Description
Fisher Price Chatter Phone 1961 is a vintage pull toy #747 which many will recognize from the Toy Story movies. This toy features a plastic dial phone mounted on wood base with plastic blue wheels. Eyes and nose move up and down when toy is pulled and bell rings when phone is dialed and makes a clicking nose when pulled.
Founded in 1930 by Herman Fisher, Irving Price, Price’s illustrator-artist wife Margaret Evans Price, and Helen Schelle, the name Fisher-Price was established by combining two of the three names. Fisher worked previously in manufacturing, selling and advertising games for a company in Churchville, New York. Price had retired from a major variety chain store, and Helen Schelle previously operated Penny Walker Toy Shop in Binghamton, New York. Fisher-Price’s fundamental toy-making principles centered on intrinsic play value, ingenuity, strong construction, good value for the money, and action. Early toys were made of heavy steel parts and ponderosa pine, which resisted splintering and held up well to heavy use. The details and charm were added with colorful lithographic labels.[1] Mrs. Price was the first Art Director and designed push-pull toys for the opening line, based on characters from her children’s books. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_Price
Provenance: -Five Brothers Rare Toy Estate, The core of the collection was actually established in the 1950s by the father (from Indiana) of the adult sons who are consignors to the May sale. As time went on, each of the five brothers set out on his own individual collecting path. Each took a different approach to building his collection, but the one important thing they had in common was a love of vintage American toys, primarily of the boomer era. The time-span for the toys is heavily focused on the 1950s and 60s, with a few from the 1970s.
Reference: O’Briens Collecting Toys 12th Ed by Karen O’Brien 2008
