Antique Toy Catalogs, Books, and Vintage Toy Wish Lists

Antique Toy Catalogs, Books, and Vintage Toy Wish Lists

Venture through the Antique Toys library room and see about 1000 Antique books and toy catalogs. Yes, we pride ourselves on constantly purchasing reading and research material for the business.

Our toy library (at the moment) is organized by manufacturer in one section– Imagine Arnold of Germany, Brown (George), Bing, Buddy L, Carette, all the way up to Voltamp and Wayndotte.  Another section is is grouped by subject matter like antique train books, antique boat toys, Cars, toy Trucks, Marbles, dolls, motorcycles, planes, Banks, and the list goes on.

Another section of the room has catalogs.  We have originals (some), ATCA reproductions (thank you Antique Toy Club of America), and then copies from the older toy catalog web sites we’ve managed to purchase.  Again, these are by antique and vintage toy maker; so imagine Arcade, Boucher, Dister, Doll, Carette, KBN, Ives, Harris, Lionel, Kingsbury….. hundreds of them, all the way up to Wells (UK), Wilkins, and Wayandotte.  We work to get all years available for the time these companies existed.  Please email us at toys@antiquetoys.com if you have rare copies to discuss and share!

Yet another section of our library has antique toy distributor catalogs.  We have older FAO Schwartz catalogs, Sears Catalogs from the late 1800’s, Schott and Co catalogs, French “Jouet” company catalogs, English, and German references.  We’ve even enjoyed a Dutch store catalog or two.

Then in the final area we enjoy auction catalogs and books for reference.  Dan Morphy, the Beroia Family, Smith House, and Noel and among just a few reference toy auction house publications.  In this we continue to keep an expanding collection of most Antique Toy World Magazines from the 1970’s to today. As an aside, Dale Kelly deserves our thanks as a toy collecting community.  Thank you sir, these are great references and invaluable.

All of this brings me to my personal collecting wish list.  As I pour through the countless pages, close off the outside world, and pretend to transport back in time; I’ve developed some favorite antique toys.  They tend, unfortunately, to be a big challenge to find and often come with hefty prices.  That said, I’ve always had a policy of putting it out there to the collecting community that I’d like to network.  Let me know if these will be sold from your collection, if you have family that needs to adopt out these old toys, or if you happen to have found a toy on my list.  I am on a budget, but always a buyer and will often sell for an upgrade.  See if you can find these in an attic please 🙂 !  OK, maybe a local attic would be better yet, or with a shipping box would be better.  Dreams like this keep the hobby interesting.

So two points can be made here– 1) Lean on us for cataloging and bibliographies and research.  We help others, and feel that what goes around comes around with help.  1) Please keep me (as a collector) in mind if you find these pictured toys and rarities.  It is a small world and networking always helps.

I’ll add a third– Always have fun with the Antique Toy hobby and the vintage or even newer toy collecting hobby.  We do, and we enjoy networking with the great collectors and family out there.  Send us an email if you have anything interesting to share.  It is a pleasure working with and meeting great people.

Ed