BY JACK HERBERT THE TOYS WE HAVE ASSEMBLED here for you today all work for a living. For none of them the hauteur of Marklin, nor the upper crust status of a Jouets de Paris. These babies were all expected to get out there and sell, seven days a week. And so they do. Back in the days when print [...]
BY JACK HERBERT JUST ABOUT EVERY SIXTH house on your block contains, somewhere within it, a toy train set. It may be relegated to the attic or on a high shelf in the guest bedroom, but toy trains, thank heaven, are never thrown out. Think about it. Our fascination with all trains spans every generation. We love to watch the [...]
BY JACK HERBERT EARLY AMERICAN TOYS not only reflect their times in history, there is a noticeable “toylike” appearance about most of them that sets them instantly apart from all subsequent designs in the field. Just what this unique appearance is—a sort of fragility, perhaps — is hard to describe, but easy to understand the minute you see one. Here [...]
BY JACK HERBERT IN ORDER TO ENHANCE your toy shelves, try placing a few, small back drop items similar in content in with one or two of your Pride & Joy on display. Toy figures of people and fancy street lamps are obvious, but let’s consider a few off-beat items that might just offer some happy relief from your rows [...]
BY JACK HERBERT AMONG the very earliest of American-made toys are the rarely seen tinplate Riverboats designed and manufactured by such firms as Althof Bergmann and Francis Field & Francis in the 1860s and 70s. They are quite fragile by now, of course, which may account for the scarcity of some of them which were not originally made of cast [...]
BY JACK HERBERT EVERY ONCE IN A BLUE MOON a good reader of this magazine will send me a set of pictures and a fact sheet for a toy I never knew even existed. Who sez mail can’t occasionally be exciting? Here are two such toys that have come my way recently. They are both unique, both inordinately scarce, and [...]
BY JACK HERBERT EVEN THOUGH WE ARE ALL NOW ADULTS, Santa Claus is still a most welcome figure these days. And being antique toy collectors, we find Santa in our toy cars, stables, airplanes, sleighs, and in great numbers driving the engines of passenger toy trains. Many of us have enough Christmas toys, some very old, to produce a splendid [...]
BY JACK HERBERT HOW OFTEN HAVE YOU ever seen a toy Popcorn Wagon in your travels? Probably never, although it would seem to be a natural for a Twenties or Thirties toymaker, wouldn’t it? As far as I know, this is the only Popcorn Wagon ever attempted. It’s huge – 20″ long, the size of a kitchen sink, and made [...]
BY JACK HERBERT PART OF THE APPEAL FOR MANY Americans planning a trip to London is the prospect of actually riding their splendid double decker busses, preferably on-high and up front. You’re above the traffic and the crowds. You’re god-like. The famous British slogan “Getting There Is Half The Fun” should add that their busses will provide the other half. [...]
BY JACK HERBERT OUR TOY REVIEW THIS month is based entirely on the incredible Toy Bus Collection of John Dockendorf, who has gathered together 4,000+ of them! His house in Pennsylvania is a virtual Museum. We have selected a few of his toys for you that hail from all over the world – the major countries in Europe, Asia, of [...]
