Long May They Wave

QUESTION: A friend of mine gave me several circus pennants that she found at a yard sale. She knew that I liked items from the circus and thought I might like them. I have several other items that I’ve purchased as souvenirs at circuses over the years. Are these circus items collectible, and if so, are these pennants worth anything?

ANSWER: Americans have been in love with the circus for over 200 years. And for more than half that time have been buying souvenirs to remind them of that brief moment of fantasy when the circus came to town.

Circus pennants have been sold at the circus for nearly 100 years.  They promoted both the circus selling them and some of the individual acts and stars. Just about all the famous circus acts have had their names blazoned across a pennant at one time or other. Hopalong Cassidy, who made his name on television in the 1950s, toured with the Cole Brothers Circus. A pennant with his likeness is worth a cool $150 today. The navy blue felt pennant with a white illustration of Hoppy on his horse, Topper, features his name in rope script along with the Cole Brothers Circus name.

Roy Rogers had his own show, the Roy Rogers Thrill Circus, in the late 1940s. He’s pictured on a 28-inch pennant, today valued at about $110, riding a bucking bronco.

The history of flying a pennant dates back to the days of chivalry.  As time went on, they became associated with the naval war ships and eventually sports teams. Essentially, a pennant in the general sense is an elongated triangular commemorative flag. Traditionally, pennant manufacturers made them of felt and fashioned them in the official colors of a particular team. They usually displayed the team’s mascot symbol, as well as the team name on the pennants. Workers stitched or silk-screened the images onto the pennants in contrasting colors. As sports pennants became popular, other organizations like circuses began selling them as souvenirs.

But for circuses, the pennant was all about promotion. P.T. Barnum was the undisputed master of that. In 1872, he decided to increase the size of his show.  By adding a second ring in a larger tent, he could double his capacity. He scoured the world for unusual acts to present to make his circus better than all the others. Eventually, Barnum added a center ring, and began promoting the acts appearing in it. He used pennants and other souvenirs to promote these acts so people would come back year after year to see his show.

In the early 20th century, the five Ringling Brothers from Baraboo, Wisconsin entered the circus arena and everything changed. In the proud tradition of overstatement, they superseded even P.T. Barnum and soon their shows became the Greatest Show on Earth. It alone is responsible for many of the circus collectible items on the market today.

And while Ringling Brothers souvenirs are collectible, most collectors seek out the more obscure little shows that traveled the back roads of middle America. To them, these represent the real world of the circus.
Read about the history of the American circus poster.

A Spoonful of Memories

QUESTION: I was recently going through a box of junk that belonged to my grandfather and in it I discovered a silver spoon with the name Rolex on the handle. It had the Rolex crown at the top with the word Rolex under it. On the back it said Bucherer Switzerland. It this any affiliation with the watch company? What can you tell me about this spoon?

ANSWER: You found a Rolex souvenir spoon, given to the purchaser of a Rolex watch from Bucherer Jewelers in Lucerne, Switzerland. Customers only received one of these spoons after they bought a Rolex. Bucherer never sold the spoons separately.

Besides its main store in Lucerne, Buckerer has outlets in major luxury hotels in other cities. These hotels often gave their guests silverplated Rolex spoons as a welcome gift, hoping that they would purchase a Rolex to take home. Though Rolex Geneva wholly endorses the marketing effort by Bucherer, the company doesn’t make the spoons.

The spoons feature the names of eight different cities—Lucerne, Lugano, Basel, Zurich, Interlaken, Geneva, and others—where Bucherer has a store. The Lucerne spoon is the most common. The one marked "New York" and with a Statue of Liberty motif is the hardest to find because Bucherer no longer has a New York City store. The jewelry company has been handing out the Rolex spoons since the 1950s.

Because there are thousands of these silver-plated spoons available, they usually sell for under $15, with the older, rarer examples selling for $25-35.

Sterling silver and silver-plated souvenir spoons have been around since the late 16th century in Europe. The first ones served as religious souvenirs. Made of either silver or gold and often encrusted with jewels, they also served as a form of currency.

