The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1899-02-04
THE TOY TRADE.
IL Very Largely Supplied by HONS
Manufacture The Foreign
supply.


in the United States having total
capital of 81, 100000. They turn out in
a year about $4,000, 900 worth of toys,
the material used in their construction
being worth about one-half that sum.
The importation of toys from other
countries amounts in year to about
So, 100000, so that it may be said gen.
orally that the entire output of foreign
and domestic toys for the American
market reaches the value of about So,
10000 a year, though the selling price
at retail of such articles is, of course,
considerably more.
By the federal census of 1890 there
were in the United States at that time
1S,500,000 persons between the ages of
five and seventeen, and taking the ages
of children between five and twelve the
number was about 12,0O0,000. This
would give the average expense for the
children of the United States~at so
cents each year for toys, though it is
an average not impartially distributed
and not uniform in any state. The
higher grade of toys, the more intri-
cate mechanical toys, such as talking
dolls, automatic soldiers, steam cars,
boats and animal groups, are imported
from abroad, and the chief country of
supply is Germany, from which the i'm
portations in 1897 were So, 600, 900 of the
$4,000, 900 of all countries.
Germany has retained for many years
this peculiar distinction of furnishing
toys for the children of every country,
and it has suffered of late years no
diminution of the trade. The center of
the toy interest of Germany is the town
of Nuremberg, and the chief market of
expectation is the city of Hamburg.
Following Germany as an exporter of
toys is France with total in year of
about 100000 worth, an almost insig-
nificant figure when compared with the
export of Germany, but which would
be even smaller but for the fact that
what are known to the toy trade as
"Paris dolls" are not duplicated sue
cessfully elsewhere, and in the con-
struction of them the French me-
chanics seem to excel. To a small ex-
tent the Italian doll makers rival the
French, but the total importation of
toys in 1897 from all European coun-
tries, Germany and France excepted,
was less than 100000, and from coun-
tries not in Europe less than $25, 1000.
The Germans have peculiar knack
for toy making, and another advantage
which they enjoy in the Bavarian and
Saxon provinces, from which chiefly
toys come, is the cheapness of labor,
the artists and designers receiving SIS
to $25 week each, while the pay of the
girls who do the mechanical work of
preparing the toys for market varies
from rs to so cents day.
For the cheaper grades of toys, that
is toys in which the chief article is
wood. the American home supply is ade-
quate. The toy-making business here
gives employment to about 1000 per-
sons, of whom nearly one-third are in
the state of New York. Toys are also
made in Massachusetts,, Pennsylvania
and New Jersey, but very few in Con-
necticut, fewer IN the west, and prac-
tically none at ali in the south, though
there is one toy factory in the state of
Kentucky. Whatever be the condition
of the toy business for manufacturing,
it is one which allows of large profits,
and which entails, sometimes, large
losses to the retailer.
As articles of merchandise, toys are
very perishable. They break easily;
the fashion changes in them often;
they are salable only at certain times
in the year, and then only in certain
grades, and the carrying of ga large
stock" entails obligations upon dealer
which he finds it sometimes difficult to
meet. But in holiday season, under
normal demand, the percentage of
profit is large. 1t is largest on foreign
made toys, fact which may account
for the big importation. one-half of the
total supply.-N. Y. Sun.