left: Events of SpielDoch! 2022; right: AMIGO’s stand of children’s Game of the Year 2022 “Zauberberg”

If you are interested into more affordable fairs in Germany, please refer to our special post All toy fairs in Germany 2022.

The post 3rd SpielDoch!, the board and card games fair 2022 first appeared on Product Cluster Blog.

For the first time in two years, the award ceremony took place in front of an audience, as it did in 2019 in the former main customs office in Hamburg. The award “Kinderspiel des Jahres 2022” goes to “Zauberberg” by Jens-Peter Schliemann and Bernhard Weber from Amigo. The game beat out “Auch schon clever” and “Mit Quacks & Co. nach Quedlinburg” (both by Wolfgang Warsch, Schmidt Spiele), the association announced. In 2021, 70 new children’s games came onto the market.

About the game
The press release of the producer AMIGO:
The magician Balduin lives at the foot of the magic mountain. With the help of his will-o’-the-wisps, he summons the sorcerer’s apprentices from the “Magic Mountain” to teach them the knowledge of magic. The will-o’-the-wisps show the budding magicians the way through the mysterious forest into the valley. But the mean witches also follow the trail of the will-o’-the-wisps and a race begins. Now the magical skills of the players are in demand. Can they manage to guide the “muttering” will-o’-the-wisps as skilfully as possible so that they only show the apprentices, but not the witches, the way to Balduin?

This is how you play “Zauberberg”:
All apprentices and witches are placed on their respective squares on the game board. One after the other, the players randomly draw different coloured balls from the bag and place them in such a way that they hit a sorcerer’s apprentice as they roll down the board. Together, the players discuss which starting point is most suitable for the ball. If the ball hits a figure, whether a witch or a sorcerer’s apprentice, it is moved down the path to the next free square that corresponds to the colour of the ball. Then it is the next person’s turn. The aim of the game is to get 4 sorcerer’s apprentices down the hill to the finish before 3 witches arrive there.

“Zauberberg” by Jens-Peter Schliemann and Bernhard Weber features an unusual 3D game board, a simple game mechanism and elaborately designed game material. This also convinced the expert jury of the “Spiel des Jahres e. V.”, which chose “Zauberberg” as the “Children’s Game of the Year 2022”. The cooperative game objective allows children to gain their first joint experience of strategic and tactical considerations.

So a game for 1-4 persons from 5 years, purchase price something at 36 euros. The jury found that everything was well thought out in this fascinating cooperative game, from the snappy structure to the detailed rules, so that children will want to be enchanted by “Zauberberg” again and again. The game “Zauberberg” is quickly mastered by children without the help of adults and can therefore also be played alone in the children’s room.

“We are delighted that our marble run game has now also been able to inspire the jury after so many children,” explains the Schliemann-Weber team of authors.
“The development really had it in it,” adds editor Holger Grimm. “Yet Corona wasn’t even the biggest hurdle we had to overcome. In cooperation with our producer, we worked on it for a long time until we could guarantee a balanced course of the balls. But as you can see: The work was worth it!”

Jury statement
“In ‘Zauberberg’, the popular marble run is used in a new way: it becomes the setting for magical races: cooperatively, in teams or alone. The attractive game structure draws children to the game table and the innovative marble mechanism won’t let them go in a hurry. Here, animated discussions about the placement of marbles are followed by spellbound glances at the marble run. It’s a total package that never fails to enchant children.”

Not an easy decision
“It was a strong year overall, with some good games not making it onto the list,” said the coordinator of the children’s game jury, Christoph Schlewinski at the awards ceremony.

The game inventors
Schliemann and Weber explained that they came up with the original idea for the game almost 20 years ago and were fortunately able to implement it shortly before the Corona pandemic. This meant that the game could be tested extensively by children before the kindergartens and after-school care centres also had to go into lockdown due to the pandemic. The jury explained that these lockdowns had made the development and testing of children’s games considerably more difficult.

Do you remember your favourite childhood toy when you were a kid? Please feel free to leave a comment!

The post The Children’s Game of the Year 2022 first appeared on Product Cluster Blog.

left: View into 2nd hall with racing course; right: Floor plan with list of participants

The stands at the fair were divided into two large groups. One group consisted of clubs and private individuals who had exhibited their models or model layouts. There were miniature railways in various scales on display. Model ships were also presented, which could sail in a water basin if equipped with remote control. Remote-controlled construction machines and vehicles moved around in a large sandpit and were able to do work there. A separate area was available for aeroplanes, helicopters and drones, which regularly started their shows. A racing course was also set up, and there were award ceremonies.

