Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Childhood Toys: Preservation, Renovation, or Restomod?
We have explored renovation in many forms last month. How is it that classic cars can go up in value when restored or even restomodded? Why is the practice of fixing rust on old cars of marginal interest, while any collector of weapons, or toys, or furniture, to name a few, shudders at the idea of refinishing or in any way renovating the original item? Let’s explore the three options of preservation, restoration, and restomodding a childhood toy: a tin model World War I tank.
To set up the scenario, I’ll use my father’s telling of the story of his “Rosebud.” That is, loosely, a childhood toy with emotional significance through adulthood. After the telling, we will look at an available example of the toy and consider the value of preservation, restoration, or restomodding.
You are probably familiar with Orson Welles’ Citizen Caine , a roman ‘a clef on William Randolph Hearst. One of Caine’s last words was “ Rosebud,“ which mystified others present. The audience is let in on the allusion, in a final scene of people cleaning out the mansion and they threw into a furnace an old sled, we briefly see the sled brand: Rosebud.
I don’t know if I have ever mentioned it to you, but I have my own Rosebud. When I was less than five years old, living in Conshohocken, PA , one Christmas I was given a Marx wind-up toy tank, which was a lithographed model of a WW-1 tank, which viewed from the side, was a parallelogram and would run either right-side up or upside down, since it had no top turret. There was a side turret, with a cigar lighter mechanism, which gave off sparks.
Toys have a high attrition rate. I have spent most of my adult life looking for another one of those tanks, in fact, it’s the main reason I go to antique shows. Don’t tell me to look on the Internet; I’ve had no success there either.
Well, I fired up DuckDuckgo and entered “Vintage Marx clockwork tin tank toys” in the search box. I was looking for something like the tanks seen in They Shall Not Grow Old. Visually scanning the resulting images yielded the following example.
I asked my father if this was the correct model and got this reply:
Yes. The lithography was a little different and the specimen pictured is minus it’s rubber treads, which deteriorate with time. Don’t buy this particular specimen for me. But close.
So, now we have a viable candidate for our three options. Consider each, in turn:
Preservation:
Assume that this specimen has not been fiddled with, that the chain of owners had not done more than keep it dust free. It is most likely the case that the very highest eventual resale value would come from carefully setting this in a display case and ensuring no further change happened to it. If you could secure the original packaging in which this particular item came, when new, you would be even further ahead on the collector value.
Of course, the toy, as a toy, would be of almost no value in this condition. Try running it across the floor. Even if the spring wind-up mechanism is intact and working, the lack of treads means you are going nowhere, at most spinning the drive wheels. So, my father would not have his “Rosebud” with this non-functional item.
Restoration:
In areas of collection where restoration is accepted as a good, the idea is to bring the object back to its original, new condition. Finding unused original parts where possible or making exact duplicates where needed, a car, for example, is brought back to its starting state.
We would need to find two original rubber tread bands. Yet, rubber of such age loses elasticity and disintegrates if handled. So, we must make new ones.
Additionally, the internal drive mechanism, especially the spring, is likely worn out and rusted or gummed up. So, we must find a way to carefully disassemble the tin body. Can we avoid damaging the lithography? If so, and assuming the paint job is original, we’ve saved a step. Assuming we’ve successfully disassembled the toy, we’ll have to find parts, fabricate new parts that match the old specifications, clean, reassemble and test the drive mechanism.
Wait, what about the guns? We have to restore the “side turret, with a cigarette lighter mechanism, which gave off sparks.” I take the cigarette lighter mechanism to be the basic steel wheel on flint design. This, along with the linkage to the drive mechanism, must be brought back to new condition. I suspect the mechanism might have had standard flints, in common with lighters of the day. If so, we might be in luck.
With a discretionary but not too large budget, we should be able to bring this toy back to original running order. In the current antique toy market, this course of action would significantly diminish the price a collector would pay, if not making the item almost unsaleable. Yet, a man in his eighth decade could wind up his childhood toy, set it down on the floor, and watch it startle my eldest sister’s dogs, when they come over to visit. What fun, and what a vehicle carrying the owner back to childhood memories!
But wait! This is a fire hazard. Flint and steel sparking systems have a purpose: to produce flames. And, if you’re running the tank on the floor, you’ll note it does not turn or stop. If it tumbles down a couple of steps, it will keep running straight, thanks to the tank tracks running completely around the parallelogram design. This is clearly sub-optimal for dog amusement or chasing.
Restomod:
Assume a larger discretionary budget, in any combination with required skills. Assume the new owner wants his childhood toy back but even better. Can we build it? Yes, we can!
Let’s start with the safety issue. Replace the sparking system with a small LED, rigged to blink in a machine gun burst pattern. Have a mechanical or electronic speaker make a toy gun sound. That would be the mildest of restoring function while modifying with modern, better, components. It might even run off a capacitor, with the electricity coming from the motion of the wind-up drive.
