By Carl Lobel
FELIX FROLIC!
THE TOY THAT CHANGED THE WORLD*
*(THE TOY WORLD)
by Carl Lobel
The Felix Frolic tin wind-up toy was made by J. Chein & Co. of Harrison, New Jersey, circa 1926-1927 [Figure 1]. It is an iconic toy for a number of reasons, the overall size being reason No. 1: it is by far the largest lithographed tin wind-up comic character toy made during the Golden Age of lithographed tin toy production—the 1920s and 1930s. Reason No. 2: it was the first licensed comic strip character lithographed tin wind-up toy made in the United States.1 Reason No. 3: it represents a turning point in tin toy production, the point at which American manufacturing moved to the forefront and became the dominant source for tin toys sold in the U.S., ending the long run of German toy manufacturing dominance. As a collector specializing in comic character toys, I have chosen to anoint the Felix Frolic with the title, “The Most Important Comic Character Toy Ever Made.”2 How and why did I reach this conclusion? Intuition. Observation. Contemplation.
We begin with the year 1926 and the pre-Christmas issue of Playthings, the toy industry trade magazine. Christmas has always been the make-it-or-break-it season for toy sales. If you had a new toy to introduce and you hoped it would be a blockbuster, Christmas season would be when it was introduced and Playthings would be your showcase. The first six years of the Roaring 20s saw lithographed tin toy sales in the U.S. dominated by German companies including Guntherman and H. Fischer. The most desirable toys featured comic strip characters. The George Borgfeldt Company (founded in New York in 1881) controlled the licenses and it in turn contracted exclusively with German toy companies to produce the toys. All the licensed comic character tin toys sold in the U.S. at that time were made in Germany.3 In the 1920s. Borgfeldt had acquired the rights to produce and import tin toys featuring comic strip characters directly from copyright owners such as Fontaine Fox (Toonerville Trolley) and Pat Sullivan (Felix the Cat). The high quality of German toy production made the licensed character toys top sellers for Borgfeldt in the U.S. American toy makers could not compete on quality or design and they could not get the coveted licenses without first securing some type of competitive advantage.
In 1925-1926, something changed in the U.S. that would impact toy imports and sales, and that something was tariffs and import duties. The U.S. Congress imposed a tariff on imported metal toys, which directly impacted the German toy makers. I have read magazine articles from that period suggesting that it was Louis Marx who spearheaded the lobbying of Congress in favor of the new tariff. Marx had become a person of influence in Washington and counted among his friends J. Edgar Hoover. If true, Marx stood to benefit financially and the impact of the new tariff would be felt almost immediately. As a result, German toys became more expensive to import and American tin toys got the competitive advantage they were seeking.
By 1926, the George Borgfeldt Company was a major importer/distributor of thousands of products of which toys, dolls, and figurines were the most important and most profitable sector.4 Its imported products were distributed to every general merchandise, toy store, and department store in the United States.
Borgfeldt responded to the punitive toy tariff by looking for an American tin toy producer to replace Guntherman and H. Fischer. A company that could start immediate production on a new line of licensed character toys. I can imagine that they looked at all the available companies and chose the one that gave them the best terms and were willing to accept the restrictions that Borgfeldt would impose. They did NOT choose Louis Marx. I believe the main reason was that Marx would not accept as a condition of licensing that only the Borgfeldt name and its NIFTY brand would appear on the toys and packaging; I cannot imagine Louis Marx agreeing to produce toys that did not carry the Marx name and trademark. Borgfeldt chose the J. Chein Co., a Marx competitor that was eager to grow its business by producing licensed character toys. According to my limited research, Louis Marx did not make any licensed character toys until 1930 when it licensed the Amos ‘N’ Andy characters from the creators Correll & Gosden. But J. Chein began producing licensed character toys for Borgfeldt as early as 1926 and continued production well into the 1930s, including toys featuring Felix the Cat, Krazy Kat, Bonzo, and Popeye.