Rendsburg High Bridge in Fischertechnik

Somewhat nostalgic was the stand of a Fischertechnik association, which we will introduce in a separate post. We had good conversations with some of these clubs. So also with Spielwiese, which had games presented in a large corner. This group was called demonstrators, of which there were 27.

left: RC R2-D2; right: Impression with traders and model railway

The other group consisted of 38 traders, called exhibitors there. Often used items were offered, but new material could also be purchased. A large part consisted of railway articles, car models and flying machines.

As we were already there for the opening on Saturday, we could observe that the exhibition quickly filled up with guests and was already quite empty by the afternoon. We could see that many visitors had either ordered items in advance or had specifically found items at the fair. Of course, the demonstrators were also very busy.

Selection of model ships

If you are interested into more affordable fairs in Germany, please refer to our special post All toy fairs in Germany 2022. More posts about the clubs and associations on this fair will follow.

Entry ticket

The post Lipper Modelling Days of 2022 first appeared on Product Cluster Blog.

Post Space Race with Revell – Part 1 describes the circumstances that led to the Apollo programme. The first studies for the Saturn rocket were made as early as 1959, two years before J. F. Kennedy’s famous speech: We choose to go to the Moon. Thus 1961 was the official birth of the programme. Following the example of conservative engineering, the concept was broadly conceived. It soon became clear that a three-stage rocket was needed, because it was essential to get rid of the empty heavy shells one by one. The Soviet design and the NASA design differed on one, perhaps crucial, point that Dr. Wernher von Braun had also considered carefully. How many propulsion engines does the first stage use. The decision directly affects the diameter of the first stage and, as is the case with foundations, what is built on top of it. So the vehicle had to be designed, but also the knowledge and training of the crew of a manned space flight. Thus, in addition to the Apollo missions, the Gemini programme was created, whose task was to test the necessary spacecraft manoeuvres in orbit on a small scale, but also to let the astronauts leave their ship and navigate. Just as the Atlas rocket of the Mercury programme came from military funding, the Titan-II for Gemini was chosen from the field of state-of-the-art military intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Titan was notable for its reliability. It completed two unmanned test flights in April 1964 and January 1965 and all 12 Gemini flights from March 1965 onwards, with the 18 astronauts eventually finding their way back to Earth unharmed. From Gemini-6 onwards, rendezvous in orbit were to take place. Thus, prior to the launch of the Gemini rocket manned in pairs, an unmanned Agena upper stage was launched into orbit. Both the Atlas from the Mercury programme and the Titan rocket from the manned Gemini launches were used as launch vehicles. The Agena upper stage had already been ordered earlier by the US Airforce as a satellite, which was equipped accordingly depending on the mission purpose. The Agena stage for the Gemini-6 launch did not reach orbit, so it failed. It was not until Gemini-8 that an Agena upper stage was again ready to fly into space and 100 minutes later the actual manned Gemini-8 crew launched and docked with the Agena for its exercises. Gemini-9 was also to perform another docking manoeuvre, but the two half-shells enclosing the docking area at the top of the rocket during Agena’s ascent phase only partially opened. This left only one beautiful shot, which earned this Agena the nickname “angry alligator” for Gemini-9.

Gemini-9 – Augmented Target Docking Adapter: The angry alligator (From NASA – Great Images in NASA Description, public domain)

The final Gemini flight, Gemini-12, then took place in June 1966, four months after the first rocket carrying Apollo spacecraft components was successfully launched. The first Apollo mission was carried out with the two-stage Saturn-IB, the Apollo capsule was tested unmanned on this flight, re-entry being the challenge here. The cheaper two-stage design was sufficient here, as it was only for Earth-orbital testing. The upper stage then remained conceptually the same for all Saturn rockets. The first tests of the Saturn-IB date back to October 1961, when the individual stages were successively tested, especially the upper stage, until the first Saturn-V was finally launched into space with Apollo-4 in November 1967. Before that, there had been 13 launches of Saturn I or Saturn-IB. The 14th launch of the Saturn-IB could not take place because one month before the launch date, the Apollo module burned out during an exercise with the astronauts on board. The accident led to the entire vehicle being rechecked for safety, and as a result it was greatly improved.

