A Newly Acquired Distler Catalogue

Thursday, November 17, 2016
Cloudy with sunny breaks
9 Celsius  48 Fahrenheit

A Newly Acquired 

Distler Catalogue

A few days ago, I acquired a new Distler toy catalogue. I found this catalogue on the Internet at a store called La Librairie du Jouets.  The owner is Mr. Patrick Pasky who lives in France. He's quite dedicated to toys and he's very busy. First, Patrick is working on a huge database of old and antique toys. Then, he's collecting old toy catalogues. And finally, he buys and sell toy books, as well as scanning old catalogues and selling them. He sells these catalogues as Adobe PDF files.The Internet is truly amazing.

First I found Patrick's website. Then I noticed he sells toy catalogues as digital downloads. And then I paid and received the download all in the same day. Try that just a mere 40 years ago - Nada!

http://www.lalibrairiedujouet.net/boutique

The Distler catalogue is 100 pages, and the first thing that I noticed is that the catalogue is in 4 languages- German, English, French,  and Spanish. The descend thing that you notice is just how many different toys the Distler manufactured in 1928, the year the catalogue was published.

Immediately below are screen captures of 2 pages. The pages have both trains, an automobile, and an airplane. Back in the 1920's trains must have been very big sellers, since this catalogue has 43 pages dedicated to trains!

 By 1928, the year this catalogue came out, the automobile was already well-established and many companies were manufacturing automobiles. Distler naturally produced lots of cars in 3 different categories. There were the  regular-sized wind-up cars , the regular-sized battery-operated  headlight cars, and the inexpensive cars with the title "cheap toys". I like that! I wonder of the translator made an error, or "cheap" wasn't a derogatory word at the time.

The second category as I mentioned before were regular-sized cars. There are 33 pages dedicated to cars, trucks, airplanes, and farm vehicles, with cars being the most prominent group. Below, the topmost and to the right car is a yellow taxi, which by the late 1920's was the most numerous taxi in the united states. In every large city, you'd find yellow taxis, that were of course painted yellow.

Below is the start of the cars and truck with electric lights. 

These toys of course, were powered by batteries.  Notice the top left car. It has 3 lights! Two headlights, and a  rear brake light. I've never seen that before in a toy. The movement is a wind-up mechanized movement. Interestingly, there are even battery-operated toys that had headlights, and even a battery-operated movement mechanism. I'm sure those who owned these toys went through lots and lots of batteries!

There were also animal and insect wind-up toys. When you wound up the toy, the animal or insect would have different movements. Not only did the toy move,but the legs or head would move and open and close.

Below are toy characters that are also wind-up toys. 

In one case, the character moves and turns its' head, in 2 other toys, they rotate

And finally, the "cheap toysA". I laugh every time I see this page with the word "cheap".
These toys do not have the wind-up mechanism, and the number of "cheap toys" is small. 
On a more serious note, back in 1928, the world economies were not in great shape. As week, wages were very low compared to today. To buy an electric car at the time probably would cost a parent  who had a laborious job probably a week's worth of wages! So "cheap toys" were a fact of life for the children of low-paying wage-earners!

I didn't provide any dimensions of the toys because the dimensions on the pages are for the size and weight of the carton rather than the individual toy itself.

The Distler toys were mostly made of tin and had lithographed printing on them. What i'm also fascinated with is the fact that I rarely see Distler toys anywhere. I'll be visiting some of the European ebay stores to see if I can find Distler toys. I'l start with Germany because that tis where the Distler company was located.

Who knows, maybe I'll find lots of Distler toys for future posts!

Thanks for visiting,

and as always,

Have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com

More Arcade Busses

Thursday, October 6, 2016
Overcast and Seasonally Warm
21 Celsius / 70 Fahrenheit

More Arcade Busses

Please click here to visit Bertoia Auctions Website

Arcade Fageol Bus

Cast iron, blue body, nickel disc wheels, embossed

lettering on sides, gold striping

Length:  8" / 203.2 mm

Above:  Scanned page from a 1936 Catalogue

Notice that the bus is offered with different colour combinations, and there is an option to have the bus come with rubber balloon tires, instead of nickel-plated wheels.

Arcade Yellow Coach Bus

Cast iron, body painted in orange and black, black roof, side decals read

"YELLOW COACH", rubber tires, spare tires mounted to fromt fenders,

seated nickel driver, needs cleaning.

