One of a kind Ol Yeller Fire Truck

One of the interesting things in my dad’s toy collection, is a late fifties, early sixties, yellow peddle car. It’s a fire truck with ‘Roseville Fire Department’ on the sides.

As you can see from the pictures, it’s a Hamilton Steel Products fire truck, built on a jeep chassis. The odd thing is, it is yellow. My research guy has started looking into this and has found that Hamilton only made red and blue fire trucks.
So my research guy has started contacting fire departments.
It looks like Hamilton might have made a yellow fire truck for the Roseville, Michigan Fire Department. The local fire chief may have a picture of this car on display, years ago, in the firehouse. With any luck, he can find the picture and send us a copy.

Someone at the Roseville, California fire department also emailed him, saying that they remembered a yellow fire truck. They are checking with some of their ‘old timers’.

It will be interesting to see what the rest of the research leads to and ‘how one of a kind’ this peddle car turns out to be.

If it truly is one of a kind, the value increases.

Addendum - Feb 2.

It's nice when experts give you the value of their experience. My research guy has found out that the front and rear ornaments are not standard on the Hamilton trucks (which is what we figured). Also, the hose reel is non-standard. Further checking revealed that the lettering is vinyl. Though the yellow paint is the only paint, there is a little bit of red over spray by one of the peddles.
So, we figure that someone(possible who worked for one of the fire departments), took a red Jeep fire truck, stripped the paint off and had it repainted in yellow.
It's still a good looking truck.

American. Air Cadets Official Construction Kits

American. Air Cadets Official Construction Kits
Featherweight flying model. Rubber band powered.
Made by the A.A.C. Supply Company, Iowa City, Iowa.

Since there is a dearth of information on this subject, I thought I would write up what I know.

In my late father’s collection of toys, I have seven primitive balsa kits from the 30’s. I have done a lot of searching and there is almost no information on them on the world wide web.

What is also interesting about them is how primitive they are, compared to airplane kits made in the forties and beyond. Each box has sheets, blocks and strips of balsa wood. If you were to attempt to build one, you are expected to take the quarter scale plans and redraw them to full size. You have to carve the propeller from a block of balsa. All in all, a rather complex construction project for an amateur.
The kit does come complete with glue and what might be a vial of banana oil. The banana oil, when thinned with acetone, is supposed to make a good dope. The other option is to use ‘dope’ the “Jap tissue paper” (what we now call silk-span) with a flour and water paste.

I know of eight different models that they made-
Eaglerock Bullet
Curtiss Robin
Red Bird
Fokker
Spirit of St. Louis
Travel Air
R.O.G. Racer
Endurance Tractor

I did find tiny bits of info on www.rcuniverse.com and www.rcgroups.com. (I edited them slightly)

“The American Air Cadets was an organization formed in the late 1930's to encourage young people to become involved in aeronautics.
All such organizations try to get prominent personalities associated with there operation. Strangely enough the Cadets got the noted conductor Leopold Stowkowski (Fantasia and other films involving classical music) to endorse them!!
The Cadets commissioned a series of models of increasing complexity to be built as one advanced through their program.
The Air Cadets made little or no impact on the direction of aero modeling.
All this is from memory and I am unaware of any printed sources.”
Richard Smith
--
“This was one of the groups to form (and fail) in the Mid-west of the USA. They often began with some simple rubber powered plan to which you ordered from some location, got a membership card, and a few other things, and were ordered to complete the model and take to... for some contest.
If enough juniors showed up, the club went on, if not they went to some other location tried there or went out of business.
The Jimmy Allen group was only one to survive for a while.

Wm.
--
The Rotarian - Nov 1930 – (Google Books Result)
64 pages - Magazine
Sponsor Air Cadets Peekskill, NY — Directors of the Peekskill Rotary Club have voted to sponsor the American Air Cadets, an organization fostering boys' interests in aviation.

----------
So, perhaps they are just one little footnote in model making history and I have seven small pieces.

GW

I’m ready

Here are two interesting items from my dad’s collection, a 1943 copy of the Aeronautics Aircraft Spotters Handbook and a U.S. Navy Anti-aircraft Range Indicator. (made by the A.C. Gilbert Co. The same company that made Erector Sets! You wonder what toy makers did during WWII? They made toys for the military.)

