Joustra (toy)

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Heller Joustra SA
(until 1999 Joustra SA )
legal form SA
founding 1934
Seat Trun , France (since 1999)
Branch Toy maker
Website www.joustra.fr

Joustra ( Heller Joustra SA since 1999 ) is a French toy manufacturer with its founding headquarters at 13 rue de Belfort , Strasbourg . The company name was made up of JOUets de STRASbourg (English toys from Strasbourg). The company was founded in 1934 by the brothers Paul and André Kosmann and taken over in 1999 by the model manufacturer Heller.

history

The Kosmann brothers founded a small toy store in Strasbourg in 1934, selling toys from Germany. Shortly afterwards, they began producing their own toys under the name Jouets de Strasbourg , or Joustra for short . They turned to Wilhelm Marx, who worked as a representative at the Nuremberg metal goods factory Gebrüder Bing . By the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, the first eight mechanical Joustra miniature models were offered. The Strasbourg cathedral was chosen as the motif for the company logo . In 1943, the Alsatian company ceased production due to the war.

Model of a 4-engine airplane, 1950
Joustra toy model of the Citroën Ami 6

After the end of the Second World War, production was resumed, a contract was signed with Marx and Georges Molliet, one of his suppliers, and the now French company, now again specializing in mechanical toys, experienced a real boom. Joustra offered a range of simple and inexpensive toys such as small animals and mechanical models with complex and sophisticated mechanisms across Europe . This toy was so revolutionary that German competitors even initially forbade Joustra from entering the famous toy fair in Nuremberg . In the early 1950s, 40 percent of production was exported to other European countries and the United States. In 1955 the company had several hundred employees and 6-7,000,000 toys were sold annually. In the mid-1960s, Joustra became the leading manufacturer of mechanical toys in Europe. At that time the range comprised up to 200 different products. Primarily it was a mechanical toy made of sheet metal with a key motor as well as friction and battery drives. Products included trucks, construction cranes, buses, planes, boats, cars, tracked vehicles and much more. The pressed tin toys were replaced by plastic models for safety reasons in the late 1960s.

In 1969, Marx, the owner at the time, retired, after which the company was bought by the Compagnie Financière Edmond de Rothschild , incorporated into other brands of the Compagnie Générale du Jouet and relocated to Illkirch .

In the 1970s, Joustra began manufacturing and selling remote-controlled toys in the form of cars and boats for the toy manufacturer Lyonnaise Society . In 1985, the company's headquarters were relocated to the Ostwald community near Strasbourg. The cheap Japanese competing products on the remote-controlled toy market made Joustra increasingly troubled.

In 1999 the company was bought by the French model building company Heller , based in Trun , and now operates under the name Heller Joustra SA .

literature

  • Nicolas Leonard: Joustra - La marque française de jouets mécaniques. Relié, 2003. ISBN 978-2-841-02081-2
  • Lionel de Pommery: Tout joustra pour le collectionneur. Terres Editions, Beaux Livres, 2013. ISBN 978-2-355-30181-0

Web links

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

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Raymond Couraud: Joustra a fait rêver des générations d'enfants avec ses créations. L'Alsace, April 23, 2014; updated April 30, 2014.
  2. ↑ Jeux et jouets Joustra in the database of the National Library of France .
  3. ↑ a b c Joustra. Center de documentation des musées, Les Arts Décoratifs ; accessed on August 11, 2017.
  4. ↑ La révolution industrial. In: Dominique Auzias; Jean-Paul Labourdette: Guide du jouet 2015 Petit Futé , Petit Futé, 2015. ISBN 978-2-746-99061-6
  5. ↑ a b c L 'entreprise. Heller Joustra SA; accessed on August 11, 2017.