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TOYS AND WOODEN NOVELTIES HBS B252
Make and sell toy cars, wagons, wooden puzzle and hobby horses. retail them at flea markets, fairs, through national ads, direct from your shop or yard and/or wholesale them to stores or catalog sales companies.
Wooden toys have a special appeal that most other types of toys do not-- nostalgia and parent confidence. Parents remember the wooden toys they had as children lasted a long time and that they were safe. Wooden toys like hobby horses or stick horses are so old, they are "new"!
For the past few years, wooden items have become more and more scarce as they have been replaced by plastic and wood filled plastics that can be molded. Many items are advertised these days as "genuine wood" to inform the buyer they are nor plastic or laminated sawdust, and infer that they are therefore worth more.
The overall result is that an item made of "genuine wood" is now considered more valuable than the substitutes that just a few years ago were considered an "improvement" over wood.
In the wooden toy business, you have the option of making variety of things or specializing in one item or series of items.
You also have the luxury of being able to use what other industries would call scraps -- because not many of your toys will require 8, 6 or even four foot pieces of wood.
This means that you can use materials that others can't -- and that if you can locate a good source, your materials should be half or less of the going rate. As a result, you will be able to offer finished toys of good quality wood at excellent prices and still make a very nice profit.
This type of business will appeal to the wood enthusiast, or anyone who enjoys shop work; the variety of possible toy products is endless -- limited only by the toy maker's imagination and facilities.
If you specialize in larger items such as hobby horses, one well-placed ad for genuine, old-fashioned hardwood horses could keep you busy!
The only "secret" to this business is to have a plan for getting your materials at a good price, a procedure to fabricate and finish the toys efficiently and professionally, and effective means of letting the right prospective customers know where they can be found and how much they cost.
Most wooden toy makers limit their output to models they can build with tools and equipment on hand. They set up a procedure, as close to assembly line as possible to allow high quality items to be produced efficiently: jigs for cutting, clamps for gluing,
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