Antique Tin Metal Tambourine J. Chein & Company U S A

This auction is for an Antique Tin Metal Mexican/Spanish Style? J. Chein & Company USA Toy Tambourine. Very colorful and old. 1 dent lower right front rim but in pretty good shape for it's age (70+ years). Cashiers check or PayPal only please! US Shipping and handling is $3.99 USPS 1st Class. I have Top Seller feedback rating with over 1800 positive feedbacks on Ebay so buy with confidence! Thanks! Internet Information: For more than 75 years J. Chein and Company produced some of the finest lithographed tin toys ever made in America. From model amusement rides and wind-up characters to spirited banks and sand pails its dime store offerings were delightful. Julius Chein founded the company in 1903 and almost immediately the New Jersey firm was manufacturing wonderfully colored but inexpensive toys and related items. Ultimately the Chein company would become famous for its many and varied mechanical toys of tin, its Halloween noise-makers, its Hercules trucks, comic star wind-ups and more. From its plant in Harrison, N.J., one of its early successes were noisemaker toys including a frying pan rattle and a tin drum. By 1908 the company was using a full-color advertising page in Playthings magazine to offer such toys including metal drums and steel "fish" horns.Chein offered its strikingly beautiful Butterfly push toy in 1910, billing it as "attractively lithographed in five colors." The fully boxed Butterfly toys sold for 10 cents each. The company added, "we manufacture a complete line of everything worth buying in metalhead drums, safes and carts, horses and covered wagons, noisemakers and penny toys." With all these toys doing well and its line of brightly colored metal trucks doing even better, employment at the Chein plant on Passaic Avenue had risen to a robust 250 people in 1918. By 1925 the Chein company had developed its own very distinguished line of Hercules trucks. Instead of the Chein logo, these very fine toys bore the Hercules trademark, and even today some collectors do not realize the identity of their true manufacturer. The Hercules line involved the use of the very finest lightweight steel on numerous styles of trucks which varied in length from 17 to 30 inches. From the latter 1920s through the early 1930s the Hercules truck series, retailing for around $1 each, remained very popular around the country. Included in the series were the Mack Army truck, coal truck, dump truck, ice truck, log truck, oil tank truck, motor express truck, ready-mixed concrete truck and the wrecking truck. Additionally there were the Hercules roadster Pullman bus, Junior truck, racer, taxi and touring car. Some of the vehicles were clearly marked Hercules on the side in lavish design. During the 1930s, considered by many to be the golden decade for J. Chein and Company, the firm aggressively sought license arrangements with King Features Syndicate and others for the rights to comic character toys. In some cases they competed directly with Marx for such rights. Both Chein and Marx, for example, produced Popeye toys in the 1930s. Chein's included Popeye Bag Puncher, Popeye Heavy Hitter, and the Popeye Shadow Box wind-up. Other comic characters marketed by Chein during the 1930s included Happy Hooligan, a six-inch "mechanical walking toy," Squeaky Ignatz and Krazy Kat. Earlier they produced Feliz toys for George Borgfeldt and Company. It was during the 1930s that the firm also extended its line of noisemakers with even more elaborate tambourines and rattles with Halloween themes. Chein also began designating some early spring toys for the Easter season with emphasis on variations of wind-up ducks, chickens, rabbits and even colorful Easter eggs. For the "summer season" Chein also established itself with a host of sand toys ranging from The Three Little Pigs sand pail to the more intricate see-saw which was put into motion by pouring sand through a funnel at the top. The various summer sand toys continued to be major attractions for the toy company in American variety and toy stores for more than 20 years. Their key-wind, bell sounding, six gondola Hercules Ferris Wheel of the 1930s and its variations are considered among the classic collectible toys today. Chein also offered the Roller Coaster, Merry-Go-Round, and other amusement park type toys. Other items included Barnacle Bill, the drummer boy, the Broadway Trolley, and assorted variations of each. During the early 1940s the company continued to do a very thriving business in colorfully lithographed banks. One best-seller was a clown face which stuck out its tongue when a lever was pressed. The five-inch bank sold for 10 cents as did a similar-sized Uncle Sam top-hat bank. However the Uncle Sam bank became very controversial in 1943 when the Durable Toy and Novelty Corporation filed suit over its sale. Durable claimed they held sole rights to such a bank. Ultimately the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Chein could continue to sell them to the F.W. Woolworth company nationwide. Other Chein toys of the war-torn 1940s included various cabin cruiser boats, wind-up Ski Boy and a further variety of lithographed tambourines. Summer sand toys continued to play a major role in the toys of Chein during the 1950s. Its long-standing square sandpails sold for 29 cents each in Woolworth's dime stores. A round pail bore an elephant on the boardwalk, and the more details Sand Mill and Sand Chute were also available. Amusement park kinds of toys were also still highly popular and Chein catalogs of the early 1950s were filled with bright red and yellow choices which generally had been extended and elaborated from previous decades. The company also offered a growing selection of music box toys. The Melody Player, featuring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck parading to the music on the front, was one of several Disney selections from Chein during the 1950s. Throughout the 1950s and into the early 1960s a number of military type toys were marketed by Chein including Navy Frogman, U.S. Marine, U.S. Army Sergeant, and a 13-inch Toy Town Helicopter. During the '60s the company also produced a modified version of both its original Ferris Wheel and Roller Coaster, an automated Uncle Wiggily bank that raised a carrot, and a greater number of Disney figure sand pails complete with Walt Disney Productions copyright markings. During the late 1960s and early 1970s the firm was licensed to produce Peanuts and Snoopy characters on various objects including a talking bus, drums, megaphones and wastebaskets. After nearly three-fourths of century of charming lithographed playthings, Chein finally ceased production of toys in 1979.

Powered by eBay Turbo Lister
The free listing tool. List your items fast and easy and manage your active items.