The first souvenir spoons in the United States acted as first gifts to babies by their sponsors at christenings. The idea was that a child no sooner learned to feed himself, using his own spoon, than he began to acquire knowledge.

In 1887, as souvenir spoons became the fad in European cities, Daniel Low, of Salem, Mass., made a trip to Europe where he purchased spoons from skilled craftsmen. From these, he conceived the idea of a spoon showing the traditions and legends of Salem. His son, Seth F. Low, designed the first "witch" spoon. Its handle carries the figure of a witch, the word "Salem," and three witch pins similar to those
preserved in the courthouse at Salem.

Low’s witch spoon launched the souvenir spoon craze of the late 19th-century in this country. It was the first to be made in this country from a special die, of a design suggestive of some particular place.

Victorian women loved serving tea and used souvenir spoons whenever they had guests. The spoons also served as conversation pieces with after-dinner coffee and other beverages. They also became badges of travel as Victorians began to travel and attend world expositions.

The Rolex spoons, however, fall into the advertising category. Displaying such a spoon indicates that the owner or someone in the home had purchased a Rolex watch, which for some is a status symbol in itself. 

Less Work for Mother

QUESTION: I recently purchased a box lot of old kitchen gadgets at an estate sale. Some I recognize and others I don’t. What types of gadgets did women use in the kitchen? Are some of these worth anything?

ANSWER: Kitchen gadgets are a popular collectible. And what’s interesting about them is that most are still usable in today’s kitchen. Even with all the electric and electronic devices available to today’s cooks, there are just some things that need to be done by hand, preferably with some sort of gadget. The proliferation of gadgets advertised on T.V. attests to this, even now.

Once upon a time the kitchen was a place where every member of the family gathered informally to take in the daily chores: cooking, weaving, butter making, canning, potato peeling, herb drying, baking, and dish washing. It was always a place of wonderful smells, textures, and colors. For many decades kitchen gadgets could be found to make work easier, to fill a drawer, sit on a shelf or counter top.

The Victorian Age ushered in many useful kitchen gadgets. But during the 1920's through the 1940's, large and small companies manufactured literally hundreds of these gadgets, trying to help make kitchen work easier.

Remember Grandma's cookies? Does your box contain any? Collectors seek them out today. There are all sorts of shapes, sizes, and styles. Some had plain wooden handles, others were painted red or green. Plus, every housewife had a biscuit or doughnut cutter. There were even revolving cookie cutters with green wooden handles.

What could be better than homemade pie with homemade crust? Pie crimpers are collectibles now. Most pie crimpers had wooden handles and resembled small versions of today's pizza cutters. Of course, there are many other baking gadgets like dough blenders, pie lifters, rolling pins, and spatulas.

Before food processors and electric beaters, there were efficient hand and mechanical beaters. Among these were a variety of wooden handled spiral whisks, flat wire whips, and, of course, those very efficient rotary beaters. The forerunner to the food processor had to be glass pitcher beaters which came in all shapes and sizes.
 
With the invention of bottles, jars, and cans came openers. Let’s face it, you couldn't have a can you couldn’t open. Some bottle, can, and jar openers were an all-in-one gadget. The double-handled opener is still a great standby and standard item in many kitchens. Remember the one mounted to the wall with a handle you cranked to open a can? Jars had their own openers called jar lifters or wrenches. They sort of looked like surgeon's devices. And while you can find modern, technically improved versions of these gadgets, the old ones work just as well.

Old choppers and mincers are also popular collectibles. Some of the more popular have wooden handles and stainless steel curved blades. Many of the old ones were made of glass, wood, or steel, not plastic, making them more durable. Some glass jar choppers and mincers had handles to turn, making the work easier and faster. Of course, don’t forget the grinders mounted to the corner of the table. Simply by putting almost anything into the wide opening at the top and turning the handle, you could grind meat, nuts, berries, etc.

Graters, ice cream scoops, ice picks, slicers, juicers, peelers, knives, sharpeners, mashers, ricers, strainers, sifters, scoops, scales, and ladles re also popular collectibles. The list is almost endless.

