BRITISH TOYS

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 175, 21 April 1937, Page 5

BRITISH TOYS

Factories Capture World Markets BRILLIANCE OF DESIGN The toy section at the 8.1. F. this year was larger that it has ever been, and British toy-makers triumphantly consolidated the positions they have won in the toy markets of the world. Dutch buyers gave more generous patronage than they had ever done before to British toy manufacturers — buying mostly "Poppen” (dolls), tbeir houses, hats, furniture, wigs and perambulators, and Muziekaal Speelgoed (easily identified as musical toys). No one can to-day find any-justifica-tion for the charge levelled at British toy-makers years ago —of poor design, poor workmanship, poor ideas, lack of progress. The 8.1. F. toy section delighted and astonished buyers from all the world. Ideas there were by the score, and such the standard of'workmanship and the brilliance and accuracy of the designs, in, for instance, toy soldiers, that canny buyers, like those who trooped over from the great toy stores of the United States, found it advantageous to buy lead models of their “Doughboys” and cowboys and Red Indians from British firms. One of the finest and most fascinating features was the animated Coronation Procession at Messrs. Brittain’s, comprising more than 1000 perfectly modelled lead figures of troops of every kind, every sort of “member of the public,” and personalities in the procession itself. Many U.S. firms pleaded with this firm for replicas of a show which was merely intended at first as a temporary display during the Fair. Working Demanded. Czecho-Slovakia, Lithuania, Scandinavia, and a large number of other Continental countries, as well as Dominion buyers, are clamouring for supplies of “walking” wooden toys, in which British manufacturers now acknowledge no peer. Toys must work to-day. Children all over the world want realism. They get it in the goods which British factories now turn out. There tire changing traffic lights, perfectly modelled ships iu wood which, on direct hits from wooden guns, fly into a dozen pieces, easily put together again; there are meticulously perfect miniatures of luxury cars which India and the United States are buying—one-seaters for young speed fiends, which do 5 m.p.h. and are electrically driven, with a range of 25 ifliles, cost, retail, £35. Model Planes. In model aeroplanes there is a great and entrancing variety for young or older air enthusiasts, pne firm alone has 24 different types of Iplane, all perfect models, up to the,Hawker Hart day bomber, a miracle of silvery speed and elegance. Chromium plating and oxydised silver embellishment have come into the construction of toy furniture. Foreign buyers are evincing the keenest interest in this modernisation of dolls’ furniture. ■ In soft toys British manufacturers lead the world to-day. Comparison with their productions of five years ago shows revolutionary changes. A big seller to all countries at the Fair was the Coronation Lion—a' plush, big-eyed Leo wearing a rakish gilt crown and flying a Union Jack from his perky tail. Two were purchased by the Duke of Kent.