Length: 13" / 330.2 mm 

Above:  Scanned page from a 1936 Catalogue

Notice that in the above scanned page, the "Parlor Coach" bus 
is offered in optional colours of blue and green.

Arcade Parlor Coach Bus

LAte 1920's, large cast iron example, painted in blue body, 

gold side strip,seated nickel driver, disc wheels.

Length: 13" 330.2 mm

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

A Heavy Truck Repair Shop Owner and his Beautifully Restored Toys

Thursday, January 22, 2015
Sunny and very, very cold, 
getting warmer later today

A Heavy Truck Repair Shop Owner

and His Beautifully Restored Toys

   If you've ever seen the movie Forrest Gump with Tom Hanks,  you'll be familiar with one of the character's famous lines in the movie - "Life is like a box of chocolates - you never know what you'll get".  And that's what it was yesterday, when Mr. Christopher W. Ferrone wrote me.  I received a fine set of photos and later after I asked got some "before" photos. even later still, I received another before and after photo. I don't know where Christopher finds all the time to restore old toys. He has several jobs that keeps him busy, yet finds the time to restore toys.  In one of our back-and-forht e-mailings,  I mentioned to Chris that if he a had a toy restoration school, I'd sign up.  I did some toy restorations, but mine are to Chris's work as my house-painting is to hiring a real house painter!

 

This is a photo that Chris sent to me. I did my "usual"whitening effect  earlier this morning, but I wasn't totally happy with the result at the time. IN the early afternoon,I then added Chris' Name (watermark) and his copyright notice, and I had a different reaction. His "whitened" photos   were super ( an English expression for great).

Toy # 1:

A Restored 1941 

Steelcraft Pressed Steel Toy

(USA)

This is the "whitened" version that I have started to  do for the last 4 months.  By doing this, I find that it presents the toy best without any background or foreground distractions.

You can see in the this photo that the colour if "off" (not accurate).

I'll correct the true colour (orange) later today. 

I sent an  e-mail to Chris just before writing this post. I explained something called "White-balance". THis is where you place a white piece of paper in the area where you are taking photos. This is especially important when your camera setting  is set for let's say daylight, and you're taking photos under fluorescent lighting. What happens is that there is a mis-match,and the photos will all come out the wrong colour with no accuracy to the real toys.

So when I was "correcting" Chris' photos, one at a time, I corrected for the silver body, but 

"messed up" on the orange and it came out red.

I like how Chris customized this truck by creating a dumpster box with a stainless insert into the loader.You can also see how he even found a place that makes toy labels and 

placed the label at the back of the truck.

This is the original toy.

 Chris has a great eye for taking photos.When I worked on this photo, 

I really liked how it came out!

This is the toy after it was sandblasted (I assume) to remove the old paint, and then later an undercoat grey primer of paint was applied. You can also see the custom dumpster part that Chris made in his workshop.

Toy # 2:

A Pressed Steel Kingsbury Wind-up Bus

Circa 1939

(USA)

This is the "before" photo of a toy Greyhound Bus. Obviously, I overcorrected for the imbalanced camera to lighting setting, and the bus is too blue, when it should have been grey. I'll rework the photo later in the day.

This is the finished result.

I'll ask Chris if he knows who made this toy.

What I like about both toys is the deign to them, The 1941 Orange truck  by SteelCraft is similar to the exaggerated  fenders that the Wyandotte (USA) Company designed for their toy line.

As for the nice bus below, the beautiful long curve from the from  to the back wheel well, and that winglike shape behind the greyhound dog, are beautiful design as well.

Toy # 3:

A Restored Murry/Steelcraft Pedal Car 

Circa 1948

(USA)

I hope that Chris won't mind that I went beyond my usual white background and foundation. Chris took his photos with 2 different light sources. I didn't want to spend too much time tying to get 100% accuracy to the colour-balance.

So I decided to  first colour-correct as best as possible, then de-saturate ( remove the intensity of colour) the surrounding, but leave the pedal car.  I like how the results came out, especially the middle photo with that colourful block.

This is Chris' beautiful result for the 1948  Murry / Steelcraft peddle car.

I was born in the same year. It's amazing how well Chris restored it.

