cast iron riddle

[alas]

This strange toy is offered for sale on ebay as 'possibly a Hubley' gyrocopter of autogiro.
Mark D nor I myself know what it is - It might be a rotor kite.. or the remains of something completely different.
Any ideas? Doe we have a Hubley-fanatic in the community?

thanks!
Alas

[Tone]

Certainly, this is the front part of the Small Lindy glider.

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/43 ... ndy-glider

No, I am not a Hubley fanatic and I do not own this toy, but I like Hubley products very much, as they were my first toy planes (Christmas 1966).

[alas]

Thanks, Tone!
Riddle solved - alas not a rotorhead...

[fliegerii]

Incredible prices...

If that would appear on German Ebay, it would hardly go for more than five bucks...

[Tone]

Another item I noticed in the same auction by a company I never heard of: Jones and Bixler.

This looks like a 1909 Bleriot monoplane:

https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/43 ... r-airplane

Flieger brought up an important point. For some reason it does not work both ways. If a German-made airplane shows up on a US auction site it will bring a good price! In US there are people who like both Hubley toys and old German toys.

[Tone]

Cast iron riddle: I was looking at early issues of Plane News today and Sy Merrall contributed a photo of both size Hubley Lindy Gliders together with an even smaller lead example he could not identify.

Thankfully, Dr Tom Miller, who was an avid researcher as well as collector, included this little gem in his Big Book of Toy Airplanes on the bottom of page 78. Kansas Toy and Novelty made it.

I also remembered that gliding became popular in Germany in the 20s (after all, Lilienthal was a pioneer in the 1890s) - so one would think a metal toy glider would be desirable there.

[fliegerii]

Cast Iron toys have practically no meaning in Germany. As far as I know, this is a typical US toy type and was never done this way here.
We had wood, tin sheet and die cast toys, and these are today's local collector items in Germany.
Also a cast iron glider would not raise public interest here.

Even more, actually present China copies of cast iron toys are sold here for few bucks.

There are early glider and monoplane toys made of tin, e.g. Bing or even Märklin. They sell for pretty high prices (4 digit Euro).

[MichaelB]

Tone - brilliant ID! Especially for a self espoused non-expert! Thanks for the link!

Great discussion gentlemen!
Michael