TOY SUPPLIES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 141, 18 December 1928, Page 30

TOY SUPPLIES

! Increased Production the World Over } i ' ' ■

On the production side Simla' Glaus has completed his work tlio world over for the coming Christmas. Tlie uccuniulated stocks of toys are stored away in convenient warehouses and under innumerable counters, awaiting children's petitions to him or indulgent parents. In shops samples strut and wag or dDrnbly look on at the page-Ant of colour and action scoot around on their tracks or shoot through the air in toy procints, amplified and glorified for the season. These aro the manifestations of a world-scattered industry that has never been so important as at present; never have so many nations gone in seriously for producing playthings. Since the war they have been trying to make up for those years when the regular supply of toys was cut off, and countries with little or no experience had to try their hand .at making them themselves if the work of Santa Claus was to go on. The Gfcfman toy industry has revived, and now its exports arc larger than before 1914^ Elsewhere toy industries that were'created or expanded during tho conflict have continued to gain ground. This is particularly true of America. Look into her workshops and you will find more and busier toymakers there than in any other country. Tho United States, however, makes toys primarily for herself, whereas Germany makes them primarily for export. Japan holds third place among the toymakers of the world, and the bulk of hers, like Germany's, arc_ fashioned for export. Third comes" Czechoslovakia, next France, and then England. To a degree toymaking among the different countries is competitive, yet each national product has its own plaeo in the world toy scheme because of the individual characteristics of its output. Typically Japanese toys, for instance, are fragile paper novelties, beautiful and bright, inexpensive celluloid brifles, tiny tea seta essentially Japanese in colouring and design. Typically German toys are mechanical, ingenious, and cheap. American, toys go in for superiority in material, workmanship, and

design, and most of them aro of the more expensive grade. There is 'striking contrast between the types of toys turned out by the Japl ancso -and tho Americans. Toymakiug in Japan is largely a household industry, carried on by housewives and children, or else it is a by-product of ortlluloid and rubbc/ factories. Thus are produced quantities of baby rattles, balls, bottles, animals, and dolls of celluloid; paper parasols, lanterns, and holiday favours, rubber balls, squeakers, and funny faces; hobby horses of wood, tin toys, and walking dolls. Tho American toy industry, on tho other hand, is carried on in large factories, often highly specialised, and devoted wholly to toys. ' There aro American manufacturers whose sole line consists of dolls' stockings, shoes, dresses, or linen. The manufacture of doll furniture is almost as highly developed as that of real furniture. The production of doll carriages is valued at 2,815,000 dollars, while the production of real baby carriages, not counting go-carts and sulkies, amounts to 3,000,000 dollars. Dolls comprise one-sixth of tho total toy production iv the United States, and the evolution of the doll in the last ten years from a stiff, jointed, expressionless object to a pliant, life-like model of a child is attributed to tho ingenuity of the American manufacturer. Moro important even than the manufacture of dolls is that of velocipedes, automobiles, wagons, scooters, and the like. They represent one-fourth of tho American toy industry. Electrical toys, particularly electric trains and all the equipment of such miniature railroad systems, and edncational toys, such as construction sets, also take an important place. A rapidly developing national toy .industry is that of Czecho-Slovakia. It is carried on chiefly by cottage workers who are now receiving aid from the Government in organising the industry, establishing joint sales offices, hiring directing artists and starting trade schools. Their specialty is wooden toys, to which . factories add_ musical instruments and metal playthings.