It looks like HistoryToys.com is down. Does anyone know of alternative sites that is a good source or reference materials?
Depending on what you are actually trying to reference, the Toy Steam Bible is pretty hard to beat!
See it here:
http://www.toysteambible.org.uk/default.htmI should add that having never been to the History Toy site, I'm unsure of the comparative relevance of them, or which may be better.
Not sure what you are looking to find, but if you know it was on that site, you can probably find it in the "wayback machine" for your awareness this is a not for profit archive of internet pages.
http://web.archive.org/
Just to let the people know:
HISTORYTOY was a german private collectors archive site for vintage and historic toys with more than 60.000 entries.
Only a small fraction of them were related to steam toys.
The owner of the site passed away in January this year.
I talked to the widow and she told me his last wish was that the domain will never be sold or go online again but die together with him.
She also asked NOT TO BE BOTHERED further by emails or phone calls about the site.
Hi Rainer, I am sad to read the creator of History Toy has passed away and decided to take it (History Toy) with him into eternal rest where it is now of no use to anyone.
I am certain the fellow had some redeeming value but for the collectors present and future, I think he has canceled his own legacy.
All the history I have hunted down and acquired has been in an effort to share it with all who are interested, preserve, and protect it for generations far beyond me.
Gil
Yeah I tend to agree that this is unfortunate, he clearly did not build 60000 entries of niche knowledge with his own financial benefits in mind. Such data should be put in some form of long term storage for the next generations who find a toy at a garage sale and want to know it's story, and gets them interested in the past. That's how I got in, I found a Mamod for a couple bucks and fortunately there was plenty of information to get me hooked!
Do we know anyone knowledgeable enough with interweb forensics to retrieve all the entries so we can preserve the info..?
This is a disaster for us collectors. I myself have always photographed interesting steam engines and provided them with additional information and then made them available to the Historytoy website. This is
a pity about the countless important information lost in this way.
We absolutely have to do something and find a suitable person who can fix this.
Arnold
Unfortunately when I am attempting to use the waybackachine it looks like it never appropriately imaged the site. Recovering it is likely only possible with the server where it was stored. In either case if it was his personal machine or a commercial server, it is likely gone. The only way to know for sure is to ask his wife, and she sounds pretty set on letting it die with him.
SolingerStahl, what is your relationship with their family? Understandably the family does not wish to be bothered with worrying about the site, but we do not wish to make it their burden to maintain.
Scratch that, I may not have put in something wrong to the wayback machine, but now I am getting a ton of pages. Might be a good idea to see if they allow an entire site to be downloaded in one go, rather than attempting to save it page by page.
Scratch that, I may not have put in something wrong to the wayback machine, but now I am getting a ton of pages. Might be a good idea to see if they allow an entire site to be downloaded in one go, rather than attempting to save it page by page.
Great work!
Let us know if you can download it as a full website.
This is the e-mail I attempted to send to web admin as suggested on the defunct website announcement to: info@historytoy.comIt wouldn't even go out the door
To whomever is in charge:Re: historytoy.com I have been told through my forum that historytoy.com is to be permanently buried with it’s founder.While I am sad about the founder’s passing, I am outraged that a reference that took so many years to compile and record important valuable info for collectors has vanished at the request of it’s founder. If this is correct, it is clearly a most selfish gesture… a boot stomp on history. Knowledge not shared, not preserved, and not passed down is knowledge wasted.I am sad to read the creator of History Toy has decided to take it (History Toy) with him into eternal rest where it is now of no use to anyone.I am certain the fellow had some redeeming value… but for the collectors present and future, I think he has canceled his own legacy.All the history I have hunted down and acquired in the last 24 years has been in an effort to share it with all who are interested, preserve, and protect it for generations far beyond me.Please consider allowing someone to preserve, protect, and make available the work of an accomplished collector and historian.Regards,Gil Garceauwww.officeofsteamforum.com
Gil - all I know is the correct email of Mr. Menzel
owner of historytoy - I always used this for transmitting my pictures and comments:
Siegfried Menzel
SUCOM UG (haftungsbeschränkt)
Herr Siegfried Menzel
Geschäftsführer
Arnimstr. 94
50825 Köln
Tel.: +49 (0)221 - 9874 7195
Fax: +49 (0)221 - 9874 7181
Mail: info@nimg.de
www.nimg.de/I hope this helps,
Arnold
SolingerStahl, what is your relationship with their family? Understandably the family does not wish to be bothered with worrying about the site, but we do not wish to make it their burden to maintain.
I had and have no relationship to the passed owner Siegfried or the family.
I only was one of many collectors who always sent new entries to Siegfried or took care if I found an entry with wrong data...
I'm also unhappy with the cancelling of the site, so I got in phone contact with his wife to get more info.
First she was a kind of upset as she got 200-400 phone calls and emails per day and tired to answer them all, but two days later she called me back and told me that Siegfried decided to let the site die with him.
Thats all I can tell.