A New Discovery from a Fine ebay Company

Saturday, July 27, 2024

Mostly Sunny

86° F / 30° C

A New Discovery from a 

Fine ebay Company

    I was searching for toys on ebay, when I found a company by the name of

Marcapatito. The first thing that attracted my attention was the excellent photography. What also was interesting was the fact that he took plenty of photos to present the toys. 

    I saw one toy that caught my attention. It was a wind-up toy manufactured by

a company by the name of Cragstan from the USA. The company imported 

wind-up toys from different Japanese companies in the 1950's-1960's. 

Marcapatito

Please click on this sentence to visit this fine ebay toy seller

Description

1950's Cragstan Crap Shooting Monkey

Battery Operated with Toy Box

Made in Japan

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day,

wherever you may be.

My  name is (Mr.) Stacey Bindman

and I can always be reached at:

toysearcher@gmail.com

An Exceptional Auction Toy from the RSL Auction Company

Sunday, June 9, 2024

Overcast with Rain

17 ° C / 62.4 ° F

An Exceptional Auction Toy from

the RSL Auction Company

(Scheduled for June 29, 2024) 

I've been slowing down lately due to the transition to spring and summer.

Nevertheless, I always like to see what is going on in the toy world of auctions.

Last weekm I ventured over to LiveAuctioneers,and decided to check out what the RSL Auction Company was scheduling for their June Auctions.

Sure enough, I was euphoric to see a wonderful collection of mechanical toys. The one that I am presenting today is an exceptional  example of a rotating wind-up toy.

It's best to use the written description that the RSL Auction Company wrote for this majestic toy:

"Made by Althof-Bergmann Company. New York - Ca. 1877 - 14 1/2 Diameter. Until the recent discovery of this toy from the attic of a house in Ohio, there was only one other known surviving example. That one hailed from the renowned Curtis & Linda Smilth collection and it brought $84,000 at auction in recent months. Though not quite the same condition as the Smith specimen, this piece is nonetheless very beautiful and mechanically very sound. After the toy is given a good winding, the child can watch the spectacle of the parade take place. This includes boys on horseback, lions drawing chariots with acrobats and flag carrying participants. The Strassburger catalogue of 1877 shows an old line-cut illustration of the toy with five flags. As with the Linda Smith example, these flags were lacking. They were expertly replaced with modern copies."

I'm always being surprised to see that there are still wonderful old and antique toys still to be seem and viewed through fine toy auctioneers. The sheer fact that this 147 year old toy is still around, and ready to be turned over to another collector, is wonderful to see.

Please click this sentence to redirect to the RSL Auction Company Auction on the LiveAuctioneers

Please click on this sentence to redirect to the RSL Auction Company website

So that's it for today. If you have the time, have a look at the rest of the exceptional mechanical toys that will be going to auction in the near future.  These are wonderful to see, and to know that they will be around for a long time.

As always, thanks for visiting,

and have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

My name is (Mr.) Stacey Bindman,

and I can always be resched at:

toysearcher@gmail.com

Wow! 6 George Brown Toys in one Auction!

Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Sunny with clouds
8 C  46 F

Please click here to visit Bertoia Auctions Superb Website

Please click here to visit Bertoia Auctions on Liveauctioneers.com

It's not often that. one sees 6 George Brown toys in one place at the same time. So, I decided to add this blog. As you read this, the actual auction is going on on Liveauctioneers.com

"George Brown was originally a clockmaker.

The George W. Brown and Company was established in 1856 (USA). They produced both mechanical and non-mechanical toys as well as clocks, and built a successful business. When oil was discovered in  Titusville Pennsylvania in 1862, George Brown decided to go into the lamp-making business.  The crude oil was made into kerosene, that would fuel the oil lamps."*

* Quoted from The George Brown Toy Sketchbook, The Pin Press, Princeton, 1971

I purposely added this blog, since these toys come from the auction on Liveauctioneers for Bertoia Auctions. When I have more time, I will edit this post, and add more interesting material about the George Brown Company and of course, George Brown.

I just discovered that if you click on any photo below while reading any blog post, 

the picture will enlarge (get bigger) to show the toys much better.

Toys of Times Past Latest Auction

Friday,  April 27, 2018
Sunny with clouds
10 C  50 F

Toys of Times Past

Latest Auction

Please click here to visit this fine auctioneer's latest auction

The recent trend in toy sellers has been to use large-sized auction companies to sell their toys.

Toys of Times Past has now decided to use Invaluable as their auctioneer to auction their toys. When you press the "please click" line, you will in fact be redirected to the auction on the Invaluable website.

I've selected only toys from a Japanese company by the name of ALPS. Like many toys companies in Japan, after WWII, the Alps company was founded in 1948. The company was founded by a man by the name of Mr. Kuramochi Shoten, who had been an employee of another company by the name of CK.The ALPS company produced mechanical tin plate toys such as toy cars, space toys, and moving wind-up animated/clockwork animals. These toys were very popular in North America. Later on, many of the ALPS company were designed as battery-operated toys. Eventually,

the company abandoned their toy business in the 1970's and chose to concentrate  on their other division of manufacture - consumer and industrial electronics.**

**Please click here to visit this interesting and informative website

Although I rarely write about toys from the 1940's and 1950's, time and years advance. I was born in 1948, and I'll soon be 70 years "young". Time does fly by faster than you think!

So that's it for today - short and sweet.