And after this introductory prehistory, it may be due to the founding year of the Revell company in 1956 that it was not possible to concentrate so intensively on space travel. After all, competing companies had already been established on the market for 15 years or more, so it was certainly necessary to quickly develop a broad base of models. Thus, apart from the A-4, which was founded in the German history, other models from the space programme were left out by Revell. With the Saturn-V, first edition in 1969 in 1/96 scale, the first rocket came on the market, just in time for the first moon flight with Apollo-11 on 20 July of that year. About every 13 years, the model reappears in new, but unchanged productions. Presumably due to the early edition or the secret construction plans, the model shows deviations from the original. Thus a marketplace has developed for the Saturn-V to supersize the Revell model, especially if the model is to be broken down into the individual stages, as it is, for example, in the museum in Cape Canaveral. The company New Ware , for example, specialises in this. What else exciting has been developed from this Saturn V kit at Revell? Well, there is another 03700 kit that contains just the Apollo spacecraft, that is the Command Service Module and the Lunar Module. So the spacecraft can be built coupled but also separated with the lunar module landed.

Mouldings for the Revell 03700 from the Apollo Box

If you are interested into the history of toys, please feel free to find more information here. My father, an old school modeller, was never that satisfied to just glue the plastic together. But when you review the article FineScale Modeler 2006/04 you may assume, that you learn more skills than brush on the glue. How about you? Do you like to give your kits a more detailed look?

The post Space Race with Revell – Part 2 The Mighty SATURN V first appeared on Product Cluster Blog.

Perhaps it has always been the case that nations have measured each other, probably mostly in battle. The battle on the battlefield, bloody and deadly, the battle in the arena against animals. Or for the more intellectually elevated, since, it is thought, 2000 BC, the pan-Hellenic games, which in modern times are fought out all over the world. How do you compete in the Cold War? Physical fighting is not possible. Many animals give up in time when it is clear who is the stronger. With humanoids, the winner is the one who doesn’t stay down permanently. This is bad for the two largest nations, the USSR and the USA, because everyone still wants to exist after such a fight. The Second World War, the starting point of globalisation, when the spoils were divided up by the two big nations, it was not clear which system was better or more dominant. Like in Monopoly, the fields were occupied and cultivated. The Second World War ended with Japan’s surrender. Immediately, the eight or so more local wars began, motivated by decolonisation and bloc formation to define the local power structure as well. The last of these wars, the Korean War, made it clear that the two great powers did not have to face each other, but that a smaller country could be found where the conflict could be fought out by proxy. Currently, such a kind of war is being worked on in Ukraine.

Scalemate presenting Revell’s German A4/V2 Rocket

After this historical excursion we come back to the year… Now this is difficult to define. After the foundation for space travel had been developed in the German Reich, albeit in order to carry warheads as far as possible into the enemy’s playing field, the technology and technicians were in high demand. The two great victorious powers tried to grab what they could. The loot was shipped home and both great nations now tried to do something with it. The USA was able to get hold of some of these missiles, plans, but above all the technicians, who themselves tried to get into American captivity. The USSR gained access to the workshops through the division of Germany, the Soviet occupation zone. Few technicians ended up in the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence, mostly those who preferred to remain in the eastern part of Germany. Both major nations quickly realised the potential of this technology and went to great lengths to occupy as much as they could in the wartime confusion of the German Reich. One must probably mention Sergei Pawlowitsch Koroljow, who was in charge of the Soviet target-oriented requisitioning in the German Reich, especially since he himself had been involved in rocket development since the 1930s and knew what was important. The USA, with its Operation Overcast, took everything that looked like a rocket. No doubt also aided by the volunteer prisoners of war who had worked on it and took the precaution of withholding material from the Red Army. Korolyov, an excellent technician, managed to work out the jigsaw puzzles that were missing and taken away to the USA. In the USA, the captured material, including the people, was stored for the time being. People and material were too contaminated with fascism, pride too great.

Since there was also an effort in the USA to use the missile as a weapon, the US Air Force was in charge of it. They developed the Atlas missile from 1946 to 1957, there was an interruption because funds were needed for the Korean War. Nevertheless, the first of this type of missile took off four months earlier, on 21 August 1957 near Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The Soviet rocket, then named R-7, is still known today as the Soyuz rocket, a family of rockets that has evolved over the years and is still in use. With 1936 launches to date, a solid workhorse. A rocket from this family also launched the Sputnik spacecraft in 1957, which, out of fear, was the spark that finally let the US enter the space race. There, the US Air Force was still tasked with taking on and winning the race. But the US Air Force was unable to build on the success of the Atlas rocket. With the end of the term of office of the 70-year-old 34th president of the USA, a 27-year younger and dynamic president entered the White House who did not have this categorically negative attitude towards the historical origins of the Germans and their team, who had meanwhile settled in Huntsville (Alabama). The pioneer of space travel, Wernher von Braun, who was already conducting research on the German side and whose early goal was to travel to the planets, did not remain idle in the USA either. If he was able to advance his dream through the armament projects in the German Reich, he also managed to get funding in the USA. Thus, the Redstone missile, based on the “Aggregat 4 / Retaliatory Weapon 2”, was developed in parallel with the US Air Force’s Atlas. It was not only to transport warheads, but also the first satellite of the USA and, in the course of the Mercury program in 1961, the first American into space.

