BING - Lot 206

BING Painted iron toy torpedo boat, clockwork mechanism Circa 1912 L. 60 cm (Complete condition) Clockwork was the most common technology used to power different types of toys. Bing or Gebrüder Bing ("Bing brothers") was a German company founded by brothers Ignaz and Adolf Bing in 1863 in Nuremberg. The First World War saw the Toy Manufacturers Association compete with Bing to protect the American toy manufacturing industry. As a result, prices for German toys rose from 35 to 70 percent. Bing Brothers and the manufacture of tin toys The famous Bing Brothers company (Gebrüder Bing) was founded in Nuremberg, Germany, in 1866. Initially, it was a small distribution company for kitchen utensils, and later for the toys of brothers Ignaz and Adolf Bing. Ignaz had worked as a travelling salesman in the tinplate trade, and was aware of the marketing potential of these products in the light of the rapidly developing industrial revolution. Business flourished, and in 1869 the brothers decided to set up their own company in Karolinen Strasse, employing 100 workers and also working from home. At the Bavarian State Trade and Industrial Exhibition in 1982, the company exhibited the widest variety of products, and its sales catalog included over 6,000 items, including tinplate and sheet metal toys and household utensils. In the early 1890s, further factories and workshops were opened, as well as an enamel toy factory in Grünhain, Saxony. The company was among the first in Germany to recognize the importance of good relations between workers and management. Union representatives were present at all facilities. By 1900, Bing was said to have become the world's largest toy manufacturer, with a range of small mechanical tin cars, toy railways and elaborate toy steamers. Dolls and accessories, plush toys, as well as optical and kinetic toys. By 1912, their catalog and price list ran to 550 pages. At that time, the company employed 2,700 people. Bing now manufactured a wide range of pewter toy ships, including liners, battleships, torpedo boats, submarines and river steamers. The company's top-quality ships were sold in cardboard display boxes labeled with seascapes. Ships were given names painted on their hulls, corresponding to the countries in which they were sold. In addition, by 1912 a range of liners was available, some of them close replicas of real ships, such as the Cunard liner "Mauretania", available in 41 cm (mechanical) and 65 cm (steam). Models were also made to order as agent advertising models for steamship companies. Others included warships. The development of the warship range reflected the growing strength of the naval capabilities of Germany and other countries. In the years leading up to the First World War, torpedo boats and destroyers equipped with torpedo tubes were popular (Kasuga). Until 1914, Bing toy boats were divided into two production series, the first from 1890 to 1910, featuring 64 to 75 cm. boats with up to three masts, two propellers, two chimneys and six lifeboats, some with elegant bow decorations and most powered by a clockwork engine. The second series, from 1910 to 1914, featured boats with the same high-quality finish, but with a simpler, more modern superstructure design and lengths ranging from 18 to 94 (100) cm. Toy production finally ceased in 1932. The Bing empire was divided between a group of diving companies, including rival Nuremberg manufacturers Karl Bub, who bought much of the company's tooling and took over production of Bing trains, and Fleischmann, who took over the toy boat stock and subsequent manufacture. Bing toy brands manufactured between 1900 and 1906 bore the letters GBN (Gebrüder Bing Nuremberg); from 1906 to 1919, trains bore the GBN logo surrounded by a circle, while from 1919 to 1923, the circle was replaced by a square. From 1923 onwards, a lateral B next to a W signifying Bing Werke (Bing Works) was used.