Customer Reviews

Toys from American Childhood 1845-1945

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The book "TOYS FROM AMERICAS CHILDHOOD" is a great reference for toy collectors.
It illustrates most of the old time toys. It provides a useful brief history of the manufacturers and nice photos. All in all a great book to have.

I purchased this book because I had previously bought another book by Tim Luke titled "Millers American Toys & Games (2002). The second book "Toys from American Childhood 1845-1945" was apparently published a year earlier in 2001. The books are way too similar. The author goes through a number of antique toy manufacturer's in alphabetical order (e.g., Alexander Doll Company, Althof, Bergman & Co., American Flyer, Arcade.... gives a brief history of the company, years in production, etc. Has a highlight section under each manufacturer regarding identification clues which in most instances is not very helpful (e.g., look for company name, etc) and many are common sense. I have a lot of things I would like to have seen in this book, namely a number of companies not included (Watrous, Baldwin, etc.) that often have toys for sale on eBay and other auction sites, better histories and descriptions of the toy companies, a section on the signature pieces know for each company (e.g., Arcade and yellow taxi and Andy Gump), etc. What it does have going for it are some excellent pictures of a limited number of toys from each company but even some of the larger toy companies such as Kenton have only 4 or 5 ppg devoted to them which is disappointing to say the least. In my opinion I would save my money and purchase one of the better collector's books that are out there!