If Chris lived in Montreal, I'd bring him my 2008 Corolla that I drive now. It has lots of scratches, dents from dragging my 40 gallon recycle bin in winter to the corner (It doesn't fit between my wife's car and mine, and the 6 foot piles of snow on the sides are not a solution for dragging the bin to the road side. You can imagine what my car looks like. Why the City gives me a 40 gallon recycle bin,I don't know.  We just can;t eat that much to fill a bin in a week. Of course in the fall, the leaves fill up the bin!

If Chris can work miracles with old toys, I can imagine what he does with cars 

(even though he works on trucks)!As I was writing this post, I received another toy.

I'll add that tomorrow.

Thanks for dropping by and as always,

have a great part of the day or night

wherever you may be

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com

64 Days Until Spring!

Saturday, January 17, 2015
Sunny and very, very, cold.

64 Days Until Spring!

   Winter is fine when you're a kid. I'm still a kid (in my mind) at 66, but I don;t like the cold! My wife and I enter through the garage when we park our cars on the driveway. Since the garage is full of "stuff", the cars stay outside. Ever get into a car when it's -22 degrees Celsius or -2 degrees Fahrenheit? Brrrr!   Of course, the first time that I visited my brother when he moved to Calgary, Alberta (Canada), it was colder. It was -37 degrees Celsius or - 32.8 degrees Fahrenheit.  At the time , everyone kept their cars and trucks running as they filled up their vehicles with gas or entered the convenience store for "supplies". When it gets that cold you need "supplies".  Yet everyone braved the cold in stride, and when I said it's terribly cold, they simply answered that it was  a "dry cold" (low humidity), as if that made it warmer outdoors. 

   Getting back to Montreal, every time I enter the garage, I see my bicycle. It's stays there waiting another 64 days (as of today) until I bring it in to be tuned up. Of course, if you live in a cold climate, there's still another 90 days after the Spring Equinox ( from March 22, 2015) till it gets warmer (I exaggerate slightly). And if you live more north in Quebec, in  Kuujjuag, Quebec,  (formally called Fort Chimo), you will be able to go fishing at an excellent fishing club called Arctic Adventures from mid-July to the first of August. Before and after, there is ice all over the Arctic ocean and rivers!   I guess, living in Montreal, I'm lucky!

Arctic Adventures

Please click here to see this exceptional Quebec (Canadian) Fishing Outfitter

I got permission from Arctic Adventures (Aventures Arctique in French) to add some photos of theirs. I was very fortunate to be able to go fishing "way up North" when I was 27 years old,and I selected Arctic Adventures. At the time, I had no idea what the fishing place was like. It turned out to be fantastic.  If you're a fisherman you won't mind that it's not a 6-star hotel,

but it definitely is a 6-star fishing place and resort.

The people at the camp were mostly native Inuit,  who were the most friendly and nice people that I have met. They cooked and guided us on the ocean and where we fished (at the mouth of the Tunulik River).  I caught mostly Arctic Char ( a distant cousin to the salmon). The sun hardly ever set,and there was skylight 24 hour a day. I'm sure you could fish 24 hours a day,but I wonder if the fish sleep as well?

The fishing schedule is very short (as I mentioned above) for a variety of reasons (ice only melts in late June,spawning occurs soon after the last days of fishing, the hunting season begins for various animals).

It's truly very remote and outdoors, and if you like nature and fishing or hunting this is a fantastic place.*

* I don't get any compensation from anybody that I write about 

and my writing is either my thoughts or my experiences.

Please click here to visit this fine American Auction Company

These toys were produced in the 1920's. There are small v-shaped grooves in the wheels,and the toy can balance on a tight string. When you angle the string downwards, the cyclist will slide down the string and cycle, counterbalanced by the round black weight. My next post will illustrate this.

Just looking at these toys makes me want to get on my bicycle.

Of course, I did mention that it was a mere -22 degrees Celsius or -2 degrees Fahrenheit! There are a few people that I see when I walk Buddy, our dog. They travel by bicycle in Winter to and from work! It's hard enough to walk Buddy at these temperatures.Even he knows where it's warm, and we don't stay outside  much!