Ah, but why stop there? With a little more small electronics skill, we might go from one rate of light and sound pulses to a cycling variable 3-10 round burst pattern, creating more attention.
While we are at it, we could change the paint job to match the new owner’s memory or current desire. We could also swap out original material track bands for modern materials of our choice, perhaps increasing traction or reducing the risk of marking on the intended floor surfaces. We would not cut or weld the tin exterior to change its appearance, adding a top turret, for instance.
Those are the easy items. Now let’s get to the drive system. If we want the tank to be able to change direct, we need to modify the power train. Even if we keep the mechanical drive, instead of replacing it with a small electric motor, or motors, we must separate the left and right track drives. This is how a continuous track system changes direction.
If you want to turn left, increase the forward speed of the right track relative to the left track. In the most extreme case, you run the right track forward, while running the left track in reserve. This causes the tank, or any other fully tracked vehicle, to pivot around the center of the vehicle, “pivot steering.”
While we’re on the subject of pivot steering … No, that will have to be a story, or two or three, for another day.
We are going to need not only a modified drive system but also a directional command input system. This could be mechanical, setting the direction with a series of buttons, but that would start changing the exterior significantly. So, we are likely going to need to go electric.
Build at least the control system from standard remote control vehicle components, disguise the antenna, if the signal will not get through the tin shell, and add a flush-mounted recharge port that is as small and disguised as possible. Sticking with the original mechanical drive would limit range, but offer a retrospective experience lost by gutting the toy and replacing all the internals with modern electronic components.
Now we’re ready to chase the German Shepard all over the house with the British tank! What could possibly go wrong? Crash! Let’s talk about renovating solid hardwood furniture and antique china…perhaps another story for another day.
Do you have a “Rosebud?” Which renovation path would you take, given the chance?
Published in Group Writing
An interesting look at the same issue old car fans have debated for decades. Back in the fabled old days, say, pre-1980 or so, the old cars weren’t usually all that old, and few owners thought twice about repainting a car, let alone doing things like replacing 6 volt with 12 volt electrics, or adding non-stock trim and accessories. The true old guys–that is, older than me–had the skills to do much or all of the work themselves. They’d pull a blue Chevy 6 out and put in an orange V8 in a single afternoon, with one good friend and two six-packs.
The baby boomers didn’t learn welding down on the family farm, but our contribution to old car history is: some of us had a fair amount of disposable income, and were accustomed to treat American pop art of the Thirties, Forties and Fifties with respect. Every metal part is stripped of paint and reprimed. All chrome is replated. That generation of collector is obsessed with spending what it takes to achieve perfect paint and body panel alignment that goes well beyond original. They’ll search the country to fight over a chromed glove compartment door for a 1947 Studebaker.
Then the next wave of obsessive perfection has been preservation, as with CAB’s toy example. I get the cliche–“It’s only original once”, but there comes a point…
Video?
Back when I used to watch Antiques Roadshow, it was always amusing to find out what cleaning/restoring old items did to their alleged value.
“Well, this 200-year-old metal item would be worth $137,000 at auction. But you had it cleaned and polished instead of leaving the original patina on it, so now it’s worth $1.25- if you can find some sucker dumb enough to pay you that much for it in this horribly degraded condition”.
I’m thinking that if my father were to acquire such a restomodded toy, he would be wise enough to avoid the wrath of his eldest daughter. But it would be oh so tempting.
That scenario replays regularly on Pawn Stars, with real money instead of just appraisals, and American Pickers, where certain items are valued for their “patina” and others most valued when restored or even repurposed.
Sweet and thoughtful post, and how nice it is that we can have obsessions that don’t necessarily have to consume us, or involve chasing actual whales.
This story bridges the themes for January and February. Push restomod far enough and you may transition from renovation to “how do you make that?”
This conversation is part of our Group Writing Series under January’s theme: Renovation. We have had a great set of posts, with several new voices contributing this month.
The February 2019 Theme Writing: How Do You Make That? is up. Thanks for the great suggestions. I’ll likely use some of the others in March and April. Do sign up for a day in February and tell us how you make something.
A few years ago I finally got my childhood toy box back. I never had a lot of toys compared to anyone else I knew, but when I was 3-5 I had a small toy box, maybe 2.5 feet by 1.5 feet or so, and less than a foot in depth. It’s out in the pole barn right now, but the temperature is still below 0 and I’m not going out to measure it or take a photo.
It apparently originated as a heavy shipping crate for something – maybe some piece of farm machinery hardware that had come to my grandfather’s country store. I never thought to ask, and it’s too late now. Dad put a hinged cover on it, and he or Mom covered it with some leftover wallpaper of a style then common in country houses, put a padlockable latch on it, and that was where I was supposed to store my toys.
