Antiques: Football toys
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During football season, fans shop for T-shirts, banners, nodding heads, glasses and other souvenirs of the game. Through the years, many football toys also have been made.
A 1930s iron mechanical place-kicker toy actually could kick a tiny football. This toy has been attributed to the Hubley Manufacturing Co. of Lancaster, Pa., but we found the toy's 1934 U.S. patent (No. 1,954,838).
It was granted to Charles Woolsey and Henry Bowman of Minneapolis, who assigned it to the Hinsdale Manufacturing Co. of Chicago. The invention was a game, not just the place-kicking figure.
There was a fiberboard backboard that represented a football field. It had football-shaped holes that were targets for the football kicked by the iron mechanical man. The kicker could be moved into different positions. The idea was to get the toy man to kick his miniature ball through one of the backboard's holes for a goal.
Few of the backboards have survived, so collectors often think the football player merely kicked the celluloid or tin ball into the air. Some information about the game is still unknown.
Source: Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
