Wooden toy is a big category of toy. Wooden toy appears in every stage of history development and has a long history. During the long history with various culture types, wooden toy of German is famous with developing a school of ones own. Early in AD 1700, skillful craftsman in some area of German engrave a batch of little animal then sell them to Nuremberg. These little wooden articles with a good quality and cheap price were called as Nuremberg little
toys , and they are welcomed by people and were sell to whole western world through Nuremberg.
The leather belt lathe was appeared after 1800; from then on, the wooden toys were made combined with manual operation and mechanical. Some processing was made by belt lathe, and then manual polished. The wooden animals are several inch to several feet. At begin wooden animals were appeared as decorations of Christmas. Gradually they become set of toys which was called zoo animal wooden toy. The most famous one was called Noahs Ark. The first Noahs Ark was appeared in 17th century, while until recent 150 years, it began popular in North America and Europe. One of famous early wooden animal toys was called small circus troup. The famous manufacture was Alber from Philadelphia. The joints of these wooden
toys are active.
Among early wooden toys, the most popular toys are all kinds of horse image, like Trojan and so on. As time goes by, the manufacture enthusiasm of horse toys is increases steadily. The whole 18th and 19th, wooden horse toys are popular in Europe and North American.
Wooden toys of horse or other animals with wheel, wooden pull toys are appeared. These pull toys are still one of best sellers on toys market. With the time goes by, the content of toys is also changed. Simple wooden pull toys have developed to others like train, boat, car even plane.
There are also two kinds of different pull toys: one is a toy whose end is equipped with active pole, so that the arms and legs and head can active. This toy was origin from eastern. another toy is active toys with spring. The most famous ones of this kind of toys is doll box which equipped a clown with spring in a box. When you open the box, the clown will jump out to make you a jump.
Besides, stilts and peg-top were once popular wooden toys. Stilts was a game which popular in home and aboard, we can see it in traditional festival with large scale. Peg-top which can date back to ancient Greek BC250 is a kind of wooded
toys which existed in world. In 19th, building block and panel was appeared in Europe and American.
In nowadays, though with the development of science and technology, with the replacement of new material, the wooden toys are still fastness and safe. It is difficult to smashed, it is difficult to rust. Wooden toys with definite collection value will never disappeared.
