A small hawl, but it counts, right? As I am in the middle of selling off a hoard, I really need to keep looking for more stuff to drag home. There was an estate sale on the other side of town, I got there early, and got what I wanted. Time for something a little different:
This is a real old timer. It is a lithographed tin car with a clockwork motor. I am fairly certain this was made by Gebrüder Bing, Nürnberg (Germany). The date is hard to establish, as this model was made for several years, but I believe it is around 1915. It is an earlier style of car, maybe ~1905, but wouldn’t have been too outdated looking as a racer, suggested by the lack of fenders. Per a few sources, the model is supposed to represent a DeDion car, maybe a “Spider”. Early versions seem to be found with a driver and steering wheel, I suspect these didn’t add enough play value to make them worthwhile on a simple model. This variant lacks those features, and lacks any slots for them to be fitted to the model. I find these early tin vehicles very charming:
This model is about 6"/15cm long. The clockwork motor still runs fine, typical for an old German item. It is of simple construction, tin with tabs to lock it together, a body fitted to a flat base with the motor underneath. The front wheels can be steered:
I was very happy to find this. I was the second in line at the sale, and the guy in front of me was after something else, so I zipped over to it and got it. There were some other toys there - 60s-80s era tin stuff (few vehicles, none of interest to me), and an overpriced Hubley Airflow, but this was reasonably priced, as I don’t think the company knew what it was. This is not the rarest toy, and not nearly as valuable as the larger elaborate tin cars of the era, but I find it quite attractive, and am very pleased to add it to my collection. Imagine how thrilled a kid was to have this ~100 years ago:
This is a listing from a Vectis auction, who identifies it as Bing, showing the model in a set with a period limo, and a garage. This is probably from the 1910-20 era:
Here’s a 1:1 with somewhat similar bodywork, from pinterest:
This brand of car was also seen on an episode of Top Gear:
That is all.