The Hafner Manufacturing Company was a maker of tinplate clockwork-powered O gauge toy trains, based in Chicago, Illinois, from 1914 to 1951. It was formed when its founder, William Frederick Hafner, a co-founder of American Flyer, left the company in favor of creating his own company.
The reasons for Hafner departing American Flyer, the company he helped found, are lost to history. In the book Greenberg's Guide to American Flyer Prewar O Gauge, author Alan R. Schuweiler cites three possibilities: Hafner may not have known what official position he held in the company, he may have sought a larger share of the company, and he may have been passed over in favor of his co-founder's son, William Ogden Coleman, Jr.
During its peak periods, it employed as many as 150 people. While Hafner was able to quickly gain distribution from catalog retailer G. Sommers & Co., it never received the widespread distribution of the so-called "Big Four" of American Flyer, Lionel, Dorfan, and Ives.
The early Hafner trains bore the Overland Flyer brand and closely resembled competing offerings from American Flyer. As late as 1917 a car appeared in American Flyer's product line that closely resembled a Hafner design. This suggests the two companies worked together in their early days, or that one or both companies copied designs from the other. Since American Flyer was known to have purchased rolling stock from German competitor Bing, it is possible that American Flyer also purchased from Hafner, or vice versa.
Unlike most its competitors, not including Marx, Hafner survived the Great Depression without making significant changes to its product line, since it always specialized in inexpensive train sets that sold for US$3 or less. World War II proved a greater challenge. Since toy production was prohibited after 1942, toy companies had to adapt. While Marx, Lionel and the A. C. Gilbert Company were able to secure government contracts to manufacture items with military applications, Hafner lacked the tooling and manufacturing expertise to do the same. Hafner survived by forming a symbiotic relationship with the Fox Brewing Company. Fox was unable to secure bottlecaps from any other source, while Hafner was unable to make much else.
William Hafner's son John Hafner took over the company in 1933, but the elder Hafner stayed involved with the company until his death in 1944. John Hafner ran the company until 1951, when he sold the company to All Metal Products Company, the makers of the Wyandotte brand of toys. In a 1992 interview, Hafner said he was glad to get out of the business, citing increased difficulty competing with larger toy manufacturers.
Hafner's new ownership faced the same difficulties, and by 1956 was out of business and in liquidation. Louis Marx and Company purchased the Hafner tooling, then shipped it to its subsidiary in Mexico, where it was used to produce inexpensive windup and battery-powered sets. Many Marx collectors believe Louis Marx's primary motivation for the purchase was to eliminate another competitor from the marketplace.
The clockwork locomotives and colorful lithographed tinplate rolling stock placed Hafner at the low end of the market. Unlike most of its competitors, Hafner never created an electric train. Any Hafner electric trains that exist today were retrofitted with a motor from another manufacturer. Electrifying Hafner locomotives by outfitting them with surplus Marx electric motors is a somewhat common practice.
Both Hafner and Marx were known to use "recycled" lithography, a cost-saving practice where the tinplate from defective print runs was flipped over and printed on the blank side and used. The result of this is hidden graphics on the interior of cars and accessories. In addition to re-using its own defective sheets, Hafner would sometimes buy defective sheets from other companies as scrap and use it. Some Hafner collectors specialize in collecting these variations. Additionally, some metal products from the mid-20th century such as flashlights have surfaced with Hafner lithography inside, which indicates that Hafner sold its surplus or unusable print runs for use in the manufacture of products that would be painted.
Lionel, LLC is an American designer and importer of toy trains and model railroads that is headquartered in Concord, North Carolina. Its roots lie in the 1969 purchase of the Lionel product line from the Lionel Corporation by cereal conglomerate General Mills and subsequent purchase in 1986 by businessman Richard P. Kughn forming Lionel Trains, Inc. in 1986. The Martin Davis Investment Group (Wellspring) bought Lionel Trains, Inc. in 1995 and renamed it Lionel, LLC.
O scale is a scale commonly used for toy trains and rail transport modelling. Introduced by German toy manufacturer Märklin around 1900, by the 1930s three-rail alternating current O gauge was the most common model railroad scale in the United States and remained so until the early 1960s. In Europe, its popularity declined before World War II due to the introduction of smaller scales.
Louis Marx and Company was an American toy manufacturer in business from 1919 to 1980. They made many types of toys including tin toys, toy soldiers, toy guns, action figures, dolls, toy cars and model trains. Some of their notable toys are Rock'em Sock'em Robots, Big Wheel tricycles, Disney branded dollhouses and playsets based on TV shows like Gunsmoke. Its products were often imprinted with the slogan "One of the many Marx toys, have you all of them?"
American Flyer is a brand of toy train and model railroad manufactured in the United States.
