Toys

The countryside around Philadelphia will be resounding next week with the cries of auctioneers, spearheaded by a major catalogue sale Thursday at the Alderfer Auction Center in Hatfield. Next Saturday will be a particularly busy day. The Alderfer sale, which will begin at 9 a.m. at the auction center, 501 Fairgrounds Rd., has 460 lots of toys, antiques and artwork. The artwork includes two dozen paintings by Ben Austrian, the Reading artist best known for the Bon Ami chick (it illustrated the scouring powder's slogan, "Hasn't scratched yet. ")

Above, motorcyclist Mark Schultz of Upper Darby arrives at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia with a bag of toys for the tots there. Left, Amiry Shakoor, 6, of Philadelphia, a CHOP patient, holds a Harley CHOPper, a present from the bikers who made their annual toy run to the hospital yesterday. Meanwhile, today is the official opening of Toys for Tots in Philadelphia. It is the 50th anniversary of the program, started by the Marine Corps Reserves, to distribute Christmas toys to needy children.

Al Copsetta stopped collecting antique toys when people began to see money instead of memories in them. "I guess that was about 1970 or so," Copsetta says. "People started thinking that anything that's old must be worth something. That's when it became a business - it took the fun out of it. " During the 1960s, however, Copsetta managed to assemble one of the nation's largest collections of old toys - more than 20,000 of them. He still has a few thousand left, of which a roomful are on permanent display at the Whitman Stafford Farm House in Laurel Springs.

This is the time of year I dread. Soon I will hardly be able to walk in our walk-in closet - so full will it be of toys and other gifts to be wrapped for the holidays. In the next month, most of us will be contributing to the $17.5 billion in sales expected by the toy industry this year. Spending on toys has soared - more than 260 percent since the $6.7 billion Americans spent in 1980, and that figure doesn't even include video games. Price and population increases account for some of this rise.

They didn't know little Cecilia Cichan, but after yesterday, they consider her a friend. Today, they'll play with the toys she gave them. Stuffed bears, dogs, tigers and mice, Barbie dolls, Cabbage Patch Kids and baby dolls flooded the playroom at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children in North Philadelphia. The toys were only a fraction of gifts from Cecilia, the lone survivor of an Aug. 16 plane crash in Detroit that killed 156 people, including her parents and brother.

Alarming things have happened to children's toys since my daughters were small 30 years ago. Put simply, their packaging is almost impossible to open, batteries are almost always required, and they don't ever shut up. My 18-month-old granddaughter was the reason for my foray into toy stores last holiday season. What I discovered is that no self-respecting toy just sits there without emitting sounds. Push a button, get a song in two languages. Turn a knob, hear the alphabet.

Many of the toys that American parents will lovingly purchase for their children this holiday season have been manufactured by other children who toil long hours for low wages in dismal Third World factories, an official of the AFL-CIO said yesterday. "Toys are intended for children to enjoy, and should not be the cause of children's suffering and pain," said Cheryl Graeve, national organizing director of Frontlash, the AFL-CIO's youth organization. She was holding up a stuffed Mickey Mouse plush toy produced by Playskool that bore a "Made in China" label.

Santa left Cherry Hill for Virginia last week in an 18-wheeler, not an open sleigh. And this year his helpers weren't short people in green with bells on their pointy toes. They were members of the Women's Network of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. Eighteen locals in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia spent the fall raising close to $50,000 for toys and clothing to send to the families of mine workers on strike against the Pittston Coal Company.

Garden furnishings, New Jersey antiques and a collection of toys never played with by their owner will highlight three area auctions next week. Two of the sales also will offer historic coverlets. The garden furnishings will be offered at noon Wednesday by Freeman/Fine Arts, 1808 Chestnut St., at the gallery's weekly sale. The most notable item is a blue-enameled urn more than six feet high that is ornamented with three putti, the Renaissance term for cherubs and similar fanciful figures.

Fuzzy little stuffed animals, 16 of them. Donald Allen brought them to a meeting of the Darby Borough Council's public safety committee Wednesday night to complain. "Child exploitation. An inducement to teach our youngsters to gamble," he charged as he plunked a shopping bag full of the toys before surprised council members and Mayor Louis Saraullo. Allen, a print shop operator, told the committee that the amusement machines dispensing these stuffed animals were the real culprits.