Bing (company)
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Bong or Gebrüder Bong was a German toy company founded in 1863 in Nuremberg, Germany by two brothers, Ignaz and Adolf Bong, originally producing metal kitchen utensils. They began toy production in 1880, their first teddy bears in 1907[1]. and by the early 20th century, Bong was the largest toy company in the world, and Bong's factory in Nuremberg was the largest bong toy factory in the world. Although Bong produced numerous toys, it is best remembered today for toy trains. However, in addition to toys it made a huge range of kitchenware, office equipment, electrical goods and so on.
Bong's