To make sure some of your kitchen gadgets are really collectible, first note their condition. It’s got to be good—no rust, peeling paint, or missing parts. Second, look for trademarks. Some are wonderfully descriptive, such as The Handy Andy juicer, Hi Speed egg beater, Juice-0-Mat, Chi Chop, Drip-O-Lator, Presto, and Surry Suzy.

Kitchen gadgets are part of our past, a past when the kitchen really was the center of the home.

Drinking With Both Hands

QUESTION: I recently purchased a lovely handleless cup and saucer at an antique show. The dealer couldn’t tell me much about it except that it’s called a tea bowl. It has a beautiful landscape scene on it in a sort of lavender color. What can you tell me about this piece?

ANSWER: What you have is indeed a transferware tea bowl, made in the Staffordshire area of England in the early to mid-19th century.

Before the development of the handled teacup, the British upper classes drank their tea from expensive imported Chinese porcelain tea bowls and saucers. Owning a porcelain cup became a mark of high social status. In fact, many members of British nobility posed for portraits holding their favorite cup and saucer. The teacup or bowl was so important that most people usually carried their own to parties in special leather and satin carrying cases.

The cup, as it's known today, with a handle on the side, wasn't introduced until the 18th century.
Prior to that, hostesses and servants poured tea into a cup with no handles. The person drinking the hot tea then poured it, in small amounts, into a deep saucer and sipped from the saucer. Pouring a small amount into the saucer allowed it to cool just the bit. Also, on cold winter days, the handless tea bowl acted as a hand warmer.

It wasn’t until Josiah Wedgwood and Josiah Spode perfected the mass production of earthenware and porcelain did handled teacups become popular.

At about the same time, English pottery makers in the Staffordshire region introduced a new decorative method, known as  "decalcomania," in which workers applied printed decals or transfers onto  pottery and porcelain wares. This enabled potteries to produce cups and saucers carrying social, political,  and advertising slogans.

The process starts with an engraved copper plate similar to those used for making paper engravings.  The engraver traced the outline onto thin tissue paper and then reproduced it on a sheet of copper using homemade carbon paper. He engraved over this outline with a V-shaped groove and added the details and areas of shading using lines or dots. The idea of using dots, or stipple punching, rather than lines came later in the 18th century. The engraver found the right depth by trial and error, so he took a first print or proof before he reworked the lines and dots to deepen them if necessary. The deeper the engraving, the deeper the deposits of color, thus the darker the result. Engravers created early designs with lines and in uniform dark blue, but as the technique of engraving improved so engravers achieved different tonal qualities and printed in pink, green, lavender, brown, and black inks.

Workers, using inked copper plates would print the pattern onto tissue paper, which then transferred the wet ink to the white ceramic surface. They then fired the ceramic piece in a low temperature kiln to fix the pattern. This could be done over or under the glaze, but the underprinting method was more durable. The process produced fine lines similar to the engraved prints in old books. Before transfer printing, pottery workers handpainted the ceramics, a laborious and costly process.

During the printing process, the printer kept the plate warm by placing it on a circular iron plate or backstone. He then applied the ink to the copper plate, making sure to rub the ink into every dot and line. After scraping off the surplus color, he removed any film of color by rubbing the surface with a corduroy-faced pad. When the  copper plate was clean, he laid the tissue paper coated with a mixture of soft soap and water and passed it through the press's rollers. He then passed the printed image, now in reverse—unlike regular engravings that begin in reverse and appear correct on printing—on to the transfer team, consisting of the transferrer, apprentice, and cutter.

The cutter removed the excess paper leaving only the design pieces. The transferrer laid these pieces, colored by cobalt oxide, on to the ware after its first or biscuit firing, then dipped it in glaze and refired it. A design with an overall pattern would have the center applied first and the border around the rim afterwards. The tackiness of the oily print held it in place while the apprentice rubbed it down vigorously with a stiff-bristled brush using a little soft soap as lubricant.