Scalemate presenting Revell’s U.S. Army Redstone

The Sputnik shock in 1957, was followed by the first dogs in space, the first man and first woman as cosmonauts in space, the first spacewalk (leaving the spacecraft), much longer stays in orbit than the US, the first pictures from the far side of the moon, the first probe on the moon, the first robot on the moon and the first space station into earth’s orbit. Korojov’s consistent work until 1966 had clearly paid off here in the race.

In the USA, this Soviet superiority was not to be accepted. Attentive observers also realised that the US Air Force was overburdened by its military tasks to also advance space flights, especially since Wernher von Braun’s group worked more efficiently compared to the resources made available. Thus, the civilian US National Aeronautics and Space Administration was founded in 1958, and von Braun’s team was quickly integrated. As early as 1959, the first studies on the Saturn rocket were made, two years before Kennedy’s famous speech: We choose to go to the Moon.

Dr. Wernher von Braun, the NASA Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center, and President John F. Kennedy at Cape Canaveral, Florida on November 16, 1963. (Photo: NASA), Courtesy of NASA

And after this introductory prehistory, part 2 will follow, with the Revell company founded in Bünde in 1956 and the beautiful models around space travel.

If you are interested into the history of toys, please feel free to find more information here.

The post Space Race with Revell – Part 1 A Historical Background first appeared on Product Cluster Blog.

Even shortly before Easter, many stores advertise special offer prices, the reasons for which are meanwhile unknown and probably no longer questioned. Called Black Friday or Cyberweek at other times of the year, or Easter specials like now, these are fairly new occasions to motivate retailers. In the past there were clearance sales, sell-offs or closeouts, usually the manufacturer or seller wanted to get your products off the shelves to make room for new ones.

Anyway, I also became aware of such an offer before Easter. The goods were limited and time-limited, I immediately remembered the approach of these TV stores from the early years. However, the price seemed favorable to me that I had bitten. In advance, on the large known market places, at which many buyers romp, one cannot estimate the true product prices any longer, occasionally genuine fantasy prices are queried. I got caught up in a product from Revell, named Antonov, which was destroyed in Ukraine a few weeks ago. I quickly realized that there were two part numbers. At first I suspected a typo by the vendor, but Revell’s own site also showed these two products, so they were real. Given the time constraints, I quickly noticed that according to the Revell site, the products were identical in quality and quantity. From experience, this didn’t seem abstruse to me either, since this Antonov was, after all, originally from the time of the USSR, and was to find a new use in Ukraine after the breakup of the USSR. It was specially developed to transport the
Soviet orbiter from the Buran space program in the troposphere. The transport system is comparable to NASA’s modified Boeing 747-100 , which was used to transport the orbiter of the Space Shuttle system between different locations. There will be a separate post dealing with this, soon.

So I put these two Revell product pages side by side, and I basically saw nothing essential in which the price difference of almost factor 2 should find its justification.

Screenshots of the product descriptions of the Antonov at Revell

Nevertheless, with skepticism in mind, I still made sure on the page of Scalemates, whether I missed something.
The time section presented by Scalemates always quite small, I did not invest deeper, I had the trustworthy product description of the manufacturer. With the mouse pointer over the images I could verify from the image description that the product 04958 is from 2018, the 04957 from 2019. From the “new parts” I wanted to have taken a model improvement, I did not enter a deeper analysis on this non-manufacturer page.

History of Revell’s 04958 at Scalemates

So I had the cheap offer reserved for pickup at my local seller in town. In my memory, the local seller also had the same photo on his product page, as we, the Product Cluster also have it, since the offer was limited, in the meantime sold out, the page no longer exists at the seller.
So as seen in the aftermath, these two products are found and displayed at Product Cluster, unfortunately we had not yet published our product portal on that said day.

