Toy industry

“ Matches, Match Boxes, Cotton Reels, Cocoa Tins, Cigar Boxes, and even Egg Shells comprise the materials from which are evolved Shops, Working Models, Dolls' Furniture, Boats, Steam Engines, Windmills, and scores of other toys dear to the hearts of boys and girls.
Perhaps the chief charm of the occupation is that literally dozens of toys can be made at a cost of less than a penny. Every toy described in this book is practicable, and can be easily made by anyone possessing the smallest amount of handicraft skill. ”

“ He noticed fine private carriages drawn up round corners, waiting for prosperous tradesmen; young men with tennis-bats in their hands, taking prodigiously long strides, eager to get a game of play before dusk; girls who went by twos and threes, chattering, laughing, making funny short quick steps of it, like as if on the dance to reach sweethearts and green lanes. A man selling a mechanical toy—sort of a tin frog that jumped so soon as you put it down—made him smile indulgently. ”

“ Play material smaller than the "Do-with" models and better adapted to this latest period than are either soldiers or paper dolls remains one of the unexplored possibilities for the toy trade of the future. ”

“ And, for a few moments, all that could be heard in Toy Town was the faint sound of the marching feet of the tin soldiers, the rumble of the Rocking Horse and the tinkle of the Calico Clown’s cymbals.
It was close to midnight now—the time [10] when all toys are allowed to do as they please, provided no one sees them. No one must ever look at, or watch, the toys at their play. In fact, no one has ever seen them having fun after dark in the big stores. ”

“ Thousands of orphaned Belgian and French children have been adopted into American homes. In the days to come are we going to force these children to play with German-made toys? God forbid! American toy manufacturers have stripped us of the last vestige of an excuse for the purchase of toys from the Huns. Our factories are making more toys than we ever imported, and they are not the flimsy jim-cracks we formerly bought from abroad. They are largely exercise toys which develop a child's body, or mechanical or structural toys which train the mind. ”

“ The child soon tires of mechanical toys, talking dolls or elaborate doll-houses with which there is nothing he can do. Illustrating this point Joseph Lee says: “Toys, things of convenient size and shape to play with, are indeed essential. But it is what you can do with or imagine about them, not what they themselves can do, that is important.... It is the child’s own achievement, not that of the clever man who made the toy, that counts.” ”

“ The great plate-glass windows stretch down the side of a street, and if you go inside the shop you walk through room after room of beautiful things, all arranged to show to the best advantage. The toy department would be enough to make any little girl or boy happy even to look at it. There are toys large and toys small; engines that can be wound up to run by themselves; horses large enough to ride upon; balls of all colours and sizes; and dolls—oh, the dolls! Dolls black-eyed and brown-eyed and blue-eyed, dolls fair-haired and brown-haired, dolls dressed and undressed. ”

“ It is no less a child's nature to want to do that which is most pleasing to him, than an adult's, so why not encourage this wholesome activity of toy-making to which the child takes as readily as a duck takes to water? It trains the mind to think clearly, the hands to work cleverly, replaces destructive thoughts with constructive ideas, and, in making the boy or girl dependent upon himself or herself for toys, is invaluable in developing resourcefulness. ”

“ However, the desirable kinds of toys will not be manufactured in larger quantities until an enlightened parenthood both demands them and refuses to buy the glittering heart-breakers that look so charming in the shop, but go to pieces in the child's hands.
It is far better to have fewer and better toys than more of an inferior quality. The thing to keep in mind is that a toy is neither an artistic model, an aesthetic ornament, nor a mechanical spectacle, but should be a stimulus to call forth self-activity, invention, ingenuity, imagination, and skill. ”

“ All the little poor children in the neighbourhood used to watch to see when she came into the shop to make their small bargains. She never grumbled while they picked out the prettiest faces that suited their fancy among the halfpenny wooden dolls, and she kept a choice corner of very cheap toys on purpose for all these little ones, who so rarely knew what the pleasure of buying a toy was. ”

