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BOY TOYS: MALCOLM FORBES' COLLECTION A 12-YEAR-OLD'S DREAM |
Painted tin battleship "Brooklyn," made in Germany around 1910, sold for $35,650. Photo courtesy of Sotheby's
What’s strange about the things magazine publisher Malcom Forbes collected? He never went for mainstream art and antiques. He never collected the things you expect a millionaire might collect like Impressionist paintings or weapons.
Mostly he went for toy soldiers, toy boats, presidential papers, American and Victorian artifacts, balloons and motorcycles.
By and large, collectors don’t want anyone to know what they bought or worse yet what they paid for anything. Forbes was the opposite.
He wanted all the press attention he could get. He’d pay $200,000 for something said one auction-house historian, and get eight inches of space in The New York Times. “Look at what he collected. It’s all puberty, all a 12-year-old’s dreams,” he added.
However you want to describe it, a selection of toys from the Forbes Magazine collection went under the hammer at Sotheby’s Dec. 19, 1994, Capitalist Toys sale. Dating from the 1890s to 1955, this treasure of “boy” toys featured over 150 toy boats and 150 toy motorcycles from Spain, England, Japan, France, Germany, and United States, ranging in price from $287 to $35,650.
The sale totaled $393,357 and was nearly $100,000 over the pre-sale high estimate. Provenance and the desirability of the toys was the source of big bucks for this collection.
The top seller was the Marklin painted tin clockwork battleship “Brooklyn,” a German made toy circa 1910, 25 inches in length, four lifeboats, 18 single guns, sold to a dealer for $35,650. A Marklin painted tin battleship, “Pennsylvania,” circa 1910, 40 inches long, repainted, with one of three lifeboats lacking, brought $23,000 from a dealer and collector.
Most of the toys in the Forbes sale were European. They were scale models of the real thing in toy form. Pittsburgh collector and dealer Ray Haradin prefers American toys.
He likes the free-flowing, smooth lines and naive look of American examples. “They’re more toy-like,” he says.
It’s hard to collect everything, so Haradin specializes in turn-of-the-century toys dating from 1855-1920. He collects mechanical banks and early American tin toys. The fascination with toys started early. His dad is a collector and they went around together for years looking and buying.
There are two types of toy collectors, Haradin says. The old-time collector wants examples of everything, a never-enough type of philosophy. The modern collector just wants the toys he likes and has a leaning toward trading up in quality.
“That’s how I became a dealer. I started selling off the lesser quality toys and keeping the best, and if I don’t like it, I never buy it.” Everything he handles has been played with very little. Toys in their original box with no repair and no repaint are the choicest.
He has 55 mechanical banks in his own collection and never plays with the best. “I like clowns. My favorite is a clown that spins around on a globe.” He bought it 15 years ago at a local auction.
“I do have some banks around you can play with. When my nephews come over. I like to show them how they work and some of them are really neat.” Haradin says condition is everything with old toys.
Q. I have a enclosed a photo of a Mickey Mouse figure which belonged to my 57-year- old aunt when she was young. Any information you could give me would be helpful. Kathy Halligan, Sewickley, Pa.
A. Disneyana is the common name given to characters created by Walt Disney. It is a popular area of collecting which dates back to 1928.
Kay Kamen is the person said to be the driving force behind getting Disney items into the stores during the 1930s. Mickey Mouse items from the ‘30s are the most expensive. They are marked either “Walt E. Disney,” “Walt Disney” or “Walt Disney Enterprises.” After 1940 the name was changed to “Walt Disney Productions.”
When Snow White was released in December 1937 the focus of the company shifted from short cartoons to feature-length motion pictures. Today collectors look for the early Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck items that were in existence before the competition of full-length movies.
Dating characters is based on design and the wording of the copyright notice. Look at the eyes too. On the early Mickeys they consisted of black ovals with a pie-cut shape out on one side.
Around 1938 Disney also started adding pupils. The Disney memorabilia dating back to the ‘40s and ‘50s include characters like Dumbo, Bambi, Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp. From the looks of your Mickey Mouse I would say you have a mouse dating to the 1940s and worth around $30.
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