By 1934, most if not all, of Borgfeldt’s licenses had expired. Louis Marx was now able to secure the license for Popeye toys from King Features Syndicate, thus ending J. Chein & Borgfeldt’s run as the kings of licensed character toys.
Let’s return to 1926 and a close examination of a full page ad in the toy industry’s trade publication Playthings [Figure 2]. Here I use my imagination and my intuition and come up with a plan for Borgfeldt that fits the facts that we actually know. It is perhaps around May 1926, and Borgfeldt has signed up J. Chein to produce a new line of licensed character tin toys. They want to introduce the new line in the Christmas issue of Playthings. They want to make a big splash. They want to use just one toy as their lead- in. They want that toy to be very impressive—a showstopper! Borgfeldt may have suggested to Chein that it be a Felix the Cat toy and asked for a model that could be photographed in time for the December issue, which came out before Thanksgiving. And, that they have enough examples ready to be in select toy stores in time for Christmas.
Chein produces a Felix Frolic wind-up to toy. It is huge! The toy is 11” tall and arrives on a platform 13” long by 4” wide. There are two red mice in front that are 4¼” tall. The two Felix figures in back are 5” tall. The central Felix is 9¼” tall. All five figures move when the toy is wound. (At some point Chein would make another version where only the giant Felix moves.) Borgfeldt is impressed—the company has never seen anything quite like it. The toy has the NIFTY brand and a Pat Sullivan copyright. It does not have the J. Chein name or logo [Figure 3]. The Frolic is photographed and appears on page 22 of the Playthings December 1926 issue. What we don’t know is the reaction of the toy buyers who ordered toys for the stores. How well was the toy received by the buying public?
I think it was a bomb! It didn’t sell very well. It was most likely too expensive, but even more than the price, it was not a great plaything. It was susceptible to breakage at the point where the feet attach to the platform. Eight tiny grommets hold the feet in place and every time the toy is moved it could possibly pop a grommet unless handled with extreme care—eight points of vulnerability. Not a toy for a fun-loving 10-year old who could probably have the toy dismantled in minutes. Thus, very few of the toys were produced and very few survived. I know of only four, two with all five moving figures and two with only the giant moving Felix. Nonetheless, Borgfeldt and Chein must have deemed the launch of their new line of toys a success as eight years of production followed, which made Chein and Borgfeldt the kings of comic character tin toy production.
Once more let’s go back to 1926 and the full-page ad in Playthings. What can we learn from this ad? First is the announcement that the NIFTY line of mechanical toys will now include toys manufactured in the U.S. No longer will tin toy buyers be limited to imported toys featuring syndicated newspaper comic characters. The ad then lists toys currently in production that feature comic characters, beginning with the awe-inspiring Felix Frolic. Next is the Felix Scooter, which references the Guntherman toy in 1926 as it could not have been made by Chein until 1928 at the earliest. Walking Felix is by H. Fischer, as is Creeping Buttercup; both are hand-painted tin toys made before 1926. Hi-Way Henry and the Toonerville Trolley are also both by H. Fischer. I assume that Jiggs and Maggie references the fighting wind-up toy made by Guntherman. That leaves only Bing Bang Buttercup to explain. I do not believe that this is a Chein toy that had not yet been produced. It could be a toy that was never made or if made never found. The name Bing Bang Buttercup is unknown to me. I’ll conclude with this thought regarding the full-page ad: all the toys listed in December 1926 were made in Germany except the Felix Frolic. By 1930, Borgfeldt was probably no longer importing tin toys from Europe. No American tin toy company would ever make a Buttercup toy, a Hi-Way Henry, or a Maggie & Jiggs. Borgfeldt did manage to convince Dent Hardware to make a cast iron Toonerville and another company to make the glass Toonerville candy container; both were branded NIFTY. The move by Borgfeldt to license tin toys to American manufacturers was a boon to J. Chein. However, by 1934 Louis Marx reasserted its dominance and became the No. 1 tin-toy maker in the U.S. and perhaps in the world.
