Tin Toys - A Favorite
from the Past
by
Libby Pelham
Next time you are walking by a toy store, take a
minute to poke your head inside. You may see something you
haven't seen in years - tinplate toys. Tin toys were a favorite
of children from the turn of the century though the late
sixties. Whether it was a car, a roller coaster or something as
silly as a duck riding a bike, boys and girls alike loved
playing with these toys. Demand for the toys waned during the
seventies as safer toys made of plastic came into fashion, but
now both antique and replica tin toys are making a
nostalgic
Cont
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"TWAS THE TOY BEFORE CHRISTMAS"
On December
22, 1822, the distinguished scholar, Clement Clarke Moore,
recited to his children a poem he wrote for them as a
gift.
Luckily, a house guest copied
down "A Visit From Saint Nicholas" and sent it to a New York
Newspaper, the "Troy Sentinel," where it was published
anonymously a year later. Moore's description of St. Nicholas
bore and uncanny resemblance to the family's plump,
long-whiskered, pipe-chewing, merry caretaker, Jay Duyckinck.
The portrait of the jolly old elf descending chimneys and
filling fireplace stockings from a bundle of toys flung on his
back, changed Christmas forever.
The author finally allowed it to
be published in book form in 1844. A few years later,
coincidence or not, a great worldwide industry emerged. Today,
toys comprise one the strongest arms of the antiques' market.
Old tin toys are amongst the highest prized.
In 1848, the "Philadelphia Tin
Toy Manufactory" began producing one of the first of many lines
of commercial tin toys. Thin, tin-plated sheet steel was
hammered into molds, forming blank toy sections and parts. The
toys were assembled by clamping the parts together with metal
tabs or soldering.
Finally, the toy was hand-painted
and stenciled. Ingenious moving clock mechanisms were
introduced to tin and other toys in the 1850's by a Connecticut
clock-maker turned toy-maker, George Brown.
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