Screen shots of the product descriptions at Product Cluster for Revell’s An-225s.

I gladly collected the goods from the local dealer, but was surprised to see Level-3 on the cover, which I did not remember from looking at the Revell site, but was not suspicious enough. It wasn’t until I got home that I verified my purchase. In fact, the intentionally purchased 04957 differed significantly from the Revell page: No Level-5 and also the number of 227 parts I had checked was not reached, but 114, which then also revealed the lower price to me.

The 04957 from Revell landed in my living room by mistake.

If I had not looked for the differences of the An-225 at the manufacturer Revell, but on our, still under construction product page of Product Cluster, I probably would have noticed the correctly reproduced box with the obvious level-3. With some pride, I realized that we were more error-free than the manufacturer itself.

Screen shots of the product descriptions at Product Cluster for Revell’s 04958 and 04957.

Of course, I then noticed afterwards at the manufacturer’s site that despite entering the two legal product numbers, products are also found, but for both product numbers also unfortunately the same product was deposited. I am sure that not even programmers would have noticed this in the forced haste of product verification. The search algorithm of the Revell site should have given a hint next to loud advertising banners: “Product not found”, instead the extremely easy to confuse product was displayed.
This case shows how important it is to have a good product description, as well as mature search engines in the product portals.

If you are interested into the history of toys, please feel free to find more information here.

Or you rather would like to learn some tips about shopping online you may not know? Have a look here..

The post A problem with the Antonov An-225 – Under pressure first appeared on Product Cluster Blog.

The current world event par excellence, the now condemned invasion of Ukraine beginning on 24 February 2022, is writing history. Product Cluster would also like to address the topic of Ukraine, the second largest country on the European continent with almost 42 million inhabitants. While still integrated into the USSR, it suffered the first major nuclear super-GAU (meltdown) of a nuclear power plant in 1986 with European implications, because in the economic system existing at that time, economic plans dictated by the central government were more important than common sense. The incisive event then also heralded the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union experiment.
After all, Ukraine regained its independence in 1991, so that with the help of the EU, the only unit 3 still operating without serious accidents, and thus the entire site, was shut down in 2000. (No. 4 suffered the Super-Gau, No. 2 suffered a hydrogen explosion with total fiscal damage, No. 1 had an incident with an overheated nuclear fuel rod and was shut down in 1996).

So this Ukrainian country, once again breaking free from its grip, then freed itself from the Tsarist Empire during the First World War and soon after brought back into a centrally directed system in the Russian Civil War by Leon Trotsky’s Red Army under Wladimir Iljitsch Lenin. The monarchical tsardom was replaced by the Leninist one, and it is fair to say that the government’s new economic goals could not be implemented so quickly in such a gigantic country. Thus, the great new Soviet Union with mineral resources and agriculture sank into famine, something the so-called West experienced for quite different reasons as a global balance through the Black Friday of 1929. It should be noted that the event has nothing to do with the sales events of large department stores.
The original economic model used by Lenin was then replaced by a centrally planned economy. It is up to everyone to evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of the real existing economic systems. In any case, many Soviet republics decided to withdraw from the USSR system as soon as it seemed peacefully possible. Measured by economic indicators, no state was worse off after its independence from the disintegrating Soviet Union, which Mikhail Gorbachev tried to save with his policy of Glasnost und Perestroika .

In the years of Ukrainian independence, a democratic, republican, socially and legally organised unitary state with a presidential system of government established itself as the form of state. There are many examples of the economic lows that have to be overcome before something like a free market economy emerges from a planned economy. Thus, privatisation was handled carefully and attempts were made to avoid chaos. Nevertheless, development suffered from the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation in 2014, suffered from the economic crisis in 2007 and suffers from the inherited burdens of Chernobyl disaster. But all setbacks are being made up well, of course also by the EU’s willingness to support. It is also clear that the EU is the largest trading partner with 40 %, with machinery, chemicals and industrial goods accounting for the largest share of exports to Ukraine. One has to take into account that Ukraine’s energy needs are immense and a large part of its trade goods are in the energy sector, which presumably takes a large share in the total trade with the Russian Federation of 21.1 %. Ukraine exports food (mainly cereals (wheat)), metallurgical products (mainly rolled steel, iron) and chemical products. Thus, many companies have emerged in modern times in Ukraine, including in the field of educational toys.

