Tootsie Toy Cars - the early years

   I owe you 1/64 and other small size car collectors, and so here is my post just for you:  Tootsie Toy Cars, the early years.  I hope your enjoy them. . . I do.   

Information and some stolen wording from pp. 8 ff. of  TOOTSIE TOYS: WORLD’S FIRST DIECAST MODELS by James Wieland & Edward Force (2^nd ed.)

    In 1876 Charles O. Dowst of Chicago founded a trade paper, the NATIONAL LAUNDRY JOURNAL, and soon after started manufacturing laundry supplies. Joined by brother Samuel, the Dowsts expanded and bought a new machine, the Line-o-Type, that cast not only lines of type but collar buttons and other laundry accessories.  This led them into small toys for Cracker Jacks and other novelties, and by 1904 company products were described as metal novelties.  A second-generation Dowst, Theodore Samuel, in 1910 and 1911 produced the first miniature vehicles.  The first was an aeroplane in two sizes- small and smaller.   The second vehicle was termed simply as “Limousine” and was totally generic in style. Here are my three, none of which has been restored.   Well, the black and orange one, looking more like a taxi than a limo, was never produced with two colors by The Dowst Company.  I have a hunch that some owner just couldn’t resist adding the black paint to make it more distinctive.

    Here are my three, survivors, not restorations:

     That was it until 1914.   The Limousine was just another product alongside other small toys and minatures.  But in 1914 the Dowst Company based a larger (perhaps 1/48 scale) car on the popular Ford Model T.  Company publications compared it to “the well known Flivver,” but the vehicle was listed as “an Automobile.”  Still in production in 1925, sales literature finally started referring to the Flivver as a “Ford.”  Changes over the years included replacing the original spoked wheels with solid discs and sometime after 1920 stamping the underside as “Tootsietoy,” a name that Dowst started using in the early ‘twenties.

     Here’s mine, probably from the ‘teens because it has neither disc wheels or any company name on the underside.

___________

    Side note:  The terms “Tootsie Toy” and “Tootsietoy” have been used interchangeably over the years by the firm.  It seems that either is acceptable of most Tootsie Toy collectors, and some of us just kind of switch from one to the other without cause.

---------------

   One more!  In 1916 Dowst produced an open Model T with no doors, using the same windshield casting as “an Automobile.”  The new creation also had open-box body and used the same 1/48 or near that scale.  The company referred to it as “the Truck.”   It remained in production until 1932, outlasting Automobile by six years.

      Here’s mine, showing signs of being much-loved.  It’s obviously a later production, having the disc wheels and being stamped under the hood with “TOOTSIE TOY” (two words), shown below alongside "an Automobile."

   Last words:   While some sources say 1921 and others say 1923, the next Tootsie Toy car was the beginning of the dime store deluge of Tootsietoys that some us remember.  This one was entitled simply “Yellow Cab,” and its 1/48 scale size proved really popular.  Here’s mine, another survivor with “TOOTSIE TOY” stamped into the underside.        

 Be warned!  Tootsietoy and/or Tootsie Toy collecting can be contagious!