TOY SOLDIER HQ INC

AUBURN TOY SOLDIERS, FIGURES AND ITEMS FOR SALE

AUBURN

The Auburn Rubber company's primary product line was making rubber soles for shoes. In the 1930s they started making toys including, balls, vehicles and figures out of rubber. WWII stopped toy production due to raw material rationing. After the war was over Auburn purchased new plastic injection machines and began making some highly detailed figures out of rubber like vinyl. Like other toy figure makers of the 1950s & 60s Auburn packed their items in a wide array of styles including; small cellophane bags, small boxes, header card bags and boxed playsets designed to be able to sell to any budget. In late 1959 Auburn sold their entire toy line including all of the tooling to people connected to the Chicago Mob who moved operations to Demming New Mexico. The later (Deming, New Mexico)header card sets as seen above used a generic card with the item number and set type stamped on the front. About the time of the the move to New Mexico toys began to be made from polyethylene soft plastic rater than rubber like vinyl. Due to the changing toy market the Deming operation went out of business in 1969.

Auburn made a nice Noah's Ark with; Noah, his wife and an assortment of wild and forest animals.

Where to put all of the wild animals is a question. The Geppert Guide may not be right. The Noah's Ark/ Jungle animals were made in; blue, white, red and yellow, but the "Forrest Animals" were also made in red, white and yellow so who knows.

Wild Animals

FARM ITEMS

Auburn made hard rubber animals from the late 1940s through the early 1950s. They then switched to the more well known rubber like vinyl animals. When found today these early animals often have warped bases, stress cracks and/or chunks missing.

FLAT BOX STYLE OF PACKAGING

The above photo shows how Auburn animals were also packaged and sold. The Happi-Time logo seems to have been a SEARS catalog designation and Marx farm items sold by Sears also used the name. The later 50s/60s soft plastic under scale barn was sold containing maybe 20 of the medium and small farm animals. The bottom swings down for access, and their is a window in the roof.

Auburn farm Implements were first made of rubber like vinyl and then in soft plastic.

Later Auburn Tractors

Farm Animals

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Small header card bag seen on left above. Deming New Mexico production. Has four vinyl animals.

Larger header card bag seen on right above. Also Deming New Mexico production. Has three soft plastic animals + vinyl cow and horse. Horse not seen often in white.

Tim Geppert in his seminal plastic figure guide breaks the farm animals into two groups. However upon close inspection there appear to have been 3 or even 4 groups of these animals made. The first group has flat unmarked oval/rectangle bases and you can see mold ejector pin markings on one side of the animal from when the figure was popped out of the mold. Perhaps to get rid of these ejector marks the animals were redone and the ejector pins were relocated to push the animals out from under the base leaving one or two "dimple" marks. Then finally, perhaps to conserve material, animals were made with small irregular bases (also with the ejector dimples under the base). Some animals have "MADE IN USA" inside one of the dimples. The following pictures show animals by type and we undoubtedly are missing some variations. Usually found in rubber like vinyl, but later examples were made in soft plastic.

Earlier horses have a bit of factory applied black paint to the top of their backs.

Earlier cows have a bit of factory applied black paint to the top of their backs.

Bright yellow farm animals in 14 poses. If these don't glow in the dark they should.

Group picture courtesy Rick Koch.

FRONTIER FIGURES

Auburn made their frontier figures in two molds. One mold made 12 figures on foot including the; four pioneers, two settlers and six Indians with the pose holding hatchet and knife made in duplicate. The other mold made the two mounted figures and two horses.

One mold shot of six had one of each of the coonskin cap foot figures + the woman settler with bag and man settler with ax.

Indians made in red soft plastic were sold with cowboys in header bags. One mold shot of six foot Indians had 2 of the pose with tomahawk and knife and one of each of the other four poses.

Forest Animals

WHITE ANIMALS SEEM TO PICK UP DIRT OVER THE YEARS AND MAY NEED CLEANING

These animals were included in boxed and bagged western/frontier sets as well as sold in boxes (as seen above) and header card bags.

Cowboys

Earliest cowboys were made in tan and rust rubber like vinyl. After the move to Deming New Mexico they switched to tan soft plastic and even a few in yellow.

Accessories were made in green and red.

These were made in soft plastic and rubber like vinyl.

Military Items

Rare set with the hard to find towed units in odd colors. Photo courtesy Alex Zalkin.

Early Jeep/Cannon sets were all one piece and you were supposed to cut the pieces apart. Later issue sets were made as two piece sets with towing hitches.

RUBBER = RUBBER LIKE VINYL

Jeep and cannon sets were first made as one piece with instructions to cut them apart. Later versions had a jeep with "female" hitch and a cannon with "male" connector.

MODERN CIVILIAN FIGURES

- #875 24 Piece Figure Assortment. Vinyl.

The rubber like vinyl figures can often be dirty and need a good cleaning.

Vinyl was used into the early 1960s and then was replaced by polyethylene soft plastic. In the late 1960s a few new odd colors were used and some of the molds were run in Mexico later in odd colors.

- Fire Hydrant.(NONE)

- Fork Lift.

- TOY SHOP remnant seller header bag, 4 diggers + tools.

- Police car, SP, One set of wheels wrong.

Motorcycle cop, blue with yellow wheels.

- Auburn wholesaled construction figures in green to Buddy L.

Locomotive.

Truck.

The early figures were made of pink rubber like vinyl while later figures were made of red soft plastic as seen above.

Marx may have made many Disney items but Auburn also got in the game.