KOVAP
KOVAP is a Czech manufacturer of mechanical tin toys . The company goes back to the founding of the Sedlák brothers in Semily .
Company history
The KOVAP company goes back to a sheet metal printing and stamping shop established in 1946, as well as a tool shop by the Sedlàk brothers in Semily, Czech Republic. As the first product, the designer Eduard Sedlàk made a toy steam roller, in which the lithography was applied to the still undeformed sheet metal. The factory developed successfully until 1950; Due to the political situation, it was decided to accept the offer of the SVED Liberec cooperative and to enter a socialist company structure. 1954–1956 Sedlàk developed the first toy tractor “ Zetor ” together with Frantisek Zeman . This mechanical tin toy had an originally designed mechanism with three forward gears, one reverse gear as well as neutral and handbrake and was marketed from 1956.
Due to changes in the regional administration, the town of Semily was added to the Eastern Bohemia Region in the 1960s. Thus, the Semily plant became part of the Kovo Náchod metal cooperative , which was commissioned by state-owned companies to manufacture toys. In 1960 the Náchod metal cooperative took over the toy production of the Chyrana company. This relocated the production of tin ladybirds and helicopter models to the Semily factory.
In 1960, the company also began producing plastic toys . In the 1970s this increased even further, but tin toys continued to be successfully produced and sold and mainly exported to western countries. During this time, the export company “Metallgenossenschaft Náchod” decided to continue manufacturing under the name KOVAP, which means something like sheet metal and plastic.
As in western companies, more and more plastic toys were designed and manufactured in the 1970s and 1980s, and so attempts were made to shut down tin toy production. The toy “boy on a tricycle” and the “toy steam roller”, Eduard Sedlák's first products, were also discontinued. Because of the export success, only the “tractor with gearbox” and the “ladybird” remained.
After the metal cooperative received an offer from the Federal Republic of Germany to purchase tools from the last series of CKO tin toys from Georg Kellermann , Nuremberg , at the end of the 1980s , the decision was made to buy them and since then they have been manufacturing some tin toys from this former company.
At the beginning of the 1990s, the Náchod metal cooperative dissolved and the Semily and Nový Hrádek facilities were formed into a new cooperative, which took over the KOVAP export brand from the 1970s. In the newly established company, plastic production gradually stopped and tin toy production began again. In the first half of the 1990s, the company Schuco was won over as a major customer for some time.
In 1998 a cooperation was established with a German businessman, which resulted in the production of licensed tin toys for well-known tractor manufacturers. This business relationship has been terminated in the meantime, but the license production has remained until today and is being expanded further. Numerous agricultural implements such as trailers and other accessories were added to the range of tractor models and are still in production today.