Doll Toy Steam Engine
date: label: date made
content: early 20th century
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: This toy steam engine was manufactured by the Doll Company of Nuremberg, Germany during the early 20th century. The toy steam engine is model number 354. The vertical engine is mounted on an iron base, with vertical firebox, boiler, and chimney. The vertical engine is shafted to a flywheel.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Peter Doll and Isaak Sondheim founded Doll & Co in Nuremberg 1898. In the early years, the production was concentrated on model steam engines and accessories until 1914 when they moved the production to clockwork toys. In 1920 the production of steam engines continued.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The company's product range mainly included steam engines and model railways. In 1938, the company was aryanized and taken over by its competitor Fleischmann. The "Doll" brand was retained until 1949.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Live steam toys enjoyed a period of popularity from the 1880s until the 1930s. The miniature steam engines were marketed as both toys and instructive devices that mimicked full-scale steam-powered machines and allowed every boy and girl to be their own engineer. In toy steam engines, a heating source is introduced into the firebox below the boiler (early toys used lit wicks fueled by denatured alcohol, later toys used electricity) which heated the water to produce the steam pressure that ran the engine. A variety of accessories could be powered by the engine; attachments included windmills, pumps, grinders, and electric lights.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Accession info from file:
label: Description (Brief)
content: Greville Inverness Bathe was a mechanical engineer who had the hobby of building and collecting historic scale model steam engines. He was from St. Augustine, FL and accumulated around 800 of these toy engines, and had built around 50 himself.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Bathe began this hobby in 1936 but said he had been interested in toy steam engines since 1887 when he received one as a gift from his father for Christmas. He began his own business in 1906 to build small internal combustion engines and in 1919 moved to Philadelphia from London.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Nearly all the models Bathe owned were collected for him by an agent in Cambridge, MA, who located many in antique shops.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The engines range from the smallest oscillating type, around 4 inches high, to vertical ones around 18 inches tall. All of the engines are to scale and are all working models. Instead of starting miniature fires under the boilers, Bathe used three air compressors to supply air to drive the models.
label: Description (Brief)
content: When Mechanical & Civil Engineering curator Robert M. Vogel went to Bathe’s home in 1967 to collect the models, three years after his death in 1964, he decided to take ‘only those models which [he] felt to have significance for the Museum’ (from letter dated 18th October 1967). Some of the hand-made models created by Bathe were unable to be ‘construed as museum type’ because they were made with whatever parts were available and were not to scale or refined in detail (from letter dated 24th October 1967).
label: Description (Brief)
content: Bathe’s collection of around 1500 books on the history of technology (spanning the 16th – 20th centuries) is currently housed at the Swarthmore College library (https://www.swarthmore.edu/libraries/bathe-collection-history-technology)
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: Germany: Bavaria, Nuremberg
setName: label: See more items in
content: Work and Industry: Mechanical and Civil Engineering
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content: Family & Social Life
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content: Engineering, Building, and Architecture
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content: Engineering Steam Toys and Models
publisher: label: Related Publication
content: Maass, Eleanor A.. Greville Bathe's "Theatre of Machines": The Evolution of a Scholar and His Collection
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Bequest of the Estate of Greville I. Bathe
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MC.328937
label: catalog number
content: 328937
label: accession number
content: 278175
objectType: label: Object Name
content: toy, steam engine and boiler
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall - from catalog card: 12 3/4 in; 32.385 cm
label: Measurements
content: flywheel - from catalog card: 2 3/4 in; x 6.985 cm
label: Measurements
content: base - from catalog card: 4 1/4 in x 4 1/4 in; 10.795 cm x 10.795 cm
label: Measurements
content: overall: 12 3/4 in x 4 3/4 in x 5 3/8 in; 32.385 cm x 12.065 cm x 13.6525 cm