Whirligig comes to mind. There's probably a term for the this type with two sawyers.
Casey

Sometimes these things are fairly pricey, when you find them in shops.....depending on what it's made of , and when it's made, they may be considered 'folk art'...I can't get any sort of idea, from the picture, what it's made of, or an indication of age...or, if it's a one of a kind handmade, or commercially produced.

Thanks for your input. It is made of wood and is hand painted. The paint has a nice patina that looks like it has worn thru the ages. It's definitely not a new piece.

I am afraid it is nearly impossible to tell the age of your toy.

in 1956 I was 9 yrs old and for my birthday dad gave me a brand new craftsman scrollsaw. My uncle worked in the cabinet shop at our local lumber yard so once a week I made a cross town trek of about a mile to the lumber yard with may little red wagon and got a huge stack of scrap cabinet grade plywood from their waste bin. They were all small pieces under 18" square, but when all was said and done I would probably have the equivalent of 3 full sheets of plywood on each load.

I would then sit down for hours every night cutting out all varieties of household knicknac shelves, desk trays, jewelry trees, wood toys and lawn and garden ornaments. Some of the projects I finished and gave to people as gifts but mostly I would make the projects up in kits, which I placed in plastic bags and sold to the local cub scout and brownie leaders to have projects for their meetings. Not having a copy machine at my disposal I made a "hectograph", which is simply a baking pan of knox gelatin and glycerin. once the gelatin is set you can draw or write out your design using and indelible pencil and press it on the surface of the gelatin for a few hours. (all the writing must be done in reverse). You then lay a piece of typing paper on the gelatin and wipe it with a cloth to make sure the paper is in full contact with the gelatin and in moments you can lift the paper off to find a mimeograph type copy on the paper. Once you have made a sufficient number of copies you warm the pan in the oven for a few minutes to melt the gelatin and the image is erased. You then chill the gelatin and start over with a new image.

I remember that as a kid I was getting the outrageous price of $1.50 for one of those animated lawn ornaments in kit form and $2.75 for a completed one.

Here it is 52 years later and I still have a scrollsaw and i still spend many a leisure hour cutting those things out and assembling them.

About 30 years ago, we were given one of a football player, painted in appropriate colors. But, the legs were assembled backwards...and after a few windy days he began to cut down his support post! Seems that the plywood was harder than the pine support post!
But I suspect the one pictured is made of metal andw as attached to a weather vane.
Linda C

I have seen examples of this type of antique art on the "Roadshow", and some can be quite valuable if they are authentic. They generally rotate into the wind indicating wind direction.

As an aside, the noise created by these whirligigs can often drive away ground moles!

.....the owner said it was wood, and painted, not metal. And, I don't really think they were ever used as weather vanes.. those had a N S E W feature of some sort, necessary to tell which way the wind was blowing...these sawing men, or any of the many other types, were strictly for fun.

You are only partly correct.
See below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Whirlygigs

My dictionary says a weather vane is "a strip of wood or metal, often shaped like a bird, fish, etc, and fastened to a high spire, where it turns with and hence shows the direction of the wind...another name is a weathercock". Thus, the whirligig does not fit this definition...not fastened to hiph places. The definition of a whirligig is interesting, though, and has nothing to do with the wind...it's anything that turns around rapidly, even a child's toy that sins or whirls.... a child's top is considered a whirligig, as is a merry-go-round. Who KNEW!

The whirlygig shown is designed to be placed atop a cupola or roof or on a fence post and is constructed to head into the wind so that the propeller turns and makes the figures move. See the vanes on the tail? They are designed to catch the wind...and also to indicate wind direction.
A weather vane indicates the direction of the wind. Whether it has a fish a statue of Ben Franklin or a man chopping wood, it indicates the wind direction. and in the case of a whirlygig, the wind speed.
The N S E W is not necessary to tell which way the wind is blowing, unless you don't know which way is north.
Linda C

Here is a link that might be useful: more whirly gigs than you could imagine

Thanks for all the information everybody. I loved the you tube clip, Linda! Who knew?!?