During the early 1900s America excelled at creating cast iron toys. The iron was cast into a mold and therefore businesses were able to produce identical toys on a mass scale at a moderately low cost. It was only after the Civil War that the industry got into high gear, fueled in part by the discovery of vast iron ore reserves. 

Cast iron toys fall into several categories including banks, cannons, vehicles, and miscellaneous objects such as miniature tools and dollhouse furniture. It seems that the most popular cast iron toys to collect are the antique banks and antique toy cars, trucks and other vehicles, like motorcycles. They were very popular with children and their parents because they were inexpensive, long lasting, smooth, and able to take a rough play session.

Cast iron toys before WWII are of particular importance because of their increasing rarity. This is due to the scrap drives of World War II. Children as well as adults took their metal items to the scrappers so the iron toys could be turned into war materials. At the time it was considered unpatriotic not to do so. It is WWII that marks the death of cast iron toys and in turn, cast iron fun. After the war, die-cast plastic, aluminum, and other products became the material of choice for toymakers and cast iron became a collectors dream.

In Geppi’s Entertainmaint’s Morphy’s soon and up coming auction there is a huge collection of cast iron motorcycles available for bidding! Andy Huffner spent 37 years collecting these vintage motorcycles and almost all of them are accurate depictions of real motorcycles. This collection includes numerous examples acquired from Jacob E. Brubaker’s family. Go to www.morphyauctions.com for more details!