Fire Truck - Looky, Winky Blinky, and Snorky
Fisher Price made a wide range of wooden fire trucks over its long history, and they were some of the most popular toys in its line. Today, they are sought by both Fisher-Price and firefighting collectors.
Looky Fire Truck
#7
c 1950-1954
Looky, looky, looky....the Looky Fire Truck is looking for a fire to extinguish. This fire truck has a bell that rings, a face on the front of the engine with eyes that roll up and down, and the two firemen in the back of the fire truck bob and turn when the toy is pulled, as though looking for a fire.
1950-1952 - Patent Pending.
1953-1954 - Design Patent No. 166,063.
Canadian Patent No applied in 1953. Canadian Patent No. 121/18464.
Copyright Fisher-Price Toys.
Winky Blinky Fire Engine
#200
c1954-1959
In 1950, Fisher-Price introduced the #7 Looky Fire Truck, which was the very first firetruck with movable eyes on the front of the engine. The #7 was slightly changed with different lithographs and introduced in 1954 as the #200 Winky Blinky Fire Truck.
Design Patent No. 166,003.
Patent No. 2,259,629.
Canadian Design Patent No. 121/18,464.
Canadian Patent No. 401,841.
1954 original retail price was $2.00 in the East and $2.19 in the South and West.
Snorky Fire Engine
#168
c1960-1961
Pre-dating the long-running #720 Play Family Fire Engine by a few years, the Snorky Fire Engine proved to be a bust for Fisher-Price then, though collectors feel differently now. The #720 fire truck is certainly much more meticulously designed with attention to it's lithographs. The Little People--if they can even be considered such--are a different story. The dog is similar to those used in other sets of that era, such as the #234 Nifty Station Wagon. The firemen are a creation all of their own, and it's doubtful that Fisher-Price was all that pleased with their strange appearances since they were all but out of the Little People regime by 1962. After 1 year, #168 gave way to a redesigned #169 Snorky Fire Engine, which too lasted only a year before being discontinued. Along with the #932 Amusement Park, the 2 Snorky sets are the most valuable and expensive Little People playsets, fetching several hundred dollars each.
This Fire Engine was only sold until Easter of 1961.
Also see #169 Snorky Fire Engine that was introduced in 1961.