Featured Juvenile PLANES, TRAINS, and AUTOMOBILES

I'm creating a thread of vintage photos and ephemera relating to children and the toys they used to roam around in during the 20's and 30's. It was actually a vintage postcard of a boy in a pedal car that caused me to sign up for Antiquers in the first place.

I'll use the power of celebrity in my first post to capture all your attention right out of the gate.

The car in the photos was the property of Shirley Temple, gifted to her by actor and dancer Bill "Bojangles" Robinson who she affectionately and respectfully referred to as Uncle Billy. The gift was special and she kept it her entire life. As an adult the car remained in her 2.5 car garage next to her car and her husband Charles' car. After her death, the car along with a life long collection of artifacts from her career, were auctioned off. This Dreyer Junior Racer brought $34,000 at auction 5 years ago. In her 1988 autobiography "Child Star", Shirley wrote "painted pure white with a red leather seat and chrome hood ornament of a leaping antelope, it was powered by a one-cylinder unmuffled lawn-mower motor...On my first solo run of studio grounds, Uncle Billy crouched on the back, showed me how to start, and we leaped forward. Veering into a nearby Fox publicist, I snagged a long tear in his trousers. My first traffic accident." Eventually Fox insisted that she take it off the lot.

 

Nice story -- thanks! I collect antique photographs (and some slightly more recent than antique). But can't think of any in my collection that would fit the description for this thread. So I will just look.

 

When I first came to Antiquers I commented on a postcard of a boy in a 1925 pedal car. I knew what the car was because I happen to own one. In the thread someone stated that the boy much have been rich to be in such a beautiful and fancy car. Not necessarily. Over the years I have collected almost a dozen postcards of the SAME car with a different boy or girl in it each time. Answer to the riddle is that the car obviously belonged to a photographer. Here are a few examples.

 

Those are just the cutest!

 

The lucky person who could afford Shirley Temple's car. It's a beauty and such an amazing story.

 

So fun, I have no photos, but that little girl that looks not too happy, I had the same hair cut back in the day.

 

I’m learning so much! : -)

 

Excellent. "Pictures done now get out of my car before you scratch it" - LOL!!!

 

Not as interesting as the previous ones, but this is a 1956 photo showing a Pensick & Gordon tractor. They were a Los Angeles toy manufacturer from 1925 to the mid 1970's. (EDIT- I just noticed the thread is for 20's & 30's, I can remove if you want. I had only remembered the "vintage" part.)

 

This photo from the 1920s shows a troupe of touring midget performers with some great Gendron pedal cars. Even with the aid of the internet, I have been unable to track down information on this particular troupe. This is one of my favorite pedal car photos.

 

Love the color photos of children with their pedal vehicles. Thanks for contributing to the thread!!!

 

The fellow with the cigar is a nice touch.

 

Sometimes the ephemera is what makes the artifact, and in this case the pedal car, more valuable and more enjoyable to collect. Pictured in this post are a pedal race car along with a color 1930s contest poster describing how a kid could win this. Also, I'm included two photos of this car (similar car). While most pedal car collectors pursue their next car, I enjoy searching for photos, ads and both retailer and manufacturer catalog pages for cars that I have acquired or intend/hope to acquire. I imagine that this is a great way to enjoy any form of collecting more. It's also the obvious path to learning the history behind whatever it is that you enjoy collecting.

 

Today I would like to share with you a hand tinted vintage photo. The young lad in the photo is behind the wheel of a 1928 American National Packard pedal car. The car measures 71" in length and was truly the sign of luxury back in the day.

 

So cute.

 

Out of curiosity I went looking and found this in The Vaudeville News in 1925.

https://idnc.library.illinois.edu/c...703.2.21&e=-------en-20--1--img-txIN---------

 

Well done, greatly appreciated. I have never been able to find Billy Hart or the midget troupe.

 

Finding hidden treasures seems to be the sport of what we do. To me, uncovering old catalogs and sales materials is like finding a treasure map. The more you learn, the more you understand what might still be out there worth discovering. I found the car pictured below in a reference book about the pedal car hobby when I first got into it. I patiently waited 10 years to acquire the car from the collector's widow. (I have two widow purchases in my collection). But while I was patiently waiting I acquired manufacturer's catalogs, wholesale catalogs, Christmas catalogs, etc. I also started combining ebay for photos of children playing in this particular model of pedal car. By the time I owned the car, I knew where the only other 10 known original condition examples were. I also knew more about the car than any of my peers. I knew the manufacturing changes that were made each year from 1923 to 1928 and became hell bent on finding an original example of each one. I would suggest that from my experience, collecting PAPER can be as fun and rewarding as adding additional artifacts to your current collections. Below is a catalog page from the 1925 American National catalog, a contest brochure from the same company offering children an opportunity to with the car for free and a handful of photographs of children enjoying the Paige back in the day. The first four photos are of two separate cars from 1924 while the last two are from 1928. I've posted more pics of my car on my pedal car thread.

 

https://www.antiquers.com/threads/the-vintage-pedal-car-thread.62616/page-3#post-4233848