Salem, Oregon, Born A.C. Gilbert Was
Father Of Educational Toys

As America grew to become the industrial leader of the world in the first half of the 20th century, scientific and mechanical toys also became common. Possibly no single individual had more influence in these areas on the youth of this country during this period than Alfred Carlton Gilbert. The variety of scientific sets and toys that he produced made learning fun and exciting, and none did this better than his Erector.

A.C. Gilbert was born in 1884 in Salem, Oregon, and lived there for the first 10 years of his life. Although he moved to Moscow, Idaho, at the age of 10, where his father went into the banking business, he returned to Oregon a few years later to begin his formal education at the Tualatin Academy in Forest Grove. Gilbert then enrolled at Pacific University, also in Forest Grove. However during the summers he attended the School of Physical Education in New York, and eventually decided on a career in that field.

During Gilbert’s years at Yale, where he was working on the medical degree necessary for the career in physical education he had chosen, he also maintained an active interest in track and field events. In fact, he was good enough to win a place on the American Olympic team of 1908. Gilbert went on to tie for the gold medal at the Olympics in England that year.

It was also at Yale that he met a man named John Petrie. Petrie was a mechanic who shared Gilbert’s interest in “magic.” Gilbert had a few magic “students” at that time, and was having trouble finding suppliers for the equipment he needed. Petrie was introduced to him as someone who could make the devices he needed.

The two men began producing small boxes of magic tricks, which they sold for $5 a set. While continuing his course work at Yale to become Dr. Gilbert, he and Petrie gradually expanded their magic equipment line to provide more complicated apparatus for professional magicians and started a mail-order business. They named their growing enterprise the Mysto Manufacturing Company.

Gilbert was enjoying this business experience so much that he abandoned the field of medicine. With a loan from his disappointed father, he and Petrie built their first manufacturing plant.

Business went well and in 1910, Gilbert went on a nation-wide selling trip. This brought him in contact with the toy business, and he realized how few good toys were available. He correctly identified an unfilled market for an interesting, educational, domestically produced product. It took him a year to come up with the solution.

It’s not known for sure where the idea for the Erector set came from. One possibility is the sight he had on his daily train commuting into New York City, as he watched the electrical girders being erected alongside the tracks.

A.C. Gilbert introduced the Erector set to the toy world in 1913. It was an instant success, and was appearing on the toy shelves of all major retailers by Christmas of that year. The interesting, realistic steel girders themselves, along with the motor that could be used to make an apparatus work, distinguished this toy from anything else on the market.

“The Erector/Struc tural Steel & Electro-Mechanical Builder” came in sets of nine different sizes, priced from 50 cents to $25. Acces sory sets were also available, and these allowed the upgrade of smaller sets to larger ones.

What collectors call the Erector Classic Period ended when the Depression of the 1930s hit, and the company was required to revise and downscale its operations.

The two most comprehensive references to Erector sets are Greenberg’s Guide to Gilbert Erector Sets, Volume One, 1913-1932 and Volume Two, 1933-1962. They were published by Kalmbach Publishing in 1993 and 1997, respectively.

Children will enjoy a visit to A.C. Gilbert’s Discovery Village in Salem, Oregon. It is a hands-on children’s museum. One of the two homes making up the museum was the Victorian residence of A.C.’s uncle on this riverfront site. A.C.’s own home was six blocks away and was torn down in 1941.

Donna Miller

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Hand-Made Nails Made By ‘Nailers’

The earliest nails used in both house and furniture construction were hand forged. They were usually made by “nailers” who worked at home. The demand usually exceeded the supply, despite the fact that a skilled “nailer” could make over 1,000 a day.

The nails were forged one at a time from a high purity iron, sometimes called “Russian iron,” which did not rust. They are cruder than the later machine-made product. Each one had to be heated, shaped and then headed. Hand-forged nails will show hammer and anvil marks. Their surfaces are rough and their heads anything but perfectly square. However, they rusted very little.

To supplement the demand, farmers often made nails to supplement their income during the long, isolated winter months. If the wives and children pitched inApril 1, 2010 and helped on this project, a household might make as many as 2,000 a day.

From 1790 to 1825, 120 different patents were granted `to cut nails by machinery and by 1830, machine-made nails became quite readily available. They continued to have a square shape. While the shape was more uniform and precise, they rusted quite badly.

The “modern” round nails, also called wire nails, came into common use during the 1880s.

Recognizing the type of nail used in a piece of furniture can be a helpful tool in dating a piece.

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Sap Of Tree Produces Lacquer

Lacquer is a natural product. It is the sap of the Urushi tree, which is indigenous to China but has also been grown in Japan for almost 1500 years. The best lacquer is obtained from old trees. However, the process of cutting through the bark to collect the sap also destroys the tree after a few years, so a continual replanting is necessary.

Crude lacquer is gray in color. It darkens when it is exposed to the light. Left natural, it will have a dull surface when it dries; polishing is necessary to give it the high gloss we associate with lacquer products.

Natural ingredients are ground and mixed with the crude lacquer to give color. The most popular ground colors are red, black and green.

Most of the old lacquerware made in Japan, China and Korea has a wood base, although occasionally the lacquer was applied to a metal or porcelain base. Whatever the base material, the first step in making a lacquerware piece was to shape and smooth the base. Then as many as 20 to 30 coats of lacquer were applied to the base, allowing about 24 hours for each coat to dry before applying the next. Lacquerware made in this way was very hard and able to resist the actions of hot liquids and alcohol.

A few old Chinese pieces were made of solid carved lacquer. The carved red cinnabar was a popular export to Europe by the 17th century. There was more demand than supply for these pieces, and copies were actually made in Europe. High quality Chinese lacquer was produced until early in the 19th century. The modern cinnabar copies produced in the 20th century, although popular with collectors, are not carved lacquer in the original sense of the word.

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