Cast-Iron and Steam Toys
March 31st, 2017
Pook & Pook, Inc. with Noel Barrett, Downingtown, Pennsylvania
Photos courtesy Pook & Pook and Noel Barrett
Eberhard Luethke’s collection of steam engines and Stephen Sachs’s collection of cast-iron toys offered by Pook & Pook and Noel Barrett in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, on March 31 and April 1 was a test of two segments of the antique toy market.
Sachs was a very private and driven collector of cast-iron toys. He filled rooms full of shelves in his St. Louis house with cast-iron toys by major makers such as Hubley, Arcade, Kenton, Dent, Kilgore, and Vindex. Even shelves in his walk-in dressing room were filled with toys. His sister told Noel Barrett that her brother liked to look at the toys while he was dressing. Some of his favorites were a Penn Yan speedboat and an Old Dutch Cleanser pull toy. He collected in every maker of cast-iron automotive toys. He had a fleet of moving vans, over 60 buses, 20 taxicabs, a garage full of delivery vans, 40 airplanes, 40 motorcycles, and more than a dozen boats. He had enough road-building equipment to repair the infrastructure of a Lilliputian country and the farm equipment to plant and harvest the food. His collection of miniature furniture could furnish a community of dollhouses and country stores. He liked mechanical and still banks but did not demand perfect paint. The banks sold to the less fussy middle market at middling prices. Dealers loaded up on still banks, still affordable and full of variety; the market is still there.
One of the few categories Sachs did not collect was horse-drawn toys from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A third consignor filled the gap and rounded out the sale. Collectors of firefighting toys had a field day. Others found that the carriages and wagons that had sold for a lot more during the golden age of collecting were now within reach at reasonable prices in a softer cast-iron toy market.
Collecting steam toys was the passion of Eberhard Luethke (d. 2016), a successful commercial illustrator who had retired to Waldoboro, Maine. After seeing a few pictures sent by his widow, Barrett and Pook & Pook vice president Jamie Shearer drove to Waldoboro to pack it up. In the introduction to the catalog Barrett tells how they were shown Luethke’s favorite, a live steam locomotive called the“Magnet,” sitting on a section of track in a glass showcase in the living room, and they wondered where the rest of the collection was stored. Then through a door just off the dining room in the artist’s studio they saw steam engines and toys carefully arranged on shelves in white cubbyholes where Luethke could enjoy them while he worked at his drawing table.
This Magnet live steam train locomotive, 2-2-2, with double-cylinder engine is fully functional. It shows finely crafted and highly detailed construction. There are two engraved plaques. The boiler front plate is engraved “R. Ockelford, 1850,” and the boiler side plate is engraved “Magnet.” Fittings include the brake on/off handled lever, the sight glass on/off lever, and a steam whistle. It also features leaf-spring wheels, functional front bumpers with leather-covered springs, and a crosshatched engraved foot plate. It is presented on a 5¼" track, all mounted on a footed wood base that had a fitted glass cover, 12" high x 17" wide. This was the most prized item in Eberhard Luethke’s collection. In excellent condition with no apparent damage or repairs, it sold for $10,370 (est. $8000/10,000).
“The same precision found in his art was evident in his collection and the way it was displayed,” said Barrett. Engines and steam plants by Bing, Carette, Radiguet, Falk, Plank, and a large number by Märklin are sculptural marvels. Collectors at the preview said it was one of the finest collections of steam toys to come to market.
It took four and a half hours on Friday to sell the Luethke collection, the Sachs banks and cast-iron dollhouse furniture, office, store, and kitchen equipment, and the horse-drawn toys from the anonymous consignor.
This patent model brass machine for making paper collars by J.W. Griswold & John Sigwalt Jr., with original hang tags, dated October 16, 1866, finely crafted and detailed, 7¾" high x 8" wide, in excellent condition with no apparent damage, sold for $1342 (est. $1000/2000), the top price of the seven patent models in the sale.
Highly detailed 19th-century working steam walking beam engine, possibly French, with an ornate catwalk, engine mounted on a bombé-style base, all on a checkerboard-decorated foundation, the metal label on the base inscribed “H. Vernon,” 16" high x 20" wide, excellent condition, no apparent damages or repairs, $5368 (est. $3000/6000).
Large 19th-century Radiguet vertical overtype steam engine, boiler and side-mounted water pump sheathed with grooved wood slats and copper banding, with proper fittings, decorative cast-iron flywheel with curvilinear spokes with attached smaller wide-gauge flywheel for belt-drive operation, pressure gauge inscribed “Radiguet & Massiot,” 46" high x 19" wide x 15" deep (base), excellent condition with no apparent damage or repairs, coal burning, $9150 (est. $5000/8000).