The apprentice then soaked the earthenware in a tub of water to soften the paper, which he removed by sponging, the oil-based color being unaffected by the water. After drying, an assistant placed the ware into the hardening kiln to fire at 1,250-1,290 F. to remove the oils and secure the color. Afterwards, another worker glazed the piece and placed it into the kiln to be   refired at 1,940-2,010° F.

Engraving for transfer printing reached its peak by 1816. And by 1805, lighter shades of royal blue as well as ultramarine came into use. Though each factory developed its own potting and decorative techniques, considerable copying took place between factories. In addition, each factory experimented with different styles and products changed dramatically over a short time.
Not only did the paste and tone of the underglaze blue vary from factory to factory, but they also varied according to the stage of each factory's development.

To complicate matters, makers constantly introduced new patterns, while shapes of plates, dishes, tureens varied from time to time according to the prevailing trends. When the Chinese-inspired designs lost favor, manufacturers replaced them with European scenes, which they copied from engravings in books. Floral borders resembled each other in general appearance, although most differed in detail.

Today, transfer tea bowls are going for astronomical prices. One is excellent condition, with a perfectly matched design, can fetch upwards of $150-200 in an antique show or shop.

Every Car Had Its Mascot

QUESTION: Way back when, my grandfather owned a 1925 Packard. My father says he loved that car, so much so that he removed the hood ornament from it and kept it as a souvenir when the car no longer worked, and he took it to the junkyard. He gave it to my father, who, in turn, gave it to me. It now sits proudly on my desk. It’s a real beauty, but is it worth anything or am I just being sentimental?

ANSWER: Your hood ornament, a Packard cormorant, is something very special. If you haven’t noticed, cars don’t come with them anymore. At the time your grandfather owned his car, hood ornaments were all the rage. Every car had one—some were extremely elaborate, more like works of art.

Collectors refer to these hood ornaments as automobile mascots. They began as radiator caps at the turn of the 20th century. Automakers added decorative touches to differentiate their vehicles from others during an era when there were 3,000 automobile manufacturers in the U.S. There are now only a handful.

Back when drivers had to negotiate muddy roads and weren’t sure if they’d get back home, St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, supposedly brought them good luck. He also protected them from robbers, who prayed on unsuspecting motorists. If you owned a car back then, you had some money.

Birds, chosen by auto makers to convey quick flight, became a common ornament theme. Packard chose a cormorant. Ford chose a quail for its Model A’s and Duesenberg, a stylized bird.

Many collectors consider the stork, used by European automaker Hispano-Suiza, to be the most distinctive and collectible. The stork commemorates French World War I ace Joseph Vuillemin, who had a stork painted on his airplane.

Some auto makers chose to use graceful ladies. Moon Motor Co., a now defunct St. Louis manufacturer, had the Greek goddess Diana on its cars to appeal to women. The glass lady hood ornaments crafted by Lalique before World War II are worth $1,000 to $10,000 depending on subject matter, condition and rarity.

Bugatti Royale selected an elephant balancing on a ball to demonstrate agility. World War I ace pilot Eddie Rickenbacher used an airplane mascot before his auto business failed in the 1920s. Chevrolets also sported airplanes in 1932. Designers for the Lincoln chose a greyhound mascot to dispel rumors that the auto was slow.

Some mascots invented in that time still exist, including Mercedes-Benz's three-point star and the Mack Truck bulldog. The height of hood ornament use was the 1920s and early '30s. By the mid-'30s, they began to fade as the Streamline Moderne movement, which emphasized aerodynamics and eschewed features that slowed down vehicles, caught on. But Mercedes held on to its mascot anyway. The company cared more about prestige than it did aerodynamics.

Other ornaments, such as Cadillac’s Lady, Rolls-Royce’s Flying Lady, Packard’s Cormorant, Desoto’s Explorer and Imperial wings, lasted through the 1950s, though they were much smaller than their  predecessors.

Collecting hood ornaments began in the 1940s when the owners of great old cars like the 1920s Rolls and Packards began scrapping them. Some of the first collectors visited junkyards, armed with screwdrivers and pliers, to hunt for mascots among the wrecks, for which they paid a dollar or so. Today, it’s almost impossible to find them in junkyards—junkyard owners know their value. Today, a typical Chevrolet mascot from the 1950s costs $100.

