A decade after the release of his book, TCM’s Alan Jaffe fills in the blanks on a great American toy company

It’s been 10 years since the publication of my book about J. Chein & Co., one of the world’s most prolific tin litho toymakers. So it seems like a reasonable time – perhaps long overdue – to fill in a few gaps in the pages.

While I spent a year and a half in research, interviews, photography, and borrowing and begging for images, I could not find examples of every product manufactured during the company’s colorful, 70-year history. By deadline, I hadn’t located an Aeroplane Whirler, an actual Felix Frolic, or many other rare Chein creations.

Of course, as luck would have it, once the book came out, the toys started coming out of the woodwork. Since 1997, I have come across or been told where to find examples of these toys, and of others that I never knew Chein made. Some of the toys have surfaced at auction, while others are currently being sold piecemeal by a longtime collector. Still others remain carefully secured in glass cases, artifacts of a unique company and witnesses to an amazing period in toy production.

What still eludes some collectors is the proper pronunciation of the company name. So, to remind readers what I wrote in the introduction to the book: the members of the family and the former employees I interviewed all pronounced it the same way, like the word “chain.” Not shine, or chine, or shane. So that’s one long-disputed conundrum resolved.

One of the most desirable Chein toys – and one of the most unusual comic character chimeras – was a windup that depicted a 9-inch Felix the Cat chasing two 4-inch red mice, with two 5-inch Felix figures following. Known as the Felix Frolic, the toy was made in 1926 by Chein for the distributor Geo. Borgfeldt Co. At Morphy Auctions’ Spring 2006 auction, an example of the Frolic sold for $29,120 (including buyer’s premium), probably the most ever paid for a Chein toy.

The Frolic was one of many toys in that auction from the amazing collection of Gary Selmonsky. Another Chein platform toy in the auction, a scaled-down version of the Frolic known as Krazy Kat Chasing Ignatz Mouse, sold with its original box for $3,080.

The early, circular Chein symbol appears on some of the comic character platform toys on the side of the platform, hidden behind a rear wheel. Black-and-white drawings of the Krazy Kat platform toy and the Krazy Kat Scooter appeared in the 1932 Chein catalog.

Chein also produced wooden versions of comic characters in the early 1930s. An advertisement that ran in a 1932 edition of the trade journal Playthings magazine trumpets the production of Popeye, Ignatz, and Krazy Kat figures. I was able to track down images of the first two, but only a black-and-white photo of the jointed Krazy Kat was available to run in my book. Selmonsky sold the wonderful figure, with her leather ears, yellow bow and long black-and-yellow tail, for $770 at the 2006 Morphy auction.

An even rarer wooden Krazy Kat toy, the Krazy Kat Express – a red locomotive with the feline’s head bobbing up as the train moves forward – also was consigned to the auction and achieved $672. I had never heard of this pull toy before last year’s sale.

Images of Krazy Kat and the Chein renderings of Mickey and Minnie Mouse were used on several sandpails as well. An 8-inch-high pail showed Mickey and Minnie playing with a beach ball, male and female Krazy Kats picnicking, and other animal characters enjoying the ocean. There is no Chein logo on the pail, although the male Krazy Kat has a “C” on his shirt. Mickey, Minnie, Krazy and the Three Little Pigs appear on a rare sand sifter that bears Chein’s tri-color shield logo, which dates the toy to the 1930s to early 1940s.

The comic characters tend to bring the highest prices among Chein products, but the company is probably better known for its spectacular carnival ride toys. George Warden, an Atlanta area Chein enthusiast (his Internet name is cheingang), has some significant examples. He’s in the process of dissolving his collection, mainly through the Atlanta Antique Gallery.

Warden began chasing Chein toys in the mid-1980s when he was living in the Asbury Park, N.J., area. He found one of his rare pieces after walking into an antique shop in North Jersey. Two women were seated at an oak table playing with a Chein Ferris wheel, a toy familiar to most collectors. But this one had a push-button, a chain-driven mechanism instead of a windup spring, and a light green base. The lithography differs in other striking ways: The familiar smiling face at the center of the wheel is winking on this toy. And the scenes on the base differ in many details, from the white background to the 10¢ sign on the carnival barker’s booth. The circular logo identified it as 1920s or ’30s Chein ride.

Warden has an even earlier, more unusual Chein Ferris wheel. Standing just 9 inches high, the wheel rests on a thin metal frame, with four little cups that serve as the chairs. The litho is fairly plain, with the words “Ferris Wheel” instead of a face, and the early Chein logo around the hub. The red windup box was professionally restored. Warden’s toy is only the second Ferris wheel of this type that I’ve seen. It was probably made in the 1910s to 1920s.

The rare Aeroplane Whirler also can be found on Warden’s shelves. I’ve seen just a handful since the publication of my book. Warden’s toy has a design I’ve never seen: stars circle the stem, and four different-colored planes with propellers hang from wavy wires. The windup key is on the bottom of the base.

The Atlanta collection doesn’t stop there. Warden also has a Graf Zeppelin made by Chein, a 9-inch pull toy I never knew existed. It didn’t appear in any of the catalog pages I borrowed from former Chein executives. He has two of Chein’s rare betting games as well: a 7¾-inch tin horse race spinner and a dice game called Foo-Chung.

An early horse-drawn toy, the Milk and Dairy Product cart, which appeared as a drawing in a 1909 Playthings ad, is also in Warden’s collection.

Warden accumulated about 400 Chein toys over the course of 23 years. He has sold about 30 pieces since January and will slowly sell off the rest, he said.

Meanwhile, the quest continues. There are other Chein toys that appear in the company’s early catalogs that I have yet to see firsthand. There’s the Streamline Train, a 12-inch tin toy with two train cars that appeared in a catalog from the 1930s. There’s a green tin snake that appears in the 1939 catalog but doesn’t have a company number or any description. I wonder if it was ever produced. And there’s the dump cart and four-wheel wagon featured in the 1909 Playthings ad. And the toy army helmet, and the air rifle. . .