Child’s watering can charming reminder of the past

Remember trips to the beach, or afternoons in the backyard sandbox, when you were a child? I’ll bet that somewhere, half-buried in the sand around you, was a colorful little tin pail, a tiny shovel or a child-sized watering can.

Chances are those pieces were made by a company in Brian, Ohio, called Ohio Art.

Ohio Art was founded in 1908 by dentist H.S. Winzeler and the company is still in business today. Tin toys – drums, pails, horns, cups and saucers and other items – with colorful lithographs of flowers, cartoon characters and nursery rhymes, have been in backyards for almost a century. They were plentiful and inexpensive.

I picked up a little watering can – made in the 1960s – at an antique show several years ago and it keeps making the cut whenever I downsize or decide to thin the clutter. Decorated with tulips, the can reminds me of long, hot, summer days when I was a child. It’s just the sort of thing I would have put in the wading pool to splash and pour water over my brother and sister.

Today, vintage Ohio Art toys are highly prized by collectors. The rarer pieces, especially early Disney toys, can sell for hundreds of dollars. But be careful, there are reproductions out there.

My Ohio Art watering can isn’t that valuable. It sells for around $18 to $20 and I paid less than half that. But I keep it around because it is still useful. And it has a certain charm.

Come to think of it, that little watering can and I are about the same age. I hope people feel the same way about me.