A few news in the collection.
Brimtoy train 124, made 1916
Bub indicators from the 30s, all the same with different names.
Germany
Netherland
France
Danmark
And a unknown indicator for Australia
With Adelaide, Mildura, Albury, Bendigo, Frankston, Geelong, Flinders St
Arne
Hello @Arne and thanks @Fatman for notifying me of the post.
Great work finding the Bonnie Toys (F W Strong) station indicator.
As Fatman noted they are thin on the ground here in Australia. There have been a few more than usual over the last three years or so due to two large Australian collections being sold off. Once the disposal of these collections has been finalised I’m guessing that it will go back to only one or two popping up a year.
Your destination/station indicator is a good example. It is a later version with round die cast base and post. Early ones had a rectangular wooden base and a repurposed 4” timber nail as a post (rare). The Victorian/SA station names are not as common as the Victorian/NSW station names. The rarest ones are those with Queensland station names (have only seen 2 offered for sale)
These date from between 1949 - 1958ish. And follow the post war austerity era tradition of repurposing surplus army stocks into toys, hence the top of the indicator being made from a tin wax match box.
The maker of these signs, a Mr Fredrick W Strauss fled Germany in 1939 but made good use of toolmaking skills he learnt as a toolmaker in the Mercedes Benz factory to make cast hand bag fittings etc... under his new name of Fredrick W Strong. Post war brought a shortage of imported goods , in particular toy trains were scarce on the ground in the late 40’s (as noted in the newspapers of the time) and ones like Mr Strong stepped in to help fill the toy store shelves. Your sign would have been originally packaged in a red and black cardboard box as a Bonnie Toy Product by F W Strong with a terrier logo (the family’s pet).
Bonnie Toys/F W Strong made several railway accessories including a battery powered signal (rare), crossing gates (common), road signs, power poles (rare) and a mini Sydney harbour bridge (rarer than a live Dodo). The decline of the product can be dated by the introduction of cast metal HO/00 accessories for a short period of time. This seems to indicate the late 1950’s early 1960’s when O gauge died with the importation of 00/H0 models as import restrictions eased. Either way it was all sadly wrapped up by 1966 with the passing of Mr Strong. (Information thanks to Bruce MacDonald’s book Spring, Spark and Steam and his many articles in the HRCAA journals)
All in all a nice rare period piece to add to your collection. Enjoy!
Kind Regards
Jamie
Only to be virtually reunited on the forum after 100 years !