“ To those who can afford to procure a constant supply of new and original toys and games, no better means of learning of their appearance can be had than is supplied in the catalogues issued, for the most part gratuitously, or at a very small cost, from time to time, by the leading firms engaged in the toy trade. ”

“ Home-made toys are generally longer lived than store toys because the boy or girl who expends a certain amount of effort producing gives them better care. Home-made toys have a greater value than boughten ones because there is as much fun making them as playing with them. Doing something interesting, getting satisfying results out of the work, putting an idea into tangible form, and having a toy to show of which it can be said, "I made this all myself,"—these are the factors in toy-making so fascinating to boys and girls. ”

“ We were selling at a rate of 15,000 sets per annum.The product is legally defined as a 'chemical experimentation set' but, unfortunately, 'science' still appeals to boys more than girls. Once we changed to predominantly pink packaging and marketed it as a craft activity, we were shocked to see consistent sales of 80,000 to 120,000 sets per annum ever since! Experience has taught us that the success or otherwise of a toy depends largely on the pack design communicating quickly to the consumer whether a toy is best suited to boys or to girls. ”

“ Any series of toys made from the same material—say a series of toys made from match stales or from 'stripwood'—has very limited educational advantages. Toys made from a combination of waste materials are the best—match-boxes, cardboard and wooden boxes of all sizes, mantle-boxes, reels, corks, broom-handles, silver paper, etc., can all play a part in producing an effective, even a beautiful toy. ”

“ Baxter's "Toy Craft" is to furnish definite instructions for the making of toys for boys and girls by the children themselves. Miniature furniture, wooden dolls, carts and animals—of how much greater value is one such plaything actually put together by a child than any number of toys made in a factory or imported from some foreign country? Truly a step forward has been taken in putting before the people a book which will unconsciously instill in the minds of the children the value of the hand-made in preference to the machine-made article. ”

“ Dream pictures these are of snow and moonlight, marsh and forest, the real Germany lying everywhere outside the cities for those who have eyes to see. Even the toy department in an ordinary shop abounds in treasures that never seem to reach England: queer cheap toys made of wood, and not mechanical. It must be a dull child who is content with a mechanical toy, and it is consoling to observe that most children break the mechanism as quickly as possible and then play sensibly with the remains. Many of the toys known to generations of children seemed to be as popular as ever, and quite unchanged. ”

“ And the workman who made these toys was a funny little dwarf with a green suit and a red cap and a long white beard.
"This is the land of wonderful toys
That are made for good little girls and boys,
Talking dolls and horses that run,
Everything here is made for fun,
But only good little girls and boys
Can have our wonderful, beautiful toys."
"Heigh ho," said Mary Louise, "what next, I wonder," and she looked at a toy regiment of wooden soldiers marching down the street. ”

“ A great advantage in having toys grouped about some central idea is that several children can play at the same time and each particular toy stays in use much longer than it would otherwise.
I have spoken of your little boy as the manager of the toy farm, but in these days, when women are entering every profession, there is no reason to suppose that it is not your little girl who will need those things. ”

“ But, also, little children flatten their noses on the window of the toy-shop. They point their thumbs through their woolly mittens in a sharp rivalry of choice. Their unspent nickels itch for large investment. Extravagant dimes bounce around their pockets. But their ears are cold, and they jiggle on one leg against a frosty toe.
Here in the toy-shop is a tin motor-car. ”

“ They are the tools with which children ply their trades; the instruments with which they carry on their professions; the goods which they buy and sell in their business, and the paraphernalia with which they conduct their toy society. They are more than this. They are the animals which serve them, the associates who entertain them, the children who comfort them and bring joy to the mimic home.
Toys are nature's first teachers. The child with his little shovels, spades and hoes, learns his first lessons in agriculture ”

