1918 Schoenhut, Original 48pg. Color Catalog
Following a recent auction purchase of several old toy reference books, I discovered tucked inside one of them this historically important document. It's an original and complete catalog of illustrated Schoenhut toys published nearly 90 years ago, with 50% of them printed in full color! Included are both the front and back full color covers. Every other pair of two pages, or 24 of its 48 pages, are in full color. Of the 24 black and white fine illustrations only 10 of them advertise other Schoenhut toys (dolls, blocks, pianos, and target games). In other words 80% of the catalog strictly advertises dolls and accessories from their line of Humpty Dumpty Circus toys. Most are in full color. Items are broken down individually by part number, or set number, with an illustration for each one. I did some checking to see if this particular catalog had ever been reproduced and sold as copies. I could find no record of it ever being reproduced. In fact references to the known reproduced Schoenhut catalogs contain approximately half the total number of pages as this catalog. At 48 pages, it's the longest single catalog I found in my research. There may be others, but they're either unknown, or have never been copied. I've shown several random color and black and white pages below. This includes the front cover (photo #1), back cover (2nd to last photo), and two page center spread (last photo). The inside back cover (not shown) has a full page illustration of the Schoenhut factory in Philadelphia, PA. Size: 7¼" x 10". Sold: Dec. 2008
Price Sold: $ 158
