Toy stove:Tarbox

Though toy makers made many miniature stoves, manufacturers of full-sized stoves also produced exact, miniature replicas of their real stoves, possibly as "salesmen samples" used to demonstrate the features of a particular stove to potential buyers. Even stove manufacturers, however, may have envisioned these small stoves as toys. The 1916 Hughes Electric Company catalog, for instance, contained 80 pages of full-sized stoves, and a two-page spread dedicated to a 15-inch stove, touted as the "Idol of a Million Little Girls, a Real Electric Range," and "a gift that makes the child love to cook." This advertisement suggests that, though some manufacturers may have made stoves for salesmen, many manufacturers intended these stoves as children's playthings. Spicers and Peckham of Providence, Rhode Island, a company that primarily made adult-sized stoves, produced this miniature "Tarbox" stove, perhaps intending that children would play with it.