Current toy manufacturers in Ukraine

The company VEMA KIDS, which produces children’s furniture and furniture for kindergartens, day-care centres and schools, but also products for rehabilitation, is worth mentioning here. Toys are also in the portfolio. In order to export and grow, they are currently looking for distributors in the EU. The manufacturer does not yet have foreign languages on its website, but its portfolio is nevertheless well presented.

The company TIGRES produces toys and games, made of plastic and rubber among other things, as well as soft toys. Have a look…

AVTORSKAYA GALEREYA DIZAYNERA YULII SKARBOVOY, the gallery of designers is known for dolls, also from the area for collectors as well as other toys.

FLAMINGO TOYS PE, CE certified, specialises in games and toys from the musical field, but also produces other games and toys such as toys for the beach or sandbox, tolocars and logical toys.

Then there is the SOFT TOYS FACTORY, as the name suggests, plush toys.

BOMBATGAME LLC builds board games and board games. They have a creative homepage, we think, just click in via the two links.

PRJSC WESTERN INDUSTRIAL GROUP produces watercolour and acrylic paints. Have a look, colourful … Maybe there are also colours for your fingers.

MR.PLAYWOOD is known for wooden toys, maybe you have seen some somewhere, the 3D models for example.

The company Doloni Toys is also active in the market of games and toys, mostly made of plastic. So you can find a lot of things that are suitable for outdoors, and that doesn’t just apply to the playhouses and the garden slides. There are also scooters and toy cars, construction games and board games.

For example, the main services of the company RANOK CREATIVE Ltd. are toys that are mostly electric, sets for girls, creative building sets, science games.

Founded only in 2017, YAROKUZ is a manufacturer of plush toys and stuffed animals. It can also be commissioned for work.

EKOGOODS, found on http://ekogoods-toys.com/ offers very nice 3D models made of wood, some can even be controlled remotely. Their website may be down at the moment due to the political situation, but the Facebook page is very nice.

The toy company LEVENYA was founded in 1996. They make products for children. They are a manufacturer for Cubika, which offers wooden toys, also supply Puzzlika, which sells puzzles.

PARITET-TOYS builds wooden toys, games and playthings.

CADILUCK specialises in model making.

CREATIFWOOD also has a nice website with beautiful products in the field of puzzles made of wood.

PC KAMERTON a supplier of games and toys.

EWT Ltd. is a one-stop shop for second-hand products, including toys and clothes.

It is hoped that the country will be allowed to quickly return to its former glory. We wish it luck, hope and perseverance.

If you are interested into the history of toys, please feel free to find more information here.

The post Toys and Ukraine. first appeared on Product Cluster Blog.

It is assumed that toys have been around since humans existed, made from the materials of the time. We may assume that the first ones were made of straw or wood, which would have been the first materials that could be shaped and worked. This was followed by stone and clay or clay-like materials and certainly also bones. With the refinement of the tools and the technical knowledge, the toys will have been refined continuously, that is how they developed, proven by the finds and the history that we can still reconstruct.
These finds come, for example, from children’s ditches of the Stone Age, where the named stone was worked into a tool, which in turn could work other materials, such as softer rock, wood, and bone. The Stone Age began about 2.5 million years ago. Among these archaeological finds was the recurring doll, so we may assume that this was the first toy, the replica of oneself or even animals, as can be seen in the historical wall paintings. Since the fire had not yet been invented as a controlled element, clay and loam sculptures will have weathered throughout millions of years; at that time, it could only be dried in the sun; naturally occurring fire, still mainly seen as a danger, will probably have been avoided.

Probably 1.8 million years ago, men began to use fire, but he was not yet able to light it himself; instead, natural fire from volcanoes or lightning was used and guarded. So they quickly learned to fire clay and loam, which can be deduced from the findings of food preparation and the physical development of man. By then at the latest, more durable figures and certainly more complex toys were created. Tires, drums, and horse figurines were found. In particular, finds from the advanced civilization of Egypt showed how detailed these toys looked, later also equipped with movable parts. Thus, many games have been handed down to us from the culture that is still played today, including board games and dice, certainly also many games that history has forgotten.

Almost as if it were yesterday, 32000 years ago, man learned how to create fire himself. Probably through try-and-error, he discovered that pyrite and so-called flint produced a spark when struck properly. Both minerals are hard, whereas flint is a little harder, but a class softer than semi-precious stones. In addition, it is piezoelectric, which means that when it is deformed, it can generate a voltage, i.e. a spark. So it was not until 8000 B.C. that the first metals were melted and certainly then metals found their way into toys.