Thanks for dropping by and as always

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com

The Unique Art Manufacturing Company

Friday, September 12, 2014
Sunny, clear skies, but seasonally cooler

The Unique Art Manufacturing Company

   I had already visited Liveauctioneers several times earlier in the week. However when I visited it today I decided to check up on  Morphy Auctions toys for sale. I had received an e-mail since I'm on the company's mailing list. What I noticed very surprisingly was that the company  was  now presenting very large sizes of images - Bravo!   It's always great for myself when writing to be able to see detail,so that if something catches my eye, I can see the details better, and be able to write more confidently as to what I see.

                                   Unique Art

"From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unique Art Manufacturing Company was an American toy company, founded in 1916, based in Newark, New Jersey that made inexpensive toys, including wind-up mechanical toys, out of lithographed tin. One of its early products was a wind-up toy featuring two tin boxers.

The company scored a hit in the 1940s when it acquired the rights to a popular comic strip and released the Li'l Abner Dogpatch Band for Christmas 1945. The windup toy featured Abner dancing, Pappy on drums, Mammy with a drum stick, and Daisy Mae playing piano. Unique followed with a Howdy Doody band several years later.

Unique's president, Sammy Bergman, was a good friend of toy magnate Louis Marx, and the two men's companies at times cooperated, with Marx providing tooling to Unique and sometimes acting as a distributor for Unique's products.

In 1949, Unique began producing lithographed tin O gauge toy trains, using tooling of its own design along with some recycled tooling from the defunct Dorfan Company. Unique sold its trains in inexpensive boxed sets like Marx, and also produced a circus set that was distributed on a car-by-car basis by the [Jewel Tea Company] Jewel Companies. Marx saw this as a betrayal and responded with a new line similar in size to Unique's, but with lithography that looked more realistic. Unique found itself unable to compete, and withdrew its trains from the marketplace by 1951.

Although Unique was unable to capture much of a piece of the toy train craze of the early 1950s, a tin typewriter toy introduced during the same time frame did take market share away from Marx, who had a similar toy. Marx responded by moving production of its typewriter toy to Japan in order to undercut Unique's price.

Unique Art's eventual fate is unclear but the company appears to have disappeared by 1952."* 

                                                              • Description and biography courtesy of Wikipedia

Please click here to visit Wikipedia's page about the Unique Art Manufacturing Company

Please click here to visit the fine web site site of Morphy Auctions

The elephant with the airplane and flying clown is my favourite.

I'm sure this toy delighted many young children with its motion and characters.

I think most of these toys were made  in the late 1930's and 1940's or later.  With the disharmony between Mr. Louis Marx and Mr.Sammy Bergman (please read the Wikipedia narrative above), as well as many toys that would have flooded America after WWII, the "writing on the wall" was to be seen by many American toy companies. Toys could be manufactured much less expensively, and it was important to help the defeated axis (Japan and Germany) after the war.

If you were born at the time of this toy's manufacture or earlier, you would have been familiar with the cast of characters from this newspaper feature. The characters of course are from the Li'l Abner Dogpatch comic strip. I know, because I would read these comics every day in our 2 local newspapers - THe Montreal Gazette, and The Montreal Star. As well, I also read the many American newspapers that my father would bring home daily to read. He had never finished high school because his father died at a very young age, and my father had to quit school to go work to help the family. He always brought home newspapers to keep abreast of  the news and to know about the latest technology, politics, and other important matters.

If you were born in the late 1940's or early 1950's toy would have been familiar with Howdy Doody, and his creator Bob Smith. And if your parents were able, they would have purchased a TV, which at the time was in black and white. We had an antenna on the roof with a rotary dial on the TV. Cable was not around, but something called Rediffusion (in Montreal, Quebec) was. We didn't have Rediffusion until 1960.  The rotary would rotate the antenna to pick up the strongest signal which came from the 2 American channels out of New York and Vermont.

I was already too old (6-12 years) when Howdy Doody was on TV, but occasionally I'd watch it with my grandmother Lily and "the twins" - Michael and Brenda, my siblings. Jay was born in 18958, so he was still quite young, but also watched.

I'm sure anyone who knew Howdy Doody can remember the song that introduced the show:

It's Howdy Doody time, It's Howdy Doody Time……

Please click here to visit Youtube and listen to the theme song of Howdy Doody

I can't believe that that jingle from Howdy Doody is still in my head!

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be,

Stacey

toysearcher@gmail.com