WHAT'S IT WORTH?
G-Man model car made by 'toy king'
By Leslie Hindman
Q. Can you tell us anything about a toy we have and its value? It is marked "G-Man Pursuit Car. Louis Marx and Co., N.Y."
—Marcia Otterson, Cloque, Minn.
A. Louis Marx & Co. of New York was formed in 1919, when an ambitious young man from Brooklyn decided that he could make toys better and cheaper.
In his career, Louis Marx combined a perfect instinct for pleasing children with an engineer's knowledge of modern production techniques. Until about 1920, tin toys had to be hand-painted. Marx was one of the earliest makers to print colors on a flat piece of tin and then mold it into a toy, such as your "G-man pursuit car."
The results were Marx's first million dollars and American pre-eminence in the world toy industry, as firms such as Marx and his American competitors created hundreds of inexpensive tin toys.
Marx was successful making trains, toy guns, play sets and action figures. In 1955, he was featured on the cover of Time magazine, and was the undisputed "toy king" until he retired in the 1970s.
Your car was made in 1935 and is typical of the tin vehicles Marx produced in the 1920s and '30s. Marx believed that children wanted to play with toys that copied real life. This "pursuit car" evokes the "G-man" craze then sweeping the country, when federal agents were celebrated for shooting it out with celebrity bad guys such as Pretty Boy Floyd. It is a windup model and, if it worked perfectly, would shoot sparks from the gun of the G-man in the front seat.
In old tin toys, condition is a key factor. In perfect condition, this pursuit car might bring as much as $1,000. Yours has more than a few dents, so I value it in the range of $300 to $600.
Q. Could you please tell me about this medical doctor's surgery set? Also, could you tell me how to clean these objects and if it is worth getting a new case made?
—Dorothy Kuhr, Schaumburg, Ill.
A. Old and antique medical instruments are a specialized area of collecting, so I enlisted the aid of Alex Peck of Antique Scientifica, an antique instruments dealer in Charleston, Ill.
Peck calls what you have a "minor surgery set" — composed of a scalpel; bistouries (small knives); dressing forceps for applying bandages; a pair of arterial forceps and suture needle holder; a needle director for guiding a suture needle around bones; a metacarpal saw and a double-ended probe.
He notes that the set was sold by H. Braun Sons and Co. of Columbus, Ohio, but was probably made in Germany.
Peck says the metal handles allowed the instrument to be sterilized. This did not become a common feature in surgery sets before about 1890, and he dates your set to about 1910 to 1920.
If your set were complete and if the case were in better condition, it would be worth about $100. In its present state, Peck values it at about $50 and advises that you should clean it with soapy water and a soft cloth. For more information on antique medical instruments, visit Peck's Web site at antiquescientifica.com.
Leslie Hindman is the author of "Adventures at the Auction" and host of two HGTV shows. She welcomes letters but cannot reply to them individually. Send photos of object (sorry, photos can't be returned) with identifying marks visible, a brief history, and your daytime phone number to: What It's Worth, The Honolulu Advertiser, P.O. Box 3110, Honolulu, HI 96802.
