Mosby & Co.'s Fall 2009 Auction a colorful mix of toys, advertising, Civil War & pop culture Mosby & Co. is mixing it up for the Thanksgiving holiday season with 468 lots of toys, antique advertising, sports-related items, carnival & circus, Civil War & Americana antiques.
News-Antique.com - Oct 27,2009 - FREDERICK, Md. – Mosby & Co. is mixing it up for the Thanksgiving holiday season with an absentee and Internet Fall 2009 Auction featuring 468 lots of toys, antique advertising, sports-related antiques, carnival and circus items; and Americana and Civil War articles. Bidding through all absentee methods, including the Internet, will commence on Nov. 5, 2009 and conclude at midnight Eastern Time on Nov. 22, 2009.
Three main subgroups – cataloged in 150 lots and spanning a century of production from the 1860s-1960s – will be offered within the general category of “Toys.” Early tin toys are dominated by always-popular antique German examples – “good solid pieces,” said Mosby & Co.’s founder and owner Keith Spurgeon. “One of the top lots is a clockwork Weightlifting Clown that lifts the old-fashioned hundred-pound weight with his teeth. Collectors of European toys know this one. It’s very desirable.”
A second tin-toy standout is a boxed, 1920s Little Giant Zeppelin pull toy measuring 25 inches long and made by the New York company Baer & Strasburger. “It has a great-looking pictorial box with a Manhattan scene that includes the Statue of Liberty but pre-dates the Empire State Building,” said Spurgeon. “It’s always fascinating to see a toy that I have never seen before, like this one.”
An array of clean, original cast-iron toys runs the gamut of cars, busses and airplanes, with a side selection of early, original figural cap bombs and cap guns. The top vehicular lot is a 12-inch red-and-black Willys sedan made by Kenton, one of only three known. “The last time an example of this toy appeared at auction, it made between $10,000 and $11,000,” Spurgeon noted.
Many excellent-condition comic character toys have been consigned, including a Gunthermann Bonzo on scooter and a few Zaccagnini Bambi and Pluto pieces. Additionally, several perennially popular Disney character watches will be auctioned with their original boxes.
The sale features a small selection of Dionne Quintuplets items, including two sets of Madame Alexander quints dolls. One of the sets is presented in a 3-wheeled painted-wood crib cart with the girls’ names shown on the side. An unusual figural clock with an image of the history-making Canadian quints will be offered, as well as a Stuart Warner Dionne Quints painted Bakelite radio in the largest of three sizes made.
Sports items are led by a 1948 Babe Ruth bronze-painted three-dimensional electric clock in excellent condition, and a striking tin sign that advertises Favorite Chewing Tobacco and features images of the Chicago White Sox’s 1959 MVP Nelly Fox, and Ralph Houk, former manager of the “World Champion New York Yankees.” The sign displays bright shades of yellow, red and blue with black accents and measures 5 feet long.
Other sports-related items include Vanderbilt Cup racing pennants for 1914 and 1915, and an exceptionally attractive 1910 pennant for the Harvard Boston Aero Meet, emblazoned with images of bi-planes and the Bunker Hill Monument.
Perhaps the most highly prized lot in the sale is the 1865 American Flag
