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May 2020 - Antique Shoppe - 23

A.C. Williams Mack C cast iron dump truck; valued at $150.
Cast iron steamroller and driver; valued in the range of $70 to $200.

America remained, for the most part, a rural, farming-centered country through 1930,
so one of the best selling A.C. Williams toys was its cast iron tractor and farm
equipment series.
In the later 1910s, World War I forced A.C. Williams to all but stop its production of
toys to concentrate on the war effort. Following the war, in late-1918, A.C. Williams
sold his company to his son-in-law, J.H. Bigalow.
The company began producing toy sets, such as the No. 611 cast iron toy set, which
featured four interchangeable bodies on a single black chassis. One of the bodies was
a dark blue stake truck. Today, one of these sets in good condition, with original box,
is valued at $550.
A.C. Williams Company continued to sell cast iron toys through Five & Dime
outlets such as F.W. Woolworth and S.S. Kresge, but the proverbial writing for cast
iron toys was on the wall. Plastic, rubber, and stamped metal toys began to outsell the
old, heavy cast iron toys, and the company moved into new product lines. Late 1920s light blue, cast iron road scraper with driver; valued at $180.
Typically, the paint applied to an A.C. Williams cast iron truck was thin, so most
surviving trucks appear worn, scratched, or chipped, but this does not significantly
lower the toys value since only reconditioned cast iron toys have perfect paint jobs.
In the 1930s, the White Sewing Machine Corporation became A.C. Williams
Company’s largest customer, as Bigalow devoted over half of his foundry’s space to
this single customer’s production needs.
Finally, just after Christmas 1937, A.C. Williams Company, once the largest cast
iron toy company in the world, quit making toys. Truly, for boys, girls, and collectors
everywhere, this marked the end of an era.

A.C. Williams tri-axle gasoline tanker, circa 1930; valued at $140.

A.C. Williams No. 611 cast iron toy set in original box, circa 1930s. Circa 1930 “Car Hauler” with three Austin coupes; valued at $315.