Since not everyone was able to handle metals, it can be assumed that it was no longer a matter of the dexterity of the clan to produce quality toys, but that toys also acquired different values due to the material. This is probably how it started that different social classes or countries also had different toys at their disposal.

An orange and white toothpaste marble by Supportstorm

The first glass finds date back to 3500 BC, when was the first glass marble made?

Since until about 700 B.C. people probably only bartered, we have to assume that toys have also been traded since time immemorial.
Around 200 B.C., the first mass productions took place on a large scale, which is substantiated in the history books by military evidence, but certainly also found its way into other everyday areas. At some point, toys could also be mass-produced and offered.

Since this blog is about educational toys, the question may arise as to when the first educational toy was created. This may have a lot to do with when a person was seen as a resource or was still allowed to develop out of play. What is meant by this? If, as has been documented, a child has to do full-time work by the time he or she is four years old, it can hardly be expected that creative play was possible for this individual. The play was a luxury for some children and young people. But it is conceivable that for many, their own drive to make or refine their own toys could already be seen as learning toys. Be it the doll’s dress, an accessory, learning and developing out of play. The posts about building blocks give a few references to modern educational toys, including the experimental kits of our days.

Do you remember your first or oldest toy? Feel free to leave a comment.

The post Most likely it was the doll. first appeared on Product Cluster Blog.

After starting an introduction of building blocks, here are some deeper views into a subcategory, the trains. By the way, there is a post about a train model, the BR 650 diesel powered railcar, too. But let’s begin with some facts. A manufacturer of building blocks dominating the market for a long time introduced a railroad system in 1966, unfortunately a stepmotherly segment. Since ever, the system consisted of a single circle radius, straight rail pieces and a switch, fortunately matching the existing track curve with its counter switch, thus the mirrored switch. It is then also called a left or right switch. That’s it in terms of tracks.

Throughout history, there have been various electrical systems. Starting with 12V technology and rails with two center conductors between the rails, that was the beginning. It had advantages and disadvantages.

The system was followed by current-carrying rails, i.e. one connected to the positive pole, one to the negative pole. The voltage was then simply tapped there. Nice, because it was closer to the original than the additional inner conductor rails. Negative, this applies to both track systems, because when you build a terminal loop (i.e. a circle that leads into one entrance and exit), you cause a short circuit in the tracks if you don’t insulate them. Even if they are only insulated, the vehicle would stop there because the voltage has reversed polarity to the direction of motion, so the motor then backs up or simply then stops on the insulation. This can be solved by track areas, which are then reversed in polarity accordingly, or one builds no terminal loops, as it was normal in former times at the end of a streetcar line, because one simply had not built two driver’s cabs into the streetcar. Simple way out: stub track with buffer stop and a track change for the opposite direction.

Continuing with the building block tracks, then they went from 12V to 9V, which made it possible to use battery technology. This also eliminated all current-carrying rails, the entire track could be made of inexpensive plastic. The control then took place with an infrared interface, which works quite well in the apartment and outside the tunnels. Tunnels are bad anyway, then the train is no longer in the field of vision… Currently, the train is operated with Bluetooth, i.e. from a cell phone app, so the kids have enough arguments to occupy themselves more with the cell phone. Some manufacturer offer remote controls. But also this has advantages, that more than one person can play on a course at the same time and interactively. A place for the battery must then also be found, so is the control module and since the passenger trains are also equipped with interiors, the block is occasionally disturbing.

Illuminated LEGO Creator 10277 Swiss Crocodile

One existing constant is the track gauge. With five studs spacing these tracks are constructed, so a 40 mm rail to rail pitch. This results in a track gauge of 37.5 mm. The real of the major railroads, USA and Europe occupy about 40% of the world’s rail network, use the “standard gauge” 1435 mm. As interesting for models are then still the countries of the former Soviet states to mention, which use a wider track, but also “only” around 85 mm, which is in the context of this topic rather minor. Some of you will now say, but I was driving on the famous this-and-that line after all. It must be admitted that smaller countries very often import train material, so the “upper part” is identical to others. The narrow gauge is to be omitted from this post once completely. This then results in a fixed scale of 1:38.267. If we take another look at the original, we can roughly say that a standardized passenger car in Europe is about 3 m wide and 4 m high, these are the UIC-X. Twin-deck cars, modern cargo cars, still take a special position in the dimensions. This would result in a stud width of 10 studs. An express train car would have a height of 10.8 unit bricks. It is to be anticipated, nobody produces this so far, but it is the model fidelity of the front view. As frequently implemented in modeling, especially the long wagons are shortened. Who has at home also the possibility to reproduce a 200 m radius to scale. Märklin got away with shortening the cars by 20 % for a long time, which is a sensible compromise on compact and narrow layouts. So it is then also with the rolling stock of the building blocks, length reductions, so that the optics is not completely lost.

