This is a must have for cast iron toy collectors.  Great reference photos.  Included on this CD is 58 black and white pictures and one cover letter taken of over 650 cast iron toys kept in the Kenton Hardware Company's "Sample Room".  Lewis Bixler Jr. purchased these toys from the Kenton Hardware Company as the plant was winding down operations in 1952 and 1953.  He was the last treasurer of the company. The collection he purchased was a combination of around 1,489 different cast iron toys that the company had collected over the years.  Most were Kenton but not all of the toys photographed are.  The moldmakers used this "Sample Room" for ideas and reuse of parts on new toys.  Mr Bixler decide to sell the toys and he weeded the collection down to 650 to be photographed.  These toys were sold to K. H. Idle at the end of 1953.  The negatives of these photos were donated to the Hardin County Museum, Inc. in Kenton, Ohio recently by family members.  These photograph are of the highest quality of their time.  Zoom in on each toy.  Many train sets, stoves, banks, firetrucks, and horse drawn vehicles of yesteryear.  The CD label background is an example of one of the photos.

We have produced a CD with 17 different Kenton Hardware Company catalogs.  There are six cap pistol catalogs and eleven toy catalogs or supplements.   Most are color scans taken from the original catalogs from Lewis Bixler, Jr.'s collection.   The 1933 supplement is in black and white. This collections covers the period of 1931 to 1952 but may not include every catalog put out by the Kenton Hardware Company during this period.  These originals are very hard to come by and we are always on the the look out for missing years.  See an example of a page from a catalog with circus toys on it.

The Hardin County Museum Inc., in Kenton, Ohio is the home of the Kenton Toy collection.  Thru them this information is now available to the public for the first time.

This is a must have for serious cast iron toy collectors!!!!!!!!!!!

Dealers, this is a great way to ID your toys for sale.   Kenton is known to be the finest cast iron toys made during their time.  This CD will help you ID your toy as a Kenton.