Toy OTD: Fisher-Price Racing Rowboat #730 (1952)

Fisher-Price toys moved into the fifties with a shift from an illustrative look toward a bolder, more graphic approach. While the labeling became simpler, the overall forms involved in a toy's composition became somewhat more complex. The emergence of plastic as a material led to more complicated individual parts as well.

I think Racing Rowboat is another of the transitional toys - the boat artwork is still rather representational, and there's only a few plastic parts. On the other hand, the face is much more stylized than earlier pieces, and the movement - the sailor rows and the boat itself bobs - is much more complicated than a typical pull toy. It's very appealing and takes advantage of contemporary materials and techniques without going, well, overboard. It appears, too, that you could make a variant easily (a fisherman, say) with a simple change of colors and labels. This type of design versatility is clever, and was used from time to time to create additional items for the line.

Packaging for Fisher-Price was still very simple at this point. I wasn't able to find a photo of a Racing Rowboat box, but I gather that most F-P toys were packed in cartons decorated like this one - the toy's identifying text was printed on the end flaps. Graphically it's pretty sharp, and very cost-effective to do (I may do something like this for my upcoming toys, as I won't be able to print up individual box designs).

You'd probably guess that '50s Fisher-Price toys are harder to find and more expensive to buy. There's more than a couple non-auction websites out there that deal with older toys, so you may want to try thefind.com or Google (shopping) before you jump right to eBay. Unfortunately, I can't find one for sale online right now, eBay or otherwise. If you really don't mind digging, put 'fisher price rowboat' in a standard Google search, and see if any sale listings pop up. Search engines don't find everything! But if you're more of a moderate hunter, let the computer's fingers do the walking and set up a new-fangled eBay favorite search. Good luck!