Bidders competed on two online bidding platforms, Bidsquare and LiveAuctioneers. The two platforms competed with each other, phone bidders, and about 30 bidders who came and went in the salesroom. It took about five hours on Saturday afternoon to sell the rest of the Sachs collection, which included cars, buses, trucks, motorcycles, boats, farm equipment, and a few patent models. Two lots were withdrawn, and two passed, but all the rest sold. The total with buyers’ premiums came to $833,850 for 855 lots. The presale estimate (without buyers’ premiums) was $535,375/798,835.
On Friday, 57% of the lots sold online, and the rest went to phone bidders and bidders in the salesroom. On Saturday, 46% sold online. The condition reports were spelled out under every lot in the catalog, a necessity in these days of increased online bidding.
This Hubley prototype cast-iron boat-tail racer, number 18, with a painted driver and a headlight, only known example, 7" long, ex-Bob Brady and ex-Dick Ford collections, small crack in one wheel hub, excellent condition, sold for $7320 (est. $6000/8000), the top price for a cast-iron toy at this sale.
This J. & E. Stevens cast-iron Patronize the Blind Man and His Dog mechanical bank has touchup on the figure and a replaced tail on the dog, and the pivot lever has paint restoration, but otherwise it is in very good condition. It sold for $3750 (est. $800/1200).
The market for steam toys is international. Bidders from 16 countries registered to bid on LiveAuctioneers, and bidders from eight foreign countries used Bidsquare—New Zealand, Canada, Italy, Germany, England, Australia, the Netherlands, and Brazil. Bidders from Australia and Germany were successful.
The markets for steam toys and cast iron are thin. There are still some longtime passionate collectors but not a lot of new faces. Five major dealer-collectors of cast-iron toys came to the sale and battled in the salesroom for what they wanted with competition from LiveAuctioneers, Bidsquare, and phone bidders. LiveAuctioneers bidders bought more lots, but Bidsquare bidders bought more expensive lots, and some of the most expensive went to phone bidders.
Hubley cast-iron Static speedboat with waves, a seated driver, and outboard motor, with a red lobster on the deck, 9¾" long, partial paint loss, flat spots to tires, $6710 (est. $3000/4000).
Bing live steam crane with a faux brick wood base and corrugated tin roof, hand crank to rotate crane, maker’s plate on base, 13" high x 14" wide, excellent condition, some burn on boiler, $5856 (est. $2000/3000).
Jamie Shearer explained that because Noel Barrett has such a large following on LiveAuctioneers they used the two platforms. “We use two platforms only for toy sales. We have to win over all the toy bidders to Bidsquare, our platform for all other sales,” he said. (Pook & Pook is one of the six founders of Bidsquare.)
Both platforms are useful. Bidsquare posts the results with buyers’ premiums immediately after the sale. On the Bidsquare website, go to “Calendar” and scroll to the sale catalog, and you can see the selling price for each lot. Price lists are also available at Pook & Pook’s website (www.pookandpook.com).You can also access the LiveAuctioneers catalog with hammer prices realized at (www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/100919_iron-and-steam-toys-day-1) and (www.liveauctioneers.com/catalog/100923_iron-and-steam-toys-day-2).
LiveAuctioneers has a useful database. Type in the name of an item, and you can learn the hammer prices for similar items that have sold in the last few years. For example, type in “Hubley cast-iron Chrysler Airflow Coupe” to find catalog listings with hammer prices of every Chrysler Airflow sold in the last few years at various auction houses that used LiveAuctioneers. It also shows that the $2600 hammer price for the coupe ($3250 with buyer’s premium) at Pook & Pook was a record for the toy. It was a rare hunter green color.
This sale was all about toys for boys. The pictures and captions tell more.
J. & E. Stevens cast-iron Jarmulowsky Banking House still bank, 7 7/8" high, cast-iron side panels, brass end panels, most likely a pattern bank, missing base lock mechanism, sides with rough casting, sold for $2125 (est. $400/600).
Hubley cast-iron Parcel Post motorcycle with a police driver, 9½" long, flat spots to tires, surface dirt, will clean to near-mint condition, $4392 (est. $1000/1500).
Dent cast-iron Ford 1417 trimotor airplane with nickel-plated propellers, in the seldom-seen smaller size with a 10" wingspan, partial paint loss, overall good condition, $4392 (est. $500/800).
This rare Arcade cast-iron White Union Supply Co.-USCO Products moving van with a nickel-plated driver and rubber wheels, 13¼" long, has strong decals, back doors, and wire to close the doors, and the latch inside the doors is intact. In very good condition with no apparent damage or repairs, it sold for $4148 (est. $2000/3000).
Originally published in the June 2017 issue of Maine Antique Digest. © 2017 Maine Antique Digest
