The Andrew B. Hendryx Co. Time Travel

Today was a day that I mainly spent on Hendryx things.  I rearranged my cages in the living room.  I have a group of cages clustered together.

 I reviewed and organized my Hendryx patents in my 3-ring binder.  I put some feeders to soak in a lime/rust/calcium remover.  It shines up the feeders and takes a lot of the deposits out of the inside of them.  Since I only use Hendryx feeders on my cages, I try to keep a stock pile of them of different vintages in order to have them ready when I purchase a new cage.

Today I’d like to share 3 cages with you.  As I date my cages, these are the ‘latest’ in my collection.  Feeders are harder to come by for these cages unless they come with the cage.  I've been fortunate to find some singles online which will fit these cages.

The first is my 1940s cage.  It’s made of chrome and glass.  It comes with the original Art Deco glass seed guards on the front and back of the cage.  It comes with the original supported feeder perch system and perches.  There is even an original pinch perch that ‘pinches’ onto the wires.  It uses the plastic Hendryx feeders that are winged and hooded.

The second cage is my 1950s cage.  It has a metal base and the bars are metal.  The bars are of a golden-color metal.  The bars are sturdy enough that they do not ‘give’ when the bars are pinched together but are definitely lighter weight than my chrome cage bars.  It comes with glass seed guards that are screen printed with flowers.  It also uses the winged and hooded plastic Hendryx feeders.  By this production time, the feeder system changed from the supported perch to the independent perch supported by the cage bars.

The third cage is my 1960s cage.  It has golden-color metal bars and the roof and base are plastic.  When the bars are pinched together, they ‘give’ easily.  When assembling this cage, the 4 walls are hinged in the corners and they fold flat onto the opposite side of bars.  Assembly just requires one to open up the bars into a rectangle and place into the slots in the base and the roof.  There is no seed guard.  The feeders are Hendryx plastic boxes without the wings or hoods.  There are adapters on the backs of the feeders that slide between the bars and hold securely.  These adapters allow the feeders to be placed anywhere the owner wishes.  There were no perches when I purchased this cage, and I don’t know if it came with them originally or not.

When I considered purchasing the 60s cage, I hesitated.  My other cages were all from the 1930s and earlier.  They are of unique design and have intricate features.  The fine screen mesh seed guards, the crimped brass wires, and the metal scallops tell of days gone by.  I felt this cage was "simply" and “cheaply” made and that much less attention was made to detail than my brass and Japanned cages. But I decided that since my collection is supposed to be a historical display of the cages of The Andrew B. Hendryx Co, I needed the cage.  It really ‘stuck out’ in my cage collection until I purchased the other 2 cages.  Now there is a historical dateline that works well with my other cages. 

If any of my readers have more information as to the dating of these cages, please write and let me know.  I don’t have trade catalogs that cover these dates.  I have used patents as well as input from other collectors to date these.

Thank you, as always, for reading this.  Please write to comment or send a picture of your cages.  I am very interested in the ‘later’ cages.  I was going to buy a ‘pounded metal’ one but someone purchased it before I did.  There is a short window of time when the pounded metal ones were made by The Andrew B. Hendryx Co. as well as the Prevue Metal Co. that purchased the Hendryx Co. in the 60s.  That transition is interesting to me.

Have a great day and happy cage "hunting".