Newlywed Furniture

QUESTION: My parents bought a bedroom set when they got married. They kept it all their married life. Now that they’ve both passed on, it’s come to me. It’s of a very unusual design with lines that look similar to Art Deco, with curves and veneer decoration. Can you tell me what this is?

ANSWER: The photos you sent identify your bedroom set as what was commonly referred to as “waterfall” furniture. Because it was relatively inexpensive, it became the style of choice for middle class newlyweds. In 1930, a set like this would have cost between $19.95 and $39.95. More luxurious sets sold for slightly more.

In the late 19th century, most American furniture makers produced pieces from solid wood. This continued until after World War I when the conservation movement, led by Teddy Roosevelt, gained prominence and the invention of lumber core plywood signaled the end of this practice. Plywood consisted of four layers of wood, two on each side, glued to a core of inexpensive lumber. Makers glued the layers at right angles to each other for added strength.

Before 1930, manufacturers prided themselves in producing pieces with sometimes up to 11 layers of wood, especially for curved door panels. Working with curved surfaces was up to this time a very painstaking and expensive process.

But then came the Great Depression. With so many people struggling just to get by, furniture makers had to adapt. Families continued to grow and there became a demand for furniture from the newlywed market. Most new couples couldn’t afford to guy their own house, so all they had was a room in usually the bride’s parents house. The "Bedroom Suite" was probably the only thing that they owned, resulting in inordinate sentimental attachment to the furniture and a reluctance to change even when finances improved.

Because of the furniture’s free-form and curvy lines, people called it “waterfall” furniture. There are all types of pieces, including chairs, desks, end tables, clothes chests. Waterfall furniture doesn’t have a  frame. It relies on the strength of the molded plywood to give it structure, enabling makers to also give it  curved or rounded horizontal edges. Manufacturers employed an unusual veneer design called bookmatching on the fronts of pieces and ran the grain of the veneer from front to back on the top surfaces. Drawers featured Bakelite handles.

The inspiration for waterfall furniture came from handmade furniture emanating from the modernist movements in France, Austria and Germany, known as Art Moderne. Makers copied the designs of the ultra-exclusive French firm of Sue et Mare. Early examples, designed to appeal to broad audiences. mix Victorian motifs with modernist themes,  .

The style is most frequently seen in Bedroom Suites, although manufacturers produced dining sets and even billiard tables. A basic bedroom set included a bed, vanity and bench, and chest of drawers. More deluxe, thus more expensive, sets included nightstands, a dresser, a cedar chest, and a armoire/chifferobe. A full dining room set included a table with removable leaves big enough to seat six people, five chairs, china cabinet, and buffet, all of which sold for $103.50.

Today, a complete basic bedroom suite sells for $800-$900 in reasonable condition. The hardest pieces to find are nightstands and vanity benches. Cedar chests go for $400 and up.

What’s Up with Watt?

QUESTION: I have some pieces of kind of folksy pottery sitting on a shelf in my kitchen. My mother, who had given them to me, said they belonged to my grandmother. It seems that during the 1950s she picked them up at the grocery store as premiums. She began with coffee mugs and then added a pasta bowl and covered casserole dish. They all have the word “Watt” embossed into the clay on the bottom. Can you tell me anything about these pieces?

ANSWER: Your pottery pieces came from the Watt Pottery of Crooksville, Ohio. They’re highly collectible and today bring relatively high prices.

The Watt family of Perry County, Ohio opened the Watt Pottery in July, 1922 on the site of the old Burley Pottery in Crooksville. Through the remainder of the 1920s and into the early 1930s they made stoneware butter churns, crocks, jugs, and preserve jars, which they marked with an acorn or an eagle  stamped in blue, plus how many gallons the vessel would hold marked in a circle on the bottom.

But the introduction of oven ware pottery, enabling cooks to take a container from their ice boxes and put it directly into their ovens, forced the Watt pottery to discontinue its stoneware line and pursue the more lucrative oven ware.

