A Return Visit to the Antique Toy Collectors of America Inc. Website

Wednesday, December 25, 2024

Clear skies 

-13° C / 8° F

A Return Visit to the

Antique Toy Collectors of America, Inc.

First of all, I'd like to wish everyone a 

Merry Christmas and a Healthy and Happy New Year to come. 

To others who celebrate other holidays, I also wish you Health and Happiness, 

and a Happy New Year.

Please click on this sentence to redirect to the ATCA website

Over time, I've bought and sold old toy catalogues. Up here in Canada, there are 

not lots of toys or old brands of toys like in the USA. In earlier times with regard to old toys, we had Meccano from Great Britain. I had a set, but that was in the late 1950's. I base my comment on the fact, that when I started to blog, I searched high and low all over the Montreal, Province of Quebec (Canada)  and the surrounding area, and I never saw any American toys from pre-1940 and earlier.

I remember years ago, when I was doing my "usual" search, either

someone wrote to me, or I happened to "discover" the

Antique Toy Collectors of America  and their exceptional website.

I wrote to them for permission and 

they were kind enough to allow me to use their photos. 

The Antique Toy Collectors of America, Inc. was established in 1965, and has expanded not just to have American members, but also had invited toy collectors from around the world to join and become members.

What's fantastic about ATCA inc. is that they have lots and lots of old toy catalogues available on their website. 

As you can see, this is but one catalogue that ATCA, Inc. has at their location in Washington, D.C.(USA),  United States of America

The Antique Toy Collectors are always looking for new members.

The Group offers members access to their toy catalogues, members receive 2 magazines during the year titled Toy Chest Magazine , 

and they offer other features as well.

Of course there are some requirements.

Please click here to see what the requirements are to join ATCA

So that's it for today.

To everyone, I'd like to wish you all a Merry Christmas

and a Healthy and Happy New Year. 

And for everyone who celebrates another holiday, 

best wishes to all, and also

a Healthy and Happy New Year.

Matching 1928 Keystone Toys to a Butler Brothers Catalogue

Friday, March 21, 2020
Sunny
27 C.  81 F

Matching 1928 Keystone Toys

 to a Butler Brothers Catalogue

It's always fun to find toys on the Internet and match them up to a catalogue.

Bertoia Auctions is having a current auction now with a lot of Keystone toys.

However, my 1927 Butler Brothers catalogue does not have these toys.

Coincidentally, when I did the Internet search, I came up with the page that I was looking for.

I found page 266 of the Butler Brothers 1928 (December) catalogue.

All of the toys are pressed steel with  rubber tires, and some of them have been restored.

Please click here to view this June 18, 2020 auction

If you are reading this after the end of the auction, then simply

go to the Bertoia Auctions website, and search for past auctions and June 18, 2020*

The "Packard Combo 49 Truck measures 28" (710 mm).

The other toys seen above are also large toys.

If anyone has any of the other Keystone toys featured above,

please feel free to send me your photos, and I will add them to this blog post.

Just e-mail me beforehand, so I can tell you the size of the photos, 

and how to light the toys for best results.

Returning to reality, up here in Canada, and my province of Quebec, 

The Covid19 virus statistics are starting to show the data stabilizing 

and/or the falling. The governments  (federal and provincial) are starting to 

ease up on the rules. Soon, I will be able to get a haircut and to 

go to large stores that were previously closed.

Nevertheless, if people start to go beyond the rules, then they will

endanger everyone. I hope people understand this.

So that's it for today.

Thanks for visiting,

and have a great part of the day or night,

wherever you may be.

Stacey BIndman

toysearcher@gmail.com

Mr. Ray Haradin - Toys of Yesteryear

Saturday, January 13, 2018
Overcast with Heavy Snowfall
-11 C -12.8 F

Mr. Ray Haradin

Toys of Yesteryear

Please click here to visit Ray Haradin's website

I introduced you to the RSL Auction Company, and specifically the Cyber Toy division last week. 
However, there is much more to the company than just the RSL division. Today,
I'm introducing you to Raytoys.com and to Mr. Ray Haradin. 

The biography of Mr. Ray Haradin is quite interesting . For a younger man, his biography is one of success from a very young age.

In his own words:

My passion for early toys started when I was a kid. My earliest memory is playing with a William Tell bank in my Grandmother's house in 1970. I distinctly remember pressing William Tell's foot which caused his gun to shoot a coin and knock the apple off his son's head. With time my interests in antiques developed as I would accompany my father and mother to local flea markets and many early morning auctions in Western Pennsylvania and Ohio. I had a keen eye for banks, both mechanical and still, but my allowance dictated the pursuit of toy soldiers and coins. Dimestore figures, the miniature World War I figures sold in the Five and Dime Stores, formed my first collection. From there I branched out into Britains, American Tin, Clockwork Toys, Bell Toys and Horse Drawn Toys. After becoming comfortable with the early American Toys my pursuit turned overseas with particular interest in the early German manufacturers, especially Marklin and Heyde. I have also been known to handle Lehmann and Martin toys. I do have interests outside of the "Toy" world; the pursuit of original Tiffany lamps ranks high on my list along with the study of some local Pittsburgh artists who painted in the area at the beginning of the 20th century. By the late 1970's I was an established dealer throughout the Greater Pittsburgh area displaying at local flea markets and small regional shows. On my 15th birthday in 1979, I exhibited at my first major show, The Allentown Toy Show and have been a perennial exhibitor at that venue ever since. Antiques have always been my main pursuit. I had a brief diversion while I attended the University of Colorado, Boulder Campus where I earned a B.A. in Chemistry in 1986. 