“ They are lined with stalls of metal-workers, sellers of incense, candles, violet lotus flowers, jewels, sandalwood mementoes, and souvenirs innumerable, among which the most fascinating to the stranger are grotesque toy figures, with fantastic movable limbs, which would make an easy fortune at a London toy-shop, and before long will doubtless be exported and gradually lose their exotic charm. ”

“ Moreover, by the side of these dolls scientists have unearthed other playthings that children still crave: doll's furniture, animal toys and toys with wheels, illustrating the methods of transportation of those early days.
These same scientists claim that the custom of playing with dolls and other toys is as old as the world itself and that playthings are, and always have been, just as necessary a constituent of human health and development as either food or medicine. ”

“ I thought, my wife, that the end of life had come for me when I knew that I should have to sit here in the shop the rest of the days of my life and make toys for children. Now I know that it was but the beginning. He taught me. There could be nothing greater. The toys will live in the homes of the children. They will find them, too, the toys he bought for his boy—after he has gone. But not every one will know the work that they have done. Nor will all the toys the President left be so easily discovered.... ”

“ I fear the price of the merchandise which the pretty and well-conducted female assistants at the stalls have to sell. I have been given to understand that incredible prices are charged for India-rubber balls, and that the quotations for drums, hares-and-tabors, and Noah’s arks, are ruinously high. I have yet another reason for not patronising the Pantheon as a toy mart. It frequently happens that I feel slightly misanthropic and vicious in my toy-dealing excursions, and that my juvenile friends have sudden fits of naughtiness, and turn out to be anything but agreeable companions. ”

“ Each pattern sheet presents a particular class of toys including Jointed Animals, Animal Rocker Toys, Wheeled Platform Toys, Lever Toys, String Toys, Freak Toys, Novelties, etc. While intended to be worked out in wood many are equally well adapted for cardboard. Toy-making at home from these patterns is a fine hobby for the boy from six to twelve years of age, and in the school is a fascinating manual training activity. These patterns are based upon the author's long experience in the teaching of toy-making in public and private schools and summer camps. ”

“ In style, finish and dress of our figures, we have made very many improvements and have added several new kinds to our list. In the partiality which has been universally shown in favor of our Toys, and the constantly increasing demand for them, we find an incentive to more than sustain their reputation in the future.
The Toys represented in this Catalogue are all mechanical and are set in motion, on being wound up, by patent movements. ”

“ I think boys' toys are much the nicest. Wouldn't she like a tin train?"
"If I was you, I'd choose a doll, or else a nice box of toys. You might get a box of bricks, Miss Hecla; or else a sort of farmyard; or a map of them squares, with pictures on their sides, that's got to be put together."
"But I want a lot of things; not only one thing. That's so stupid. I want it to be a real s'prise packet. Don't you know? I mean to get a ninepence-three-farthings toy, and two penny toys, and two threepenny toys, and one thing for sixpence, and one thing for a shilling. ”

“ If you cross the tent you will see the toy-packers at the other side.'
[Pg 102]
The children's eyes sparkled.
'Toys,' they repeated. 'Do you make toys down here?'
The gnome nodded.
'That's our principal dealing with your world,' he said. 'You don't mean to say you thought all the toys your shops are full of are made by clumsy human fingers! You should see our toy factory about Christmas-time. Santa Claus has a time of it, choosing and settling, I can tell you.'
Hildegarde and Leonore were breathless with eagerness.
'Oh, how interesting!' they exclaimed. 'Mayn't we see the toy factory? ”

“ Nothing takes better in the way of articles for this kind of trade than some new toy. Whether a toy will probably have a good run can be determined by these venders in a very short time. If it takes well, crowds gather around him, and he does a thriving business, making money for himself as well as for the inventor. If, however, the article is not wanted, the vender very soon finds it out, and looks for other wares.
FIG. 1.—ACROBAT WITH MERCURY WEIGHT.
Some of the toys are scientific, others are not. ”