Fond Memories of Our Jockey Cycle

We will never forget our Jockey-Cycle, which we sold some years ago, so we thought it would be fun to get out the old photos and share our memories of it.

Made sometime during the 1930's or 1940's, this is a very rare collectible sought after by bicycle and other vintage toy collectors. This velocipede was made by the J. E. DONALSON MFG. CO. in NORTH KANSAS CITY, MO. Some people incorrectly call the company "Donaldson", so you will find mention of it spelled both ways.

Instead of the usual pedaling action, the rider pushes on the foot bars and pushes and pulls on the handles. The seat then pumps up and down and the vehicle moves forward or backward. The small front wheel gives this jockey cycle a very tight turning radius, while the large back wheels and wide stance make it surprisingly hard to turn over.



The original nameplate on ours was still easily readable, but I was not able to get a very good picture of it up close, due to the glare on the metal. I'm not sure if it had been re-painted some time in the past or not. There were some light red brush marks on the nameplate. That is the only clue that it had possibly been repainted.



All the spokes were in good condition, the tires were in excellent shape, and the mechanism worked perfectly. There were many small areas where the paint was missing, but none of the areas detracted from the overall appearance, in my opinion. There was no evidence of rust.

This toy was played with by at least 3, maybe 4, generations of our family. It was a hand me down from my husband's cousin's family, so hubby and his brother both played on it. Then our two children enjoyed it for many years when they would spend time with their Mamaw and Papaw. Eventually the girls got too big to be interested in it, and his parents needed to get rid of it, so they could make more space for the growing girls to spend the night. So we brought it home with us. We put it in the basement, where it stayed until our grandson was old enough to ride it.

Our grandson would beg to ride it every time he came to visit, and it was great fun watching him get so much pleasure from it.

It was sometime not long after he had grown tired of it that we got bitten by the eBay bug, and I decided to see what the Jockey-Cycle might be worth, if anything. To say the least, we were both flabbergasted to find out that it was extremely rare and very valuable! So by the time our twin granddaughters were old enough to enjoy it, sad to say, they didn't get a chance to ride it. Once we found out how valuable it was we just couldn't take the chance they would tear it up!

So we sold it on eBay. Rather than chance it being damaged in shipment, the buyers drove several states to pick it up themselves. They were happy to get it, and we were happy to have sold it for a very good price.

On a whim the other night hubby decided to see if people were still collecting them and found a forum where folks were talking about some pitifully worn and damaged ones. It really made us realize just how wonderful ours had been. We also found a site with pictures of all but ruined ones, which is evidently the condition many are found in today.

So, we wanted to share our photos and story, so people could see what an original one looks like.

May Just Keep Daddy's Car After All

We tried putting Daddy's car on eBay twice, but neither time did the bidders come close to our Reserve Price. I did get to write back and forth with one man who already restores these types of automobiles. He sent me some beautiful pictures, and he sounds like the perfect one to appreciate this vintage car. But, he is not willing to pay nearly enough to make it worth our while to sell it. I have it listed on Craigslist, and our own website FOR SALE pages and photos are still up. Also, we will be having an Estate/Yard Sale sometime in June, once I know a little better where I stand with my doctor's diagnoses, and we may be able to sell it then.

I was depressed at the thought of selling it, but then I was depressed when we didn't sell it. Kind of hard to please, aren't I!?

So it's beginning to look like we are just going to be a 3 car family. We do have the garage, so it won't be hard to protect it, at least. Hubby can drive it around here and keep it in good running condition. So far my driving has been limited to following him back from getting one of our cars worked on a couple of miles away and my monthly trip to get a hair cut, which is about a half mile from our house. It's my right leg and left shoulder that jerks, so controlling the gas pedal and keeping the steering wheel straight are a challenge.

In the tradition Daddy started of naming events by the car he had at the time, I guess I can add that the PT Cruiser was the last car I was able to drive. I see the doctor tomorrow, so I will hold out hope that this will turn out not to be true.

Daddy's Car is on eBay this Week

I did it. I finally bit the bullet and put the ad for Daddy's car on eBay for this week. I had so hoped that someone local would buy it, but we don't live in an affluent area, and all that most people saw was an old car. Those who did appreciate what a unique automobile it is can't afford it. So, after having it on Craigslist for a week with no inquiries, it was time to try eBay. After all, we have a Feedback rating of 1187 there, and an excellent reputation.

I don't like the format that eBay uses for selling automobiles at all, and really do think my own website presentation of Daddy's car is a thousand times better. But, it's a matter of getting the right person to see it.

I put the ad together and then spent about a half hour talking myself into and out of and then into pushing the button to submit it. There's no doubt about it. It has been so much harder for me to give up that car than I would ever have anticipated. Much, much harder than the house, since one of our daughters bought it.

You might wonder why I chose to put a photo of the engine on this post. If you have ever taken the time to look at some of the listings on eBay for vintage cars, you would know that most of the time they look like rusty pieces of junk, unless someone has already restored it and is selling it for up in the 20 and 30 thousand dollar range, with some much higher than that.

The contrast between the way Daddy took care of this engine and the way most of the other engines look that are up for bid is dramatic.

So, I really do hope it sells this week. If it doesn't I'll have to go through that emotional struggle again deciding to re-list it or not.

Reader Needs HELP Finding Mother's Carnival Glass Bowl

Carnival Glass collecting involves a lot of reading, research, and spending time studying examples of the original pieces, in order to tell the reproductions from the originals. With that said, we received this email recently from someone who was looking at our Dirty Butter Estates items on eBay, but I'm just not knowledgeable enough to be able to answer our reader, who is also named Rosemary. If you could help her out, I'm sure she would really appreciate any information or suggestions for resources she might use to find a picture for her mother to see.