What is available on the market… The visually valuable models of the Lego company, whose target group is the older ones, use a stud width of seven for the detailed Swiss crocodile, 6 for the rather boxy Santa Fe diesel locomotive and 8 for the Disney train. So it’s all there, but you still want it to fit on the table, the length of the Santa Fe is about impressive 45 m.

Here is a table of the building blocks available on the market, intentionally no manufacturers are named.

To be seen in the first lines of the table, the already known and mentioned sizes and relations. The originals are listed except colored background in the rows then still in the dimensions of millimeters, with the models the resolution in unit stones (stud and unit, thus 8 mm and 9.6 mm).

The Ratio(H/W) column deals with the ratio of width to height. The average value is about 1:1.34 for the originals, the values of the different vehicles are close to each other. There is one manufacturer, admittedly, currently only one comparable European model is available, here the model deviates only 4.6 %. From my own observation, I can state that the model reproduces the original very well. In a YouTube video, I recognized the V200.1, which corresponds to the BR221 at the DB. The video clearly shows that the model is much too high, the table confirms, over 20 % too high, the same applies to the VT11.6 (BR601/BR602). The “Rheingold” coach is also too high with 17 %. The V100 is available in two different widths, 6 studs and 8 studs, you can see that here the 7 studs would have been the right choice, with the same model height.

This explains then the case why some builders adjust the models in the width laboriously. Laboriously, because some base plates are produced especially for the product in the offered width. So also trains with different widths are badly combinable, because the view suffers nevertheless. Harmonization would be an advantage here, the fiercely competitive suppliers of model trains have already achieved this very early.

It remains exciting. What are your opinions about these different models? Feel free to leave a comment.

The post Building blocks around the railway track first appeared on Product Cluster Blog.

Whether you’re a native or foreign citizen, a parent, a child or just a single living being… Yes, this series brings facts which interest even you! One may think that all you need to know is: returning. If a purchase is not as expected, the solution would be to just return it. Wrong. Some extreme cases can happen to anybody at any moment. We all don’t need to know more than 80% of everything but being aware of only 8% or less about your rights is actually pretty dangerous.

Today, we start with the simplest. As a matter of fact, toys can be categorized into Spielwaren, Scherzartikel and Spielzeug. Where does your problematic product fit in?

What is Spielzeug?

Spielzeug itself is officially defined as products, which are designed for children under 14 years old to play (see article 2, paragraph 1 of EU-Spielzeugrichtlinie RL 2009/48/EG).

That automatically excludes fashion jewelry for kids, pacifiers, skateboards, scooters, fireworks, etc. But wait, what about collectibles, such as locomotives, car models and hobby articles, which are independent of age?!

What is Spielwaren?

Any products, which are independent of age designed to play. Yes, it includes Spielzeug but also the products which adults play. Some examples: boarding games, cards, complex puzzles with 500 or more pieces, hobby toys, card models, plushies, dolls, etc.

What is Scherzartikel?

The kind of product designed for tricks, pranks or jokes, which fulfil similar goals and do not contain harmful substances or cause any negative body reactions or injuries. Some examples are: stink bombs, fart pillows, squeaky chicken, etc.

Source: Trendaffe DE

Similarities & Association

Both Spielwaren and Scherzartikel are consumer goods which when used as intended or in predictable ways must not damage its user health. If you are wondering which lay book represents it, they find themselves under “Lebensmittel-, Futtelmittel- und Bedarfsgegenstängegesetzbuch” (in short “LFGB”, you can find this book here).

In case you find it a bit confusing, the picture below explains where exactly the Spielzeug, Spielwaren and Scherzartikel are, considering both aspects described in this post and similar products, while specifying borders to either associate or separate them.

Source: BVL Bund DE

Besides the LFGB; in order to assure further requirements for Spielzeug, other special regulations are also applied, such as the EU-Spielzeug-Richtlinie (the same one from the beginning of this text) and certifications… We will keep more detailed info for future posts of this series.

Please share this article with people who need it! We all thank you. Let us know any special situations you had to go through in this topic.

If you liked this, you probably will also enjoy our Toys for Bavaria article.

The post Toys which are not toys: Toys & Rights in Germany I first appeared on Product Cluster Blog.