Thanks for dropping by,

and you ever have any questions, or would like to

be on my blog, please feel free to write me.

My name is (Mr.) Stacey Bindman

and I can always be reached at:

toysearcher@gmail.com

Ives,Blakeslee, & Williams Co. Catalogue - Part II

Sunday, October 10, 2016
Overcast and Raining
17 Celsius / 63 Fahrenheit

Ives, Blakeslee, and Williams Co.

Catalogue Reproduction

(Part II)

Yesterday, I added a post about a catalogue reproduction of an 1893 original. Yesterday's content was exclusively iron pull toys, that would be pulled along the road or sidewalk by a string. Today's entry is about the "mechanical toys" or wind-up toys. These toys once wound up , would be able to move by themselves or feature moving people doing some kind of action, such as dancing, or playing a musical instrument.

The toys below can run in a straight line, or if a part of them are turned, will run in a circle.

The toys below can run in a straight line, or if the front axles are turned, will run in a circle.

Below's toys are more sophisticated in nature. The horses (middle photo) move around in a circle, until there is no more energy, and the winner is the one that lines up with the # 60 on the base of the toy. The cat toy has the animal playing a violin on the top of a house roof.

Below are assorted toys that will perform different actions. The largest one (immediately below) 

has 3 people doing different actions and when wound, will run for 60 minutes.

These American toys  developed after the high-quality and lithographed toys from Europe were imported into the United States. The European were more colourful,as the Europeans, especially the Germans had developed lithography (printing) on metal, and had very sophisticated and multi coloured colour themes.

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)

The Tippco #5 Racer

Thursday, June 27, 2013

The Tippco #5 Racer

   A few days ago, I was searching for motorcycles on E-Bay when I came across a more-modern older toy. It was a Tippco # 5 Silver Racer. What first caught my attention was the excellent photography with of course large file sizes and plenty of photos to help explain exactly the unique quality of this particular toy. What was even more interesting, was the fact that this person lives in Canada, and  in Toronto, where coincidently, I had just returned from after having visited my sister and brother-in-law.

  So I e-mailed the person, and I got a friendly reply with a "Yes" - go ahead!  The E-Bay store's owner is Mr. Thomas Liger-Belair , and his E-Bay name is legacymemorabiliacanada and his store name is "The Toy Guy". 

Thomas has been selling on E-Bay since 1998, and he's a respectable E-Bay seller. I always like to look at the feedback for a seller and his is excellent. Currently, he's selling a nice collection of toys for a collector. Thomas also has a website that he uses to advertise that he is always looking to buy toys. He's also on Facebook. I just joined Facebook, but I don't have a lot of contacts, so I was also interested in Thomas's Facebook page. It's quite interesting, and I'll have to ask him a few questions about that!  My interest in Facebook is to try and get more readers to visit my blog.

That's  Matthew's Logo, and below are 3 of his links

 (addresses/websites) that he sells and publicizes.

Please click here to visit what Matthew has currently on Sale on E-Bay

Please Click this to visit Matthew's Facebook page

Please click this to visit Matthew's website

   The toy that I'm presenting today is a fabulous wind-up lithographed tin toy from Germany. It was made circa 1948-50 in Germany by the Tippco toy company.  It measures  7 1/2" or 19cm. What's interesting about the toy is that the side passenger  moves off from his seat as the motorcycle unwinds and moves around to the left and right. It's similar to what you'd see if you ever watched motorcycle races with the passenger.

   Motorcycle racing has always been popular in Europe, more so that in North America. However North America eventually caught up. I remember when I went to photography school, there was a younger classmate who had taken up the sport. He raced on a closed circuit with hills and mud, and he told us (other students and myself) that he had to wear a protective suit, kidney pads, a helmet, with a visor to protect from the mud, and special boots.

   Thomas did a great job in presenting lots of photos to illustrate how much the passenger moves.

I really like the photo above. It's as if these 2 motorcylists appear to be in front of a gate ready to rise for the race!

What's interesting here is that the original box is also listed on E-Bay. For some collectors, the original box is always in demand, and having one in good to very good condition as a seller will usually garner a higher price at either an auction or on E-Bay.

I can see the allure (attraction) for this type of "real" racing, but you'd never catch me in this sport. I prefer to watch this on TV. As for the toy, this is fantastic! I can see why Europeans, especially motorcycle fans would have been enthusiastic to but such a toy!

And I can't tell you what a great job Thomas did on capturing the"essence" of just how much fun this toy would have been for anyone who received it as a gift!


"Thank you for visiting ToyGuy.ca! I’m The Toy Guy & I pay cash for old and used toys. I buy single items & entire collections consisting mainly of vintage toys & diecast cars from the 1900’s to the 1970’s & 80’s.I specialize in Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Dinky Toys, Corgi, Majorette, Tonka, Structo, Marx & Buddy L. I also buy action figures, dolls and stuffed animals, tin toys, board games, train sets and much, much more.

Don’t let your childhood toys gather dust or rot away in the basement. Turn them into extra income and help them find a good home that will ensure they remain preserved for generations to come. Please note that I do not buy new or recent toys unless they are rare or desirable. Also keep in mind that worn and broken toys aren’t worth nearly as much as items in good to mint condition." **

** From Thomas Liger-Belair's website: ToyGuy.ca


Thanks for dropping by,

and as always, have a great day, 
wherever you may be.
Stacey