Geo. Borgfeldt & Co.

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The company's headquarters on Washington Place

The geo. Borgfeldt & Co. was an American trading company for toys. The corporation was headquartered in New York .

history

Georg Borgfeldt , who was born in Meldorf , founded the company in 1881 with Marcell and Joseph L. Kahle from Württemberg. The founders met at the toy wholesaler "Strasburger, Pfeiffer & Co.", where they worked in management positions. With “The Borgfeldt Idea”, the founders pursued the goal of establishing a kind of permanent trade fair in New York. They also sought exclusive distribution rights for popular imported products. Wholesale houses common at the time had warehouses that the entrepreneurs wanted to do without. Instead, they displayed a particularly large number of products from different categories in the house, but they did not keep them in stock. As a form of third-party wholesale , Geo. Instead, Borgfeldt & Co. safely transported goods from the producer to the retailer and thus invented a new business model.

The entrepreneurs secured the exclusive distribution rights of numerous manufacturers, whose products the retail trade could only obtain through him. In early 1881, they opened business premises in which they displayed around 100,000 exhibits. In particular, there were dolls, toys, porcelain and glassware. In the first year, Borgfeldt employed the three partners and two employees who had problems meeting the demand, which was significantly greater than their supply. In 1881 they opened trading offices in Steinschönau and Hanover , which were supposed to help deliver goods to American retailers more quickly. A year later, the entrepreneurs opened another branch in Toronto . In a department at the New York company headquarters they also offered hosiery, gloves and toys that came from American manufacturers.

"Geo. Borgfeldt & Co. ”was an extremely profitable company. In 1884 the owners doubled the exhibition space to around 5000 square meters. In the mid-1880s, it was a leading trading company with a line of business that it invented itself. In New York it had a company headquarters with office and exhibition space that was expanded several times. In 1893 the company moved into a prestigious high-rise on Washington Place. This “Borgfeldt Building” had eight floors and no longer exists today.

In 1885 “Geo. Borgfeldt & Co. ”opened a branch in Vienna , which Conrad Berg, Alban Berg's father , took over. The trading house in Hanover moved to Berlin a year later and acted as the European trading center. In the same year offices in London , Fürth and Bodenbach were added. A branch opened in Solingen in 1887 moved to Barmen in 1902 . In 1898 “Geo. Borgfeldt & Co. ”opened a branch in San Francisco one year later and two years later additional branches in Boston and Chicago .

Borgfeldt's nephew and brother-in-law Georg Semler (* 1861) joined the company as a partner in 1888. In 1891, the Parisian wholesale merchant Johann Emil Schüssel (1852–1901), born in Fürth, joined the company. In 1893 the company became a stock corporation without changing its name. Borgfeldt took over the chairmanship of the board of directors and carried the title "President".

In 1896 Georg Borgfeldt moved back to Germany. Most of the management was probably taken over by the “First Vice President” Marcell Kahle (1858–1909). Geo. Borgfeldt & Co. continued to trade and import successfully with various toys. Borgfeldt's name remained known for a long time for its collaboration with Margarete Steiff's doll manufacture . Hermann Berg, a brother of the composer Alban Berg , ordered 3,000 teddy bears as head buyer at Steiff in 1903 during the Leipzig trade fair. Despite local competitors and high prices, this turned into a sales success. "Geo. Borgfeldt & Co. ”sold several hundred thousand copies in the following years and entered into ever closer business relationships with Steiff . From 1913 through the 1930s, Geo. Borgfeldt & Co. has sole rights to import Steiff products into the United States.

From 1912 Geo. Borgfeldt & Co. exclusive Kewpie dolls based on designs by the illustrator Rose O'Neill . The dolls were made by Geo. Borgfeldt & Co. in Germany and were made from celluloid and bisque porcelain. A variant made of fabric came from Steiff.

Even after the First World War existed Geo. Borgfeldt & Co. under this name. In the 1930s, it had exclusive marketing rights to items based on cartoon characters from Walt Disney and other cartoonists. This included Mickey and Minnie Mouse or Felix the Cat .

Geo. Borgfeldt & Co. existed in the USA until 1962 as one of the most famous retailers and manufacturers of toys. The company's products and imports are now very popular among collectors. The toy dealer Borgfeldt (Canada) Ltd. is still in Canada today . to find.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 57.
  2. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 58.
  3. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 58.
  4. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 58.
  5. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 58.
  6. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 59.
  7. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 59.
  8. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 60.
  9. ↑ Hartwig Moltzow: Borgfeldt, Georg . in: Biographical Lexicon for Schleswig-Holstein and Lübeck . Volume 13. Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 2011, p. 60.