In 1982 I joined the Still Bank Collectors Club and then the Mechanical Bank Collectors of America in 1988. I served as the MBCA's President from 1995 through 1997 and have been their current Secretary since 1997. I have also been a certified member of the American Society of Appraisers as well as a member of the Antique Toy Collectors of America since 1990. It has been a pleasure to have participated at most major shows across the globe. 

he objects I buy and sell are my core business; however, being active in the antique community brings me tremendous joy. In 2000 I was offered the trade journal Old Toy Soldier "The Journal for Collectors". The magazine had been in continuous publication since 1976. There were concerns in the soldier community that it would be bought by a foreign company and absorbed into their publications. Being a subscriber since its inception, I felt it was time to put the skills learned by producing and distributing my Toys of Yesteryear catalogs to further promote the hobby. I acquired Old Toy Soldier and recruited the renowned author and auction house expert Norman Joplin to be editor. Since then we have expanded coverage through well researched and written articles, moved to a color format and increased subscriptions. It has been a challenge that both Norman and I relish. 

By 2005 I was up for another challenge and decided it was time to enter the auction world. Having been offered the McCumber collection of mechanical and still banks, I joined forces with Leon and Steven Weiss of Gemini Antiques. These long time friends and well known Madison Avenue dealers and I formed RSL Auctions which has hosted two sales a year. Millions of dollars worth of mechanical and still banks and fine early toys have been sold at our well attended auctions since then. 

Based on the success of RSL Auctions, the fact that Christe's auction house in New York and London announced they would no longer handle toy soldiers and the lack of an American auction house dedicated to the sale of toy figures, Norman Joplin and I decided to started Old Toy Soldier Auctions USA in 2008. In our first year we hosted two successful sales, selling over 1000 lots of toy soldiers. 

What lies ahead is the force that drives me. Be assured that the basis of my business is the pursuit of great "stuff". Peruse my catalog. If there is something of interest or if you just want to talk toys please email me.

Wow, this most certainly is a success story about a very ambitious and intelligent person!

As I mentioned before, the Ray Haradin Toy of Yesteryear 
is a division of  the RSL  Auction Company. I believe the company's method of selling toys is 
through a catalogue. Toys are gathered throughout the year, catalogued, and then photographed with selling prices included. The catalogue contains large photographs with brief descriptions of the items for sale. Mr. Haradin invites you to contact him whenever you might need further information on any toy. I would recommend this for people who are unfamiliar with toys, just to get a broader and more thorough description of any toy that you  are interested in, from the catalogue.

Below are just a sampling of catalogue pages. In this particular catalogue, 
there are approximately 125 pages. You can even download the catalogue 
(in Adobe Acrobat Format) to your home computer.

The catalogue is superbly done, and the photography is great. 

It even was photographed in the manner that I like - on a white foundation and background.

Download the catalogue for your perusal. It is an excellent catalogue

to be used as a reference for old and antique toys, and for sure, you will not be disappointed.

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 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

Some Bing Motor Cars

Sunday, October 16, 2016
Overcast and Raining
16 Celcius 61 Fahrenheit

Some Bing Motor Cars

Please click here to visit this fine American toy auctioneer

This is  a post continuing from my previous post of today.This time, the post is about the Bing  motor cars or automobiles. The car photos are courtesy of Bertoia auctions, while  the scanned catalogue images are once again courtesy of New Cavendish Book (first printing 2001).

I purposely left out the written descriptions of the toy photos, so that you would look at the descriptions from the print catalogue of the 1912 edition of "The 1912 Bing Toy Catalogue".

    

THe photo below is not quite an exact match to its' catalogue scan above, but its' close. The 

photo below could be an earlier (pre-1912) or a later version of the catalogued toy.

The above photo matches the lower left scanned car. However, these is no chauffeur to be found in the car. Either there wasn't one in the toy, or perhaps the car is an earlier or later version simply did not have a chauffeur. Alternatively, the chauffeur could have been lost over the period of 100 years.

I was fortunate to find 2 Bertoia Auctions photos to match this catalogue 

page of the 1912 Bing catalogue. 

The Bertoia Auctions photo is once again lacking a chauffeur. The same reason that I previously mentioned for the top photo could apply to this car. As always, the excellent photography from Bertoia, certainly makes this toy stand out on the page.

So that's it for today.

I hope that you liked the Carrette and Bing catalogue match-ups.

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

hyave a great part of the day  or night,

wherever yopu may be.

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com

An Ives, Blakeslee & Williams Co Catalogue Reproduction-Part I

Saturday, October 8, 2016
Overcast with rain
17 Celcius / 62 Fahrenheit

An Ives, Blakeslee, & Williams Co.

Catalogue Reproduction

(Part I)

    A great resource for researching toys are old catalogues or their respective reproductions. This reproduction was from a circa 1893 Catalogue "featuring a complete line of toys for home and export trade". It was reproduced by" L.C.Hagarty, a collector of iron toys & mechanical banks, from Coalport, Pa., USA. in 1965".

   I decided 3 posts on this interesting catalogue. In the late 1800's, there were still many toys that included all kinds of wagons pulled by horses. The "horseless carriage, truck , and cars would not appear for another 15 years. This first part is a set of toys that were pulled by a cord. 

 What is most interesting is the price of the toys. Most of the prices of the toys are stated as the cost by the dozen.

What is also interesting is that there is no name as to who the manufacturer was. 

So my question is this: was it customary to not include the names of the manufacturer, or were the toys in this catalogue reproduction of authentic North American manufacturers of toys?

The topmost toy is most interesting because it includes a stable for sheltering the horse and cart, and  I've never seen such a toy before.

 The topmost toy is interesting because of the description of the wagon. It's called a "truck",

which I never knew was called a "wagon". I've usually seen these things titled wagons.

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)