In the late 1920's early 30's my mother won a carnival glass dish/bowl by tossing a coin in the dish. She had the dish for many years but it got broken. My sister and I have been looking for one for years. My mother said it was about 6-8 inches across and plain. She describes it something like a console bowl. She said it had lines underneath and rounded down at the top. I saw something on e-bay that might be it, but not sure. It is a salad bowl. Do you know of anything like this?

Rosemary

If you or a friend is knowledgeable in this area of collecting, I'd appreciate it if you would post a comment, or send this post to your friend.

Great Fun on our Date Day Yesterday

We had one of the best Date Days, as far as finding bargains is concerned, that we've had in a long time. We actually found an Estate Sale where the daughter wanted to SELL, not price everything so high that people just looked and left. We had handfuls of things, and ended up paying for one batch and taking it to the car, and then coming back for more!! We were like kids in a candy store, except it was future $$$$ signs that we were seeing.

We also went to one sale where they advertised that there was a lot of "old stuff." I would hate to be that fellow's neighbors, as his property, front and back, was one huge junk yard. We bought one nasty shaving mug for a dollar, but it will clean up into something I can add to my own collection of shaving and mustache mugs, strops, and razors. That one won't be going up for sale. Luckily, I've chosen to collect something that you don't find much of any more, so I'm not forever adding to it. I have no idea what possessed me to get interested in this particular type of item, but I find them fascinating.

This man's yard really made us both stop and laugh about what someone would think if they saw all the STUFF we've accumulated over the last few years from our forays at the yard and estate sales. Our poor children!! Well, as we've told them over and over, we have long since made our profit out of all of it, so they can just bag it all up and donate it to the local Thrift Store!

As hobbies go, ours is really not so bad, because it at least pays for itself! But it does take a lot of time to inventory it all, take pictures, and write the descriptions for eBay and for selling on our own website. I'm so far behind now that I can't possibly get everything listed, no matter how hard I might try. We kept buying, as an outlet to get away from our care giving responsibilities, even though I didn't have time to list anything, and it went on that way for almost 2 years! Now we have bags and storage boxes just packed to the overflowing with who knows how many stuffed animals destined for our Plush Animal Shoppe and vintage breakables waiting to be listed in our Dirty Butter Estates store.

Hmmmm... maybe I'd better stop blogging and get busy listing, eh??

Strange Friday 13th

DH and I had a good laugh about our Date Day Friday. Do you ever have days when it seems like nothing goes as planned? That was yesterday, for us.

First off, I couldn't get the online classifieds to show only Garage/Estate Sales for yesterday, the way I usually do, so I slogged through last week's and this week's looking for ones for us to go to. One of the promising ones was a church sale, but they didn't give an address. By the time I tracked that down, I forgot to look at when they opened the sale, and we drove way out of our way only to find that it didn't start until noon! We got lost on a couple of the others, making I don't know how many U-turns, and we gave up completely on one of them. Another one ended up at someone's house who was NOT having a sale - I have NO idea how that happened. LOL

So, as the day was getting on, we decided to go home the long way so we could check out that church again. It was an extremely well run sale, but not a single thing we would be interested in! On the long ride home on an unfamiliar stretch of Interstate, DH took a wrong exit while I dozed, so we drove a lot farther than necessary.

I hate it that he did all that driving and we have so little to show for it, but we do enjoy each other's company, and its' certainly given us something to laugh about. But if that happened very often, I think we'd get out of the eBay business!

Now that's not the end of it. There was an Estate Sale adverstised for today, Saturday, pretty near us, so we got up early as usual, walked at the track, and drove to the sale address. When we got there - no signs - only several people standing around with a bunch of stuff crowded into an open garage. Hubby got out to see if we had the wrong place. No, they had called off the sale due to approaching bad weather, and if he told her what we wanted she'd see if she could find it!! It's a good thing we're not cussing folks, or she might have gotten an ear full. ROTFL

So, we had a Friday the Thirteenth weekend, for sure.

Why Do I Have this Thing for Aprons???

Some of the treasures I always look for when we go to Estate Sales are any really pretty or unusual aprons. While everyone else is busy with the furniture or china, I'm rummaging through kitchen drawers or stacks of linens in the back bedroom. I buy them all - the everyday aprons, home made preferably, the cute handkerchief aprons, fancy party aprons that never saw a kitchen stove, and the big coverall kind that often have stains on them.

So, what's the attraction? I think it's because I always associate aprons with my Grandmother and Mama. Both loved to cook, plus my grandmother dressed up every day. So she always wore the big coverall kind. I have trouble seeing her in my mind without an apron LOL. Just about the only time she didn't have one on was when she went somewhere.


Mama always used the half apron type, but one was always on the ready, hanging from the towel rack. I'm hoping, when the time comes, that I'm going to find some of Mama's stuck back somewhere, but I don't really expect to find any. Mama was not a keeper - she was a neat freak, so when she got older and didn't cook fancy any more, she probably used them as rags and got rid of them.

When they're all ironed up and laid out for picture taking to add to my descriptions on eBay, they make quite a display of domesticity, and they always carry me back to Grandmother's and Mama's kitchens, and big hugs that buried my face in their sun scented cotton aprons.

1000th POSITIVE Feedback!!

Our eBay site, Dirty Butter Estates, has just received its 1000th feedback - 100% POSITIVE!

I feel like celebrating!!