Standard Gauge, also known as wide gauge, was an early model railway and toy train rail gauge, introduced in the United States in 1906 by Lionel Corporation. As it was a toy standard, rather than a scale modeling standard, the actual scale of Standard Gauge locomotives and rolling stock varied. It ran on three-rail track whose running rails were 2+1⁄8 in apart.
The Ives Manufacturing Company, an American toy manufacturer from 1868 to 1932, was the largest manufacturer of toy trains in the United States from 1910 until 1924, when Lionel Corporation overtook it in sales.
A toy train is a toy that represents a train. It is distinguished from a model train by an emphasis on low cost and durability, rather than scale modeling. A toy train can be as simple as a toy that can run on a track, or it might be operated by electricity, clockwork or live steam. It is typically constructed from wood, plastic or metal. Many of today's steam trains might be considered as real ones as well, providing they are not strictly scale or not enough detailed ones in favor of a robustness appropriate for children or an inexpensive production.
K-Line Electric Trains is a brand name of O gauge and S gauge model railway locomotives, rolling stock, and buildings. Formerly the brand name under which Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based MDK Inc. sold its products, K-Line was then acquired by Sanda Kan, a Chinese toy manufacturer that formerly acted as K-Line's subcontractor. Sanda Kan had licensed the use of the K-Line brand and intellectual property to Lionel. More recently, the Lionel license expired, and Sanda Kan sold the dies to several other companies, with some going to each of Atlas, Bachmann, and RMT.
S scale is a model railroad scale modeled at 1:64 scale, S scale track gauge is 22.48 mm (0.885 in). S gauge trains are manufactured in both DC and AC powered varieties. S gauge is not to be confused with toy train standard gauge, a large-scale standard for toy trains in the early part of the 20th century.
Unique Art Manufacturing Company was an American toy company, founded in 1916, based in Newark, New Jersey that made inexpensive toys, including wind-up mechanical toys, out of lithographed tin. One of its early products was a wind-up toy featuring two tin boxers.
Dorfan was an American toy company based in Newark, New Jersey from 1924 to 1934.
Hornby Hobbies Limited is a British-owned scale model manufacturing company which has been focused on model railways. Its roots date back to 1901 in Liverpool, when founder Frank Hornby received a patent for his Meccano construction toy. The first clockwork train was produced in 1920. In 1938, Hornby launched its first OO gauge train. In 1964, Hornby and Meccano were bought by their competitor, Tri-ang Railways, and sold when Tri-ang went into receivership. Hornby Railways became independent again in the 1980s, and became listed on the London Stock Exchange, but due to financial troubles reported in June 2017, became majority owned by British turnaround specialist Phoenix Asset Management.
Bachmann Industries is a Bermuda-registered, Chinese-owned company, globally headquartered in Hong Kong; specialising in model railroading.
Bing or Gebrüder Bing was a German toy company founded in 1863 in Nuremberg, Germany by two brothers, Ignaz Bing and Adolf Bing, initially producing metal kitchen utensils, but best remembered for its extensive lines of model trains and live steam engines.
MTH Electric Trains is an American toy train and model railroad designer, importer, and manufacturer. A privately held company based in Columbia, Maryland, MTH is known as Mike's Train House.
Williams Electric Trains was an American toy train and model railroad manufacturer, based in Columbia, Maryland. Williams was sold to Kader via their subsidiary Bachmann Industries in October 2007, and is now identified as "Williams by Bachmann."
Lionel Corporation was an American toy manufacturer and holding company of retailers that was founded in 1900 and operated for more than 120 years. It started as an electrical novelties company. Lionel specialized in various products throughout its existence. Toy trains and model railroads were its main claim to fame. Lionel trains have been produced since 1900, and their trains were admired by model railroaders around the world for the solidity of their construction and the authenticity of their detail. During its peak years in the 1950s, the company sold $25 million worth of trains per year.
All Metal Products Company was an American toy company founded in 1920 and based in Wyandotte, Michigan for most of its history. It produced inexpensive pressed metal toys under the Wyandotte brand name, and was the largest manufacturer of toy guns in the US for several decades in the 20th century. The company's slogan was "Wyandotte Toys are Good and Safe." To keep costs down, the company used scrap and surplus raw materials whenever possible, often manufacturing their toys from scrap metal obtained from local auto factories.
The Boucher Manufacturing Company was an American toy company that specialized in toy boats and toy trains. It is best remembered today as the last manufacturer of Standard Gauge/Wide gauge toy trains until the much smaller McCoy Manufacturing revived the old standard in the mid-1960s.
A tin toy, or tin lithograph toy, is a mechanical toy made out of tinplate and colorfully painted by chromolithography to resemble primarily a character or vehicle.