Study the book. Recognize the approaching plane. Hold the Range Indicator two feet from your eye. Turn the dial until the two center wires match the wingtips. Call out the range to the gunners and watch them try to blow the bastard out of the sky.



So if those pesky Krauts ever decide to launch their He-111’s or Ju-88’s across the channel again, I’ll be ready.

I think they should be kept as a set.

Hidden Treasures

Just as we were finishing up the garage sale at Step mothers, I happened to go to the back of the garage, move a box and shine a flashlight under the house.
I saw more boxes of stuff tucked into the inky shadows of the dimly lit crawl space.

We had just finished two days of selling off stuff and junque and now I found more! With a sigh, I climbed onto the foundation wall and started crawling under the house.
The dirt was damp, as usual in the hills of the Bay Area. The first thing I found was a box of magazines that has fallen off the foundation and onto the damp earth. I do not know how long it had sat on the dirt, but it was a moldy disintegrating mess.
I did find one intact magazine, a 1954 copy of Planet Stories! (see pic) The cover depicts 'The strangely beautiful Xintel of the blue-brown skin.'

Notice the classic, cliché cover. A young, nubile woman (missing her top!) being menaced by (male) aliens. I have carefully dried the magazine and will carefully read it. The pulps of the fifties were printed on cheap paper.

Two other boxes held real junk and that was quickly disposed of. But the last two boxes held some strange lab equipment. (see pic)



These ‘flasks’ were wrapped in newspaper from 1959! They don’t say ‘Pyrex’ on them, so you can’t heat them.
With a round bottom, they can’t stand up. I think they were mounted on a stand and they were used to pipe gases through a liquid.
But since I am not a chemist, it’s only a guess.
I have no idea what to do with them. They are lousy vases, since the bottom is rounded. My friend said I do a ‘ship in a bottle’, but that does not interest me.
I’ll think of something.

Real men's toys

So, I have a friend keeps a nice little Beretta .380 under her pillow when her man is away,
She is such a namby-pamby.
My other friend has her Walther PPK 9mm,
she is such a girly-girl.
Another friend has a nice Colt .45,
he is such a 'Nancy'

I have a genuine Buck Roger Atomic Pistol!
You know the one, it will take out the intruder and that pesky wall that your wife wants opened up and a bay window installed.
And the best part is, all you have to do is sweep up the intruders ashes and dump them in the trash!
(I think my homeowners insurance will fix the wall :-)

Hubley Toys and The Sqadron

Who needs a Hubley P-40 Warhawk
















or Hubley P-38 Lightning.















Not when you have your own Hubley squadron of three fighters and two bomber-destroyers!
Yes, I am talking about three Hubley Seversky P-36 monoplanes and two Hubley Airacudas!
Yes, the famous YFM-1 Airacuda that were made by Bell Aircraft in the late 1930’s..














Sure, the Airacuda was a lousy airplane, but it was unusual and still is cool looking.

I just wish I had somewhere to build a little airfield so I could set them up with a hanger. (sigh)

VeeDee part two

I looked a box of my dad’s collection of toys and found a toy washing machine. When I looked inside, I saw this (see pic) and had to laugh. It is another attachment to the VeeDee. We all know that washing machines have agitators, but this one is designed to ‘agitate’ something else.

Toys for boys, and…ummm…girls?

Friction toy, Japan, circa 1950’s




Friction toy, England, circa 1904.


Yes friends, this is the patented VeeDee for Vibratory Massage! Good for what ails you, be it Lumbago, Headache or Neuralgia.

Used in the treatment of what was then a common female nervous condition known as hysteria. (Husbandus ineptus?:-)
All stainless steel construction, variable vibrations by simply adjusting the wheel on the end. It even comes with two soft, natural latex attachments. Just the thing to sooth those hard to reach places! (The ones your husband can’t even find if he had a GPS.)

It these modern days of electronic devices, it is perhaps time to move back to a more simpler time. Going ‘green’ could never be easier and more enjoyable! Why this device would be certified ‘green’ by even Al Gore! (Tipper didn’t have much to say, as she was a little out of breath! :-)

And think of the benefits ladies! Not only does it burn calories and firm up those flabby arms, but it is the most enjoyable exercises ever! (sorry Thigh-Master)

So ladies, if the batteries on your iGasm or OhMiBod have run out and your feeling a little cranky; well then, get cranking!