For sale is a 1938 HUBLEY CAST IRON BELL TELEPHONE TRUCK, TOW WINCH & POLE TRAILER made by the Hubley Manufacturing Company. The truck is in great condition for its age. The truck has a winch and tow hook, a ladder, shovels, a trailer, and a drill bit for drilling holes for telephone pools. The truck has rubber tires which are intact but dried and hardened with age. The truck itself, not counting the tow hook, measures approximately 10 inches long, by 5 inches tall, and 3 1/2 inches wide. A stellar collectible antique toy truck.
in 1894, John Hubley founded The Hubley Manufacturing Company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In 1909, the company starting making cast-iron toys, with themes that ranged from horse-drawn vehicles and different breeds of dogs, to tractors, steam shovels and guns.
In 1877, the first regular telephone line between Boston and Somerville, Massachusetts was completed. Telephone line construction exploded over the next few years and by 1880, there were 47,900 telephones across America. By 1900 there were nearly 600,000 phones in Bell’s telephone system. By 1905, there was 2.2 million phones and by 1910 there were 5.8 million phones. In 1915, the US had a transcontinental telephone line. When this toy was manufactured, Bell Telephones was a mammoth company installing a web of telephone poles and lines across the country. So given this frenzy of activity, a toy telephone installation truck was a popular toy and fun way for children to mimic the real life work crews that captured their attention.
