by Rehg | Feb 23, 2025 | art of toys blog, Blog
In 1939 a new toy, Self-Locking Building Bricks were patented by plastic pioneer, Harley Fisher Page, founder of Kiddicraft Company. By 1945 he had improved the blocks by adding channels which inspired Godtfred Kirk Christiansen, the man who gave the world the LEGO...
by Rehg | Feb 23, 2025 | art of toys blog, Blog
Midgetoy -Brief Company History It was 1943 when Alvin and Earl Herdklotz formed the A & E Tool and Gage Co. Their first products included precision tooling such as gauges that measured the contours and shapes of airplane propellers. With the end of World War...
by Rehg | Feb 23, 2025 | art of toys blog, Blog
A.C. Gilbert, a toy manufacturer and Olympic gold medalist in the pole vault, unveiled his first Erector set in 1913, one-upping the contemporary Meccano building toy by allowing kids to build square girders. With a pulley, gears and strips of metal, kids could build...
by Rehg | Feb 22, 2025 | Blog
The earliest marbles weren’t called marbles, of course, because marble wasn’t the source material just yet. The earliest marbles were actually round stones, nuts, fruit pits or fired pieces of clay and pottery. Some say they were found in the Egyptian pyramids and in...
by Rehg | Feb 22, 2025 | Blog
I thought I would do a bit of research on one of the oldest puppet shows know – Punch and Judy. I went online and was amazed at how many sites are devoted to “Punch and Judy” so if you want it there is an a lot of detailed sites…I will warn you now if you try to just...
by Rehg | Feb 22, 2025 | Blog
G.I. Joe In this crazy time in the US I thought I would touch on a American icon toy of the 1960’s, G.I. Joe produced by Hasbro and first hit the market in the summer of 1964. It was sold as a toy designed to take rough play of boys not a collectible… today it is a...
by Rehg | Feb 21, 2025 | Blog
Assemblage is an artistic process. In the visual arts it consists of making three-dimensional or two-dimensional artistic compositions by putting together found objects …Wiki Go Forward, Johann Dieter Wassman 1897 So in the world of Art Of Toys this means taking toys...
by Rehg | Feb 20, 2025 | Blog
To continue with methods to clean toys I have spent a great deal of time cleaning old bisque and porcelain dolls. I always thought the claim “smoke free house” was kinda goofy until I bought a large lot of vintage Penny Dolls on ebay only to find they had...
by Rehg | Jan 30, 2025 | Blog
What is the difference between a collector and a hoarder? Organization! I love to see how people organize and display their collections! In this day of internet I found these three interviews on youtube with three very different collections but all three have a lot of...
by Rehg | Apr 9, 2024 | art of toys blog, Blog
The Zanini & Zambelli Doll Company is a family owned and operated business. It is located in Canneto Sull ‘Oglio in the province of Mantova, Italy. The original owners were Adelaide Zanini and Francesco Zambelli, husband and wife, who founded the company in 1948....
