CR Horse Drawn Pumper Tin- Charles Rossignol *SOLD*

CR Horse Drawn Pumper Tin- Charles Rossignol For Sale

Our very early 1890’s CR toy comes from France and is a hand painted wonder.  It is not documented, but uses the Rossignol horse gate as well as wheel, tin tab, and hallmarks of the famous maker.  French toy makers in this era were simply ahead of the German makers.  Rossignol still had the hand painted manufacturing technique, but saved labor with tabs like those on the horse.

Believe it or not, CR or Charles Rossignol is credited with the first stamped tin toys with tabs.  They used metal stamping press machines and the tab and slot assembly method were implemented. Charles Rossignol was not just a toy maker, but he was also an innovative inventor. He filed 10 patents, including one in 1889 that became his trademark. The assembly of tinplate toys using pre-cut tabs and slots in the metal was a Rossignol original idea. This simple technique, that eliminated the soldering process was eventually adopted by almost all toy manufacturers worldwide. These newer manufacturing processes enabled reduction of labor costs and elimintation of harmful paint fumes from the workplace.

Our toy appears all original and is in excelent condition for the age.  Hand panted horse face details are very well executed for simple brush strokes.  Figure details also use smart hand applications of multiple paint colors.  The boiler and its rivets are in excellent condition along with the original bell.

Length is quite large for a CR toy, it is expected of course from a 19th Century toy, at about 14.5″ in length.  Early French toys tended to be big.

The real-life fire engine design and horse design appear in both French and German documents from a bout the 1890’s.  Use of a bell was a primitive alert to pedestrians.  Note the Rosenbauer Engine photo as a comparison.

CR also had a habit of using these wheels along with a cap at the end of the axle.  We have seen similar toys in Parisian toy catalogs of the 1880’s and 1890’s.  With a couple of differences, this could almost appear in a George Brown tin catalog of America.