The 20th Annual Allentown Antique Toy Show

by Dick Friz

Among the seemingly endless procession of toy shows held on any given weekend year-round, the venerable annual Allentown Antique Toy Show & Sale held at the Allentown, Pennsylvania, fairgrounds comes closest to becoming a national treasure—a command performance for the hobby's premier dealers and collectors.

Celebrating its 20th year, this prestigious charity event for The Good Shepherd Home and Rehabilitation Center in Allentown was held on Saturday, November 7, 1998, and featured over 350 dealers who plied their wares at over 500 tables. It was a diverting deluge of toys, dolls, trains, games, books, banks, lunch boxes, militaria, and holiday memorabilia.

Through the years, Allentown, which may well be the oldest continuing toy show, has always been synonymous with top-shelf 19th-century tin, lithograph paper on wood, cast-iron transportation vehicles, and mechanical banks.

Allentown co-promoters Dave Bausch and Ray Holland make an all-out effort of finding quality dealers, religiously monitoring the show, and discouraging the sale of contemporary so-called limited-edition replications. Yet there are rumblings that Allentown suffers from the Pavarotti syndrome—they can still fill the house but can't hit the high notes. Most dealers freely admit that retail, as one pundit put it, "stinks."

The toy chase has split off in a number of directions. Indicative of a prevailing trend of toy auctions was the presence at Allentown of Randy Inman Auctions, Eric Alberta of Sotheby's, Noel Barrett, Bill Bertoia, and Glenn Ralston, all of whom were promoting future events. Perhaps even more invasive, toy buying and selling has stepped up dramatically on the Internet via eBay, eHammer, and Auction Universe. Even the pickers that dealers customarily rely upon are eliminating the middleman and selling their finds via the Web.

At Allentown as at other toy shows, it's become apparent that the major wheeler-dealers and trophy specimens are an endangered species. The trend today (and this can't be all bad) is toward a magpie mix of toys in all price ranges. Here is a random encapsulation of what caught my eye along the maze of aisles in Agricultural Hall.

A small carousel, possibly by Doll, was $2800, and an 1890's horse on wheels, maker unknown and $1350, beckoned from the display of Mimi and Paul Ingersoll of Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.

Robert DeCenzo of Framingham, Massachusetts, had a price tag of $1275 on an Ives 1890's lithographed paper on wood "Goblin Bowling Set" with interchangeable heads of a Black man, a Chinese man, a policeman, etc.

Across the aisle from each other, two Pennsylvania dealers, the Ingersolls of Bryn Mawr and the Olsens of Radnor, each offered a George Washington on horseback German candy container in papier-mâché, priced in the $2000 to $2500 range.

The choices among traditionally prolific mechanical banks at Allentown proved more limited this time, and some dealers, as is becoming more common, danced around the subject of price.

Bill Bertoia of Vineland, New Jersey, the auction impresario, made no bones about his J. & E. Stevens Calamity bank (originally sold as Foot Ball Bank). With not so great paint, this exceptional rarity still justified its $24,000 asking price. Pennsylvanians Donald and Betty Jo Heim displayed a popular Shepard Punch and Judy bank at $4750, and a Darktown Battery bank (a.k.a. Base Ball Bank) was tagged $3975.

Comic character toys have been in a mild slump recently, and one seems to see the same old supporting cast of B.O. Plentys, L'il Abners, and Joe Penners. The pulses of comic character toy devotees were more likely to quicken, however, at booths such as Bill Barry's of Hot Springs, Arkansas, where a Wolverine Sandy Andy Full Back was ready for kickoff at $950, and the hobby's most esteemed Mickey Mouse knock-off, the Marx Merry Makers, was available for $1450.

Paul and Stephanie Sadagursky of Centerport, New York, highlighted two rarely seen gems: a celluloid twirling Betty Boop mini-carousel and a tinplate Santa driving a sedan, both prewar Japan, and both unpriced.

Glenn Ralston of Stratford, Connecticut, offered an engaging Santa in chimney nodder and a stuffed standing Santa at $500. Ed and Muriel Hirsch of New Hyde Park, New York, had a table laden with early celluloid toys: a tiny plush Schuco mouse in a red sedan at $450; a Louis Armstrong trumpet player at $460; and a 1920's German tinplate Charlie Chaplin with cast-iron feet that beckoned at $950.

Jim Miller of St. Paul, Minnesota, invariably comes up with spiffy pedal cars from the 1920's and '30's. His show special this time was a fully restored 1938 Garton Lincoln Zephyr in flaming red with chrome trimmings. Miller declined to quote a price.

A 1940's tin windup Marx delivery motorcycle, enhanced by original box, was priced at $1450 in the booth of Don Bryant of Gastonia, North Carolina. Among the high-end tinplate European vehicles were a Tipp Rolls Royce black and red limousine offered by Gary Cenname of Monroeville, Pennsylvania, at $4200. Cenname's display included two tinplate accessories: a gas pump at $225 and a small scale that weighed in at $150.

As anyone who has competed at auction with them knows, Don and Sally Kaufman of West Stockbridge, Massachusetts, relentlessly home in on the very best toy autos and trucks, not only for their own vast collection, but also for resale. Two display entries that moved quickly at Allentown, a Kenton cast-iron cement mixer truck and a large Chein tinplate ice truck, each brought $2000. The classic 1920's pressed steel Kingsbury bus in powder blue is always a great find. Bill Hill of Temperance, Michigan, showed his Kingsbury specimen in above average shape at $1500, while the Kaufmans' near-mint entry was priced higher at $2500. Don Kaufman later told us by phone that they had an excellent year of shows and, particularly at Allentown, were able to buy well and sell well.

The future may be cloudy over the fate of toy shows, but Internet or no Internet, there are those devotees who feel Allentown will always be a strong draw, attracting those who prefer to deal with knowledgeable people, who savor the tactile experience, and who want to observe myriad toys in their true colors, up close and personal.

For more information, call (610) 821-7730.