Gebrüder Einfalt tin toy factory

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Logo "BRAND Technofix"

The company Gebrüder Einfalt Blechspielwarenfabrik Nürnberg (GEN) - Technofix was a German manufacturer of tin toys and one of the largest toy manufacturers in Nuremberg. The company was founded in 1922 and existed until production was discontinued in 1978.

history

Georg Einfalt (born December 2, 1893 in Nuremberg, † 1953) completed his apprenticeship as a toolmaker from 1907 with his uncle, the toy manufacturer Johann Distler . From 1910 to 1912 he attended evening courses at the building trade school and worked for various toy companies. After his military service on the Western Front during World War I , he returned to his uncle's tin toy factory.

In 1919/20 Einfalt developed his own toys in his spare time and founded the "Gebrüder Einfalt Mechanical Tin Toys Factory" with his brother Johann Einfalt and partner Franz Heussinger in 1922. Georg Einfalt left his patent-protected developments to the company free of charge. Heussinger's shares were taken over by Ernst Pretzfelder after his death in 1925. Johann Einfalt, who had completed his apprenticeship with Georg Kellermann in the Bub company , left the company in 1928. Helene Betz took over commercial management, who later received power of attorney and worked for the company until her retirement in 1958.

In the early years mainly large and additional items were produced. The Technofix brand name appeared for the first time in 1926 with the production of the “Kosmos kit” for Franckh-Kosmos . From 1930 the company started manufacturing its own clockworks; Due to increased sales, however, additional drives were later purchased from Bühler . Technofix owed the success of technical toys above all to the inventors Georg Einfalt and his son Alfred and the pattern maker Fritz Lober. The company's own mold making also contributed to the company's growth. If innovations were to come onto the market at the same time, Technofix would reach its capacity limits, which is why contracts were outsourced. The USA, Canada, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland and Italy were important export markets; around 80 percent of production was exported there. Many Technofix products were distributed by the wholesaler Moses Kohnstam.

During the Nazi era , the Jew Ernst Pretzfelder left the company and emigrated to America in 1938, where he lived as Ernest Fields until his death in 1955. Georg Einfalt had come to an agreement with Pretzfelder and paid him off. In the years before 1939 the company employed around 120 workers. During the Second World War , Technofix also switched to the production of war goods, where filters for gas masks were now manufactured. After the end of the war, the company owner was therefore initially not allowed to run the business, but Einfalt was rehabilitated in mid-1946. Helene Betz, at that time the company's authorized signatory, ran the company together with Georg's son Johann until Einfalts re-entered. In addition to toys, in 1945 the company also manufactured hot water bottles, pans and saucepans for the "Headquarters Third US Army Exchange Service, Procurement Officer Munich". About 90 percent of the toys produced (identified by the “Made in US Zone West Germany” mark) went to the United States .

Georg's second son, the toolmaker Alfred Einfalt, returned from captivity in 1947 and joined the company. Ernest Fields also returned to the company after 1946, for which he traveled from the USA to Nuremberg twice a year. During the years of economic growth , the company at Nuremberg Austraße 70 became too small, so that from 1958 a new company headquarters with a production hall, warehouse and administration was built on an area of ​​10,000 square meters in Zweigstraße 11/13. At that time the company had around 100 employees.

After the death of Georg Einfalt (1953) and Ernest Field (1955), the sons of the company founder were sole owners of Technofix, after which Alfred Einfalt headed the technical and Johann the commercial area. After his brother Johann died in January 1974, Alfred Einfalt continued to run the company until 1978. That year he retired. Between 1972 and 1978, however, the toy manufacturer only brought 18 new products onto the market that were supposed to stand up to the Far Eastern competition. But even at Technofix, the switch to the plastic age came too late. Most of the production machines were sold to the Middle Franconian mechanics' guild. Alfred Einfalt passed away in October 1991.

Products

Technofix racing driver YZ-243, 1936

Before the Second World War (selection)

  • Pennytoys, produced until around 1935.
  • Car models such as the sedan No. 238 from 1935
  • Airplanes and zeppelin, ships and motorcyclists
  • clock-operated cars including headlights and moving front wheels
  • Road rollers (road locomotives)
  • Animals and human figures in everyday life, often made in pairs; also Indians, boxers, knights, skaters, birds, pigs, elephants and others like the boxing match between a boxer and a kangaroo or a little girl on the chamber pot
  • Construction sets

Technofix's lithographed toys are still in demand with enthusiasts today. Pre-war toys often fetched more than $ 1,000 at auctions.

Packaging of the Technofix GE 255 model from the 1950s

After the Second World War (selection)

  • Sheet metal tracks and sheet metal landscapes with around 100 different scenarios,
this also included the gas station, the sports field or the Alpine Express (until around the end of the 1960s)
  • Motorcycles like the “Falling Motorcyclist” No. 258
  • Circus monkey
  • clown

literature

  • Lexicon of the German tin toy industry, Jürgen and Marianne Cieslik, Verlag Marianne Cieslik, 2014, ISBN 3-921844-73-8
  • Dieter Warnecke: Technofix. The story of the Einfalt brothers. History and Products. Publishing house dolls and toys, 1993, ISBN 3-87463-188-5 , 112 pp.

Web links

Commons : Technofix  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kellermann CKO, Kellermann & Co. In : ammlung-sammler.de