Going forward, the metal toy tariff created another opening for Borgfeldt, and perhaps an unexpected one. Looking to broaden its offerings of comic character toys, dolls, and figurines, it turned to Japan where it licensed a veritable cornucopia of toys and other merchandise made from inexpensive celluloid and bisque, neither of which was subject to a tariff. Borgfeldt now had available for sale in the U.S. low-cost profitable toys and figurines that dominated the shelves of stores like the Five & Dime. In the boom days of Japanese celluloid and bisque (1932-1936), characters like Henry, Little Orphan Annie, and Betty Boop were ubiquitous along with a seemingly endless supply of celluloid toys and bisque figurines featuring Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck, and Pluto. The Japanese also secured a license to make celluloid Popeye toys and other figurines including a pair of celluloid toys featuring Maggie & Jiggs. Every one of the celluloid toys and bisque figure sets were produced under license held by the George Borgfeldt Company, further cementing its hold on comic character toy and doll production and distribution. We are just now beginning to grasp the important role played by the Borgfeldt company in the promotion of all things comic character, making characters like Mickey, Popeye, Betty Boop, and Felix the Cat world-renowned icons and thereby making the owners of the copyrights very wealthy.
Let me make one last point: by 1930, the German tin toy makers were effectively shut out of the U.S. as far as licensed comic character toys were concerned, although they did manage to make some of the greatest and most desirable character tin toys of all time in the early 1930s. But they did not or could not sell them in the U.S. The Mickey & Minnie motorcycle, the four versions of the Mickey Mouse mechanical bank, the Mickey Organ Grinder, and a few other toys were licensed by a company in the UK5 and produced in Germany but were not for sale in the U.S. Other comic character tin toys were produced in Spain and Italy in the late 1920s and early 1930s, but they were not authorized or licensed and could not be legally imported into the U.S.
The Felix Frolic made history and changed the U.S. tin toy business forever. To which I can only say—Merry Christmas to Felix. Merry Christmas to J. Chein. And Merry Christmas to the Borgfeldts.
Footnotes:
1. By definition, a comic strip character is a character appearing in a published comic strip, but I also include the characters that first appeared in animated cartoons. Many characters appeared in both; Felix the Cat first appeared as an animated cartoon while the Toonerville Trolley started as a comic strip. Charlie Chaplin was a real person, and not the product of an artist’s imagination. His character was known as The Tramp. In 1918, there was a lithographed tin wind-up Chaplin toy made by B&R in New Jersey. This toy technically qualifies as the first American made character tin toy but not the first American made comic strip character toy, which is the Felix Frolic.
2. The most important, yes, but not the most valuable or the most desirable. That honor goes to the Mickey & Minnie Mouse lithographed tin wind-up motorcycle made by Tipco in Germany, circa 1932. Felix Frolic is second in value and desirability, or maybe third. Rounding out the top 5 are the Felix Carousel by Guntherman; Aunt Eppie Hogg Truck with Skipper Driver by H. Fischer; and the Popeye Heavy Hitter by J. Chein. Feel free to name your own top 5.
3. I can think of no exceptions, can you?
4. In 1910 the Borgfeldt company moved into its new headquarters in NYC on the corner of 16th Street and Irving Place. It was a massive block of offices, showrooms, and storage consisting of 11 floors, each with 25,000 square feet of space.
5. In 1930 Walt Disney licensed The Ideal Films Ltd. company to distribute Mickey Mouse animated films in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Ideal took that license and assumed that it had acquired the right to license Mickey Mouse merchandise independent of Walt Disney. It was Ideal that licensed a handful of German companies to produce toys including the motorcycle, the mechanical banks, and the organ grinder. Walt Disney was not pleased but he was powerless to stop them. When Ideal’s license to distribute the animated films expired, it was not renewed and the German toy companies could no longer make Mickey toys.