Four 1930s Wind Up Toys

Appraised on: August 9, 2003

Appraised in: Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Appraised by: Noel Barrett

Category: Toys & Games

Episode Info: Oklahoma City, Hour 2 (#808)

Originally Aired: February 23, 2004

IMAGE: 1 of 1  

Appraisal Video: (2:37)

APPRAISER: You brought me three little wind-up toys.

GUEST: Yes.

APPRAISER: How did you come by them?

GUEST: All three belonged to my dad. His grandparents went to a National Grange meeting, and they came back with these as a part of the gift exchange at Christmas time. Daddy was born in 1928, and these two he got from the gift exchange, he said, when he was about ten or 11 years old. So that would have been about 1938, '39. This one he thinks he got a couple of years earlier.

APPRAISER: Mm-hmm. Well, they are what we call comic character wind-ups, and that's a very collected category of toys. Of course, you know now we have movies and everything is licensed. This was like the beginning of licensing from popular, uh... entertainment. You have Charlie McCarthy, who was very big on the radio and also in the funny strips, and Pinocchio was a movie character from Walt Disney with a great little... cute little wind-up action. He would just waddle along there. And, of course, Minnie Mouse was Mickey's girlfriend and ultimately a very famous comic character mouse. Let me ask you this: which one of these do you think is the most valuable if you had to pick one?

GUEST: (sighs) I don't know. I'd go for Pinocchio, but it would probably be the plastic one.

APPRAISER: Well, this isn't plastic, it's celluloid, and if you did go for this one, you would have picked the right one. See, these are what we call lithographed tin. These are made in America, in the '30s. This is a tin toy with tin and celluloid. The figure of Minnie Mouse and the figure of Pluto are celluloid, which is a very early and very fragile kind of plastic. And it's very rare to survive, because you can just crush this with your fingers like that. As far as value is concerned, these are relatively common. Because they're lithographed, you find them.

GUEST: Okay.

APPRAISER: Generally you find them sometimes with the original boxes. These are in average condition, a little bit of wear here and there, and these would be around $150 each,

GUEST: Wow.

APPRAISER: which isn't too bad. Now, this one is a little different story because, as I say, it's celluloid, it's painted celluloid, it is in extraordinary condition, and, of course, Minnie Mouse is a little rarer than Mickey Mouse.

GUEST: Oh, okay.

APPRAISER: The most recent auction value I could find on this was around $2,700.

GUEST: Wow.