The lightweight clay body, made of a percentage of feldspar and whiteners which prevented the clay from discoloring after firing in the pottery kilns, also made it resilient enough to withstand the extremes in temperature. The whiteners also gave the Watt’s pottery its brightness, especially when over painted with brightly colored motifs featuring apples, cherries, roosters, and flowers..

In 1949, the Watt Pottery began hand decorating its wares using simple patterns in bright colors on an ochre-colored clay base. To minimize the cost of producing these wares, teams of three decorators used  as few brush strokes as possible. The housewives of the 1950s loved the country charm of these wares. And because they were so inexpensive to produce, Watt wares began appearing as premiums in grocery and department stores.

Altogether, Watt Pottery produced wares decorated in 16 patterns, including four variations of the Apple Pattern, one in the Cherry Pattern, two of the Tulip Pattern, six in various flower patterns, plus Autumn Foliage and Eagle Patterns. The pottery remained in business until a fire in 1965 destroyed the manufacturing plant and halted production.

Most pieces of Watt Pottery ovenware feature large marks, often covering the entire bottom of each piece. These markings usually consist of one or more concentric rings deeply impressed into the bottom of the pottery. Although the company didn’t mark all of its wares, the bottom mark associated with 1940s Watt ware is an impressed: "MADE IN U.S.A."  Pieces may also be marked: "Oven Ware" or simply have the bowl size impressed, usually in a circle.

The pasta bowl your grandmother purchased back in 1952 is now worth nearly $100, and the covered casserole dish comes in at $150. But the big surprise are the coffee cups, now worth a whopping $200 each!

Romancing the Road

QUESTION: My mother saved every map she and my dad collected on their many road trips. Some of these go back as far as just after World War II.  Do these have any value today?

ANSWER: Road maps, especially the ones produced by oil companies for their service stations, are highly collectible. While older ones can be worth higher amounts, depending on their condition, newer ones aren’t as pricey. They’re also easy to store, so a collection won’t take up a lot of room—always a good thing for those living in apartments.

The systematic mapping of roads and the installation of route signs by the government didn’t occur until the auto arrived. Prior to the mid-1890s, bicyclists were the ones who demanded road maps. But as the new century dawned, the number of automobiles on the roads began to increase. The Chicago Times-Herald printed the first automobile road map in the country for a race they sponsored from Chicago to Waukegan.

In 1918, Wisconsin’s state legislature initiated a numbered highway system., which the federal government adopted in 1926. The new highway system gave us the names for legendary roads like Route 66 or California’s scenic Highway 1. Rand McNally became the first major publisher to adopt the system, which it also helped promote by installing numbered signs along these national roadways.

Before World War II, service stations gave out road maps free. These featured elaborate artwork. Oil producers such as Esso, Chevron, Shell, Gulf, Standard, Texaco, and Socony-Vacuum (later known as Mobil) all distributed maps.

Raod maps belong to the growing category of collectibles called “petroliana,” or anything to do with gas stations and the petroleum industry. For the most part, they’re reasonably priced, and some estimate that during their peak service stations distributed over 8 billion. Oil companies provided them as a service. They were made to be disposable, marked up by the gas station attendant as he gave directions and sent his customer on their way. But people often saved maps as souvenirs of the trips they made.

As automobiles proliferated, the marking of routes changed. Before numbered roads, stripes of paint on telephone poles, fence posts or trees delineated the various routes. In 1925, states began numbering their roads. At first it was an adventure to drive, but by the 1930s it had turned into a method of tourism. Tourist cabins sprang up along the way, as motorists made their way across country. Historians consider this time the road map’s golden age.

The Sinclair Oil Company hired noted artists like Peter Helck, who also produced advertising illustrations for car companies. Maps featured images of a carefree and playful life on the road, with service stations welcoming children and dogs, many of which were Scottish terriers, like the ones popular in movies like “The Thin Man.”

Maps produced during World War II reminded motorists to slow down to save tires. After the War, maps featured dynamic scenes, vibrant colors, and great graphics.

