxurious toys.

The lower left toy and the lower right one are my favourites on this page.
The cantilevered toy to the left and that giant American Dredger are fabulous. 

I've purposely made these photos extra-large for everyone to see them in Blogger's slide mode.

Meccano is still sold around the world, and there is even a company that sells all kinds of parts 

(old and new) for kits. I'll try and find that company and write to then!

Maybe I can post about them!

For those who have never read my first post, it was the discovery by a friend of 2 Meccano sets in perfect condition and her subsequent sale to me that got me started on this blog. I eventually sold them to a collector, and started buying and selling toys on ebay in order to keep the blog going.

Nowadays, I get help from all of my "friends" that I have had the pleasure to be able to write about and present their fine toys that go to market and auction. Some days, I may not know what I will be writing, but I know that I will eventually find something to write and enjoy doing that!

Thanks for dropping by to visit,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

Please feel free to write to me anytime or to comment on this blog

toysearcher@gmail.com

Meccano's Exceptional Cars - Part II

Wednesday, April 30, 2014
    (Great weather if you're a duck!)

Meccano's Exceptional Cars

Part II

This is the second part of a two part story about Meccano's great Motor Car Constructor Outfits (Kits). These were manufactured in the 1930's and came in parts, tools for assembling the toy, and of course instructions. Meccano also built ( I didn't know that!) a series of cars that came pre-assembled.

Please click here to visit the great website of Bertoia Auctions

As I was searching for photographs, I came to realize that Meccano had different-sized boxes for their cars. I assumed wrongly,that perhaps there was a change in design as time went on. However, the reason for the different sizes was due to the fact that Meccano had in fact made a "non-constructor (pre-assembled) model, and of course their constructor models called "outfits".

This kit came with additional parts that would allow the child to create different cars. What I also found in researching this post was that there was also a special additional kit that could be purchased. This would allow the child to add lights with wiring and I assume a battery in order to give light to the headlights.

I'm assuming that that huge handle to the side of the driver is a brake.

Also notice that the toy was build with right-sided driving. I know in canada, when I was a kid, we had Meccano sets. I wonder if they made left-handing steering for us Canadians?

Wow!

A 1930's complete set in its original box.

 You can see an extra rear part that came with this car.

removing the hard top, and chaining the back, would make the car more of a sports car than roadster.

The car also came with a clear celluloid windshield (windscreen) that 

was inside the metallic windshield frame.

I assume that this is 1 combination of parts that would result in this nice car.

Changing the roofs, the back, and adding a roof, would result in some of the cars that were presented above.

It's interesting how the celluloid yellowed over time on this car, yet in a previous car, 

the celluloid remained clear and neutral in colour. These cars also came with mechanical wind-up mechanisms. what's interesting is that when I went to ebay.co.uk (Great Britain),

 I saw some motors that were available for sale.

 Even toy cars have "scrapyards" to find replacement parts!

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night

wherever you may be.

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com

Meccano's Exceptional Cars - Part I

Wednesday, April 30, 2014
(Cold and cloudy-great if you're a duck!)

Meccano's Exceptional Cars

Part I

  Yesterday, I received an e-mail from a reader asking me a few questions. The first was how much might the value of this toy car be, and secondly, where he might get replacement parts. Not examining the photo (a copy of one of Bertoia Auctions that I wrote about), I scoured the Net, found the information, and sent him a reply. Just as I finished sending, I took a closer look, and I had sen him the wrong information.

  The reader had wanted information on a Structo (USA) toy that came as a kit to build, and I had send him all kinds of information on Meccano's car kits! Fortunately, I caught my mistake right away, found the correct information, and send him a new back of information.

  Before I wrote this blog, I only know of Meccano kits as coming in sets for erecting buildings or ferris wheels and so forth. However, as I write more anymore, I get to learn lots about toys. Meccano came in kits to build trains, airplanes ( a future post), and of Meccano Motor Car Constructor kits, or complete.

  As I was compiling my screen captures for the post, which was to become in fact 2 posts, I  found a treasure trove of great ephemera (written material) on Wikipedia. The material was contributed via the Brighton Toy and Model Museum, and so I decided to credit them and add their logo. I will be writing to them to see if I can in fact use their photos, because the image usage was not 100% clear. Of course, as I am writing to them, I will be asking if I might write them up on  my blog.

Please click here to visit The Brighton Toy and Model Museum

Please click here to visit Wikipedia's page on the Meccano Car Constructor Kits

The Meccano Motor Car Constructor Kits were manufactured in the 1930''s in Great Britain. They came with beautiful artwork of their car on the box. Inside was the kit with tools to assemble the car, as well as extensive sets of instructions.

*Please view the Brighton Toy and Model Museum screen captures in Google Blogger's slide mode. You will be better able to read the writing.

What I always like about the old advertisements is that more often than not, the images were drawn rather than photographed. The original advertisements are sometimes as valuable in terms of their worth compared with the actual toys.

Please go to the next post to see the beautiful photos (courtesy Bertoia Auctions)

that accompany this first post of two.

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always, 

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com