I was never good about putting my toys away, as anyone who sees my garage or office can guess. I don’t remember any of the toys I was supposed to put in it, but probably seldom did except under duress. Just the same, I raised an objection a few years later, maybe at age 8 when we moved to Nebraska, when I had outgrown those toys and Dad commandeered the box for use above his workshop bench in the basement. He peeled off most of the wallpaper, painted it gray, hung it on the wall, attached straps to the inside of the door for holding small tools, and installed some small pull-out boxes in the bottom to hold miscellaneous screws, washers, and such. I pointed out that it was my toybox, but I couldn’t really make a strong case based on actual usage.
That toybox moved four times with Dad to new workbenches in new homes in Minnesota. Every once in a while I’d remark that it had once been my old toybox, but Dad held his peace. When Mom and Dad both died in 2015, I claimed it.
Until a few days ago it was sitting in my garage. I hadn’t mounted it anywhere or done anything with it, and needed to quick make some room so moved it out to the new pole barn. Maybe I’ll mount it out there. If I dug through the paint I might find a bit of the old wallpaper, but I have no plans to restore it to its “original” condition as a wallpaper-covered toybox. Maybe I’ll hang it up out in the pole barn, or in the garage, and use it as Dad had used it. It has always been an unlovely item, so probably will never get a place of honor. I know of no way to convey to anyone else all the memories that are associated with it, but I’m glad to have it. I doubt anyone will care to inherit it from me, but I’ll hang on to it for now.
Make this a post, Reti, it’s that good.
I second the motion.
This post makes me want to tell a slightly funny story. On myself.
The film “Amalie” is a lush, sentimental comedy set in a CGI-enhanced, postcard-perfect Paris. It makes fun of every cliche that it also wrings shamelessly for laughs and tears. I saw it at a film festival, Moscow, in 2000. A major plot point is the young, appealing, adorable title character, trying to find the man who once owned a box of beautiful, elaborate Fifties toys that she finds in her apartment.
She sees a well dressed mature man–no, it can’t be him. Another handsome, plausible middle aged candidate–nope, she barely gives him a glance. Finally her face lights up at the one who proves to be the right guy–a baggy eyed, balding, wheezing old fat guy. Because by 2000, that’s what we Boomers were looking like. Well, starting to look like. It was a somewhat ego-deflating moment.
I have that DVD, missed in theater but heard it recommended. Actually, I might have had it in 2003-4 while in Iraq. My mother may have been the recommender or supplier.
The phrase “in theater” has two meanings to film fan C.A.B. and it would make a good Twilight Zone premise:
“Submitted for your approval: At midnight on March 17, 2004, suddenly the soldiers in a Bradley Fighting Vehicle magically change places with the programming curators of the Museum of Modern Art. Result? We lose a Bradley. But for the next seven years, the movies at MoMA seem uncommonly well selected”.
Oh, and BTW, in this particular episode you also have the good sense to hire The Reticulator to help overhaul the film program from the former Communist world. There are a hundred Schindler’s List level exposes of their lives, and Reti knows where to find them.
The one on right is plastic, though what type I have no idea. The other two are metal, galvanized probably. Bits and pieces are gone — there are holes in the front of the truck where headlights should be. The paint on the metal ones is worn from uncounted hours of being pushed back and forth across the floor by two generations of little hands.
Doesn’t matter. I’m changing nothing.
Speak for yourself.
I am married to an only child. Hence, my husband’s 2 Marx play sets were in meticulous condition. I sold those babies years ago on eBay for a lot of money.
Myself, I think I was born with an old soul. Even as a child I loved old things, especially toys and dolls. I would beg my grandmother for the old toys she had kept. My grandmother ironed for wealthy people on the Main Line (and also gift-wrapped for John Wanamaker’s in Philadelphia, which fascinated me). The families would sometimes give her old toys that were no longer needed. I had the grandest dollhouse in the neighborhood; none of that new tin stuff for me.
My sister was 7 years older and I was fascinated (and jealous!) with her things. I still have my most important childhood toys, I could never part with them. I went on to collect old dolls and toys for many years and unfortunately for me now, my attic is stuffed with junk, I mean, antiques.
Of course, I am way younger than most of you so it’s hard to relate. Why, I didn’t even get the original, pony-tailed Barbie. (OK, I had the next one, the Mod Barbie with the Bubble-Cut. And I’ll be 65 tomorrow, blech!).
I’ll be 67 next month, Jeannebodine. We both had, what’s the expression now, gender-based toys. Here’s what I got in 1957:
Too funny, @garymcvey!
I never realized how gender-restricted we were back then, even as we made cute, little outfits for my girlfriend’s brothers’ GI Joes so they could date Barbie and Midge. Somehow, even then, we knew Ken was…, uh, unsuitable as a mate.
It was all fun & games until GI Joe’s Great Revenge which featured conquest and the usual lamentations of the women as their heads were popped off and thrown into the neighbor’s backyard.
And by the way, it’s your birthday tomorrow, maybe today by the time you read this? Happy birthday, Jeannebodine!