By the baby booming 1950s, the images tended to show nuclear families—a mom, dad, son and daughter, all enjoying life on the road. During the 1960s, maps displayed the dotted lines of planned Interstates and aerial views of highway cloverleafs.

Three companies—Rand McNally, H. M. Gousha, and General Drafting—produced most of the service station maps. These became a vehicle through which oil companies could promote the service at their stations, for it was service that differentiated them.

General Drafting produced maps for Esso, whose attendants handed out some 34.5 million maps in 1965.
After 1965, the quality of service station maps declined until their virtual disappearance in the 1980s.

Today, of course, free maps are long gone. They faded away, along with so many other aspects of the highway culture, with the 1973 energy crisis.

Early road maps from the first decade of the 1900s can be worth $75-100 today in good condition. Those from the 1920s and 1930s range in price from $20-40.  Groups of maps from the 1950s sell for $10-20.

Chugging Along

QUESTION: Every Christmas since I can remember, our family has got out an old tine train set that belonged to my grandfather and set it up under the Christmas tree. It still runs and is in good condition. All we know is that the set was made by a German company named Märklin. What can you tell us about this company?

ANSWER: From the looks of your train, I’d say it dates from the 1920s or 1930s. At the time, these trains were more toys than authentic models. Their design reflects the boxy look of European trains rather than the sleeker, simpler lines of American ones.

As the 1930s dawned, the Great Depressiion forced millions of people out of work. Owning an electric toy train was the ultimate. Kids even loved observing the trains displayed in department store windows. What could be more rewarding to a young boy than to receive a model train for Christmas? But these little trains were expensive so were out of reach of many families. 

Manufacturers lovingly handcrafted the earliest toy trains, made prior to 1850, of shining brass to run on the bare floor. But by the late 1830's, a number of prosperous toy companies began producing toy trains.  Around 1856, George W. Brown, a Connecticut firm, produced the first self-propelled train made of iron and  coated with tin to prevent rust. A wind up clockwork motor drove the engine and carriages on plush Victorian carpets on straight or curved tracks.

In 1859, tin smith Theodor Friedrich Wilhelm Märklin began producing doll house accessories made of lacquered tinplate. Although the Märklin Toy Company of Germany originally specialised in doll house accessories, It became known for its toy trains.

By the 1870's, the most popular trains were powered by steam. Utilizing alcohol or sometimes coal to propel. they duplicated the might and energy of their big, big brothers.

The tin toy makers in both Europe and the U.S. realized that profits could be made by selling toy trains to the masses and jumped on the toy model bandwagon. Early on, they set their sights on wealthier people by promoting their products’ snob appeal.

In 1891, Märklin began producing wind-up toy trains that ran on expandable sectional tracks and the following year created a sensation by making the first figure eight track layout. It also established a track gauge settings numbered from 0 to 4, which it presented that year at the Leipzig Toy Fair. These track gauges soon became international standards. Märklin began producing 0 gauge trains as early as 1895 and H0 scale in 1935. In 1972, the company rolled out diminutive Z scale trains, the smallest in the world in competition to  Arnold Rapido's introduction of N gauge.

Märklin’s owners noted that toy trains, like doll houses, offered the potential for future profits when, after the initial purchase, owners would expand by purchasing accessories for years to come. So, the company offered additional rolling stock and track with which to expand its boxed sets.

Electric trains became commercially successful by 1897 when the Cincinnati, Ohio, firm of Carlisle and Finch manufactured and sold a two-gauge unit for only three dollars, It also was the first to issue a model railway builder's instruction manual.

Many consider the years prior to World War I to be the "Golden Age" of quality model trains. As the war approached, manufacturers converted their factories to produce war monitions, rifles and replacement parts. The Depression that followed the war precluded many of these operators from coming back and many disappeared.

But Märklin continued producing toy trains until May 11, 2006 when Kingsbridge, a London venture capital company, took it over. The company filed for bankruptcy on February 4, 2009, but on February 5, 2010, after purchasing the rival LGB Company, announced it had returned to profitable state. Many consider Märklin's older trains highly collectible today.