The Ferdinand Strauss Toy Company

Wednesday November 16, 2016
Cloudy with Sunny Periods
9 Celsius  48 Fahrenheit

The Ferdinand Strauss  Toy Company

Ferdinand Strauss Co. was founded in New York City. Strauss specialized in importing tin mechanical toys and produced toys from 1914 to 1927. Strauss hired Louis Marx, whom later founded the Marx toy company. Strauss produced (wind-up) toys for the Abraham & Strauss Department Stores and was a pioneer in the friction tin toy industry.*

* Courtesy Fabtintoys.com

The company manufactured pressed tin toys that  had colour lithography on them.  Many of the toys also had wind-up mechanisms in order to have them move by themselves. In the early 1900's, European toy manufacturers had already perfected colour lithography, and were manufacturing many tin toys and pressed steel toys for the North American market. I was surprised to find out that toys from metal were being manufactured during WWI. In WWII, most of the  toy manufacturers had to switch to wood in order to save metals for the war effort. THe toy manufacturers retooled from toys to manufacturing parts for all kinds of military machines.

Most of the toys usually are less that 12" ( 310 mm) , but as you can see, 

have stood up well all these years.

I couldn't find much information on Ferdinand Strauss or his toy company, so if 
anyone out there has information, would you please share it with m,e and my readers.

Please click here to visit this outstanding American Auctioneer

Most of the Strauss toys are mechanical wind-up toys. 

I would assume that since wind-up toys were popular at the time, 

Mr. Strauss decided to produce lots of them.

Thanks for dropping by,

and as always,

Have a great part of the day or night,

Wherever you may be.

Stacey Bindman

toysearcher@gmail.com