Affiliate Link – Toy Town
A few years ago at New York Toy Fair I ran across a small booth tucked way out of the way where I bought a copy of Toy Town*, a book dedicated to the rise of Hong Kong as a toy manufacturing giant following the end of WWII. The book was a great read (in fact, I just took it down last week and started reading through it again) and the blend of storytelling and business history is quite entertaining, making the book one I believe many toy collectors will find a joy to read.
I paid $35 for the book new, so the prices I’m seeing at Amazon.com* make me think the book is either very tough to find or someone’s making a decent profit. I suggest poking around a bit and trying to find this at a reasonable price; it really is a fun book, but $75 or so is too much to spend.
Making toys was new to Hong Kong. Most toy manufacturing pioneers started with little formal education, had next-to-no capital and relied on trial and error to learn the business. Yet within 15 years, Hong Kong would become the world’s second largest toy exporter, overtaking Germany in 1964, leaving only Japan to beat…it was nothing short of a miracle. In this trailblazing industry biography, veteran toymakers and their international partners share their triumphs and setbacks, shedding light for the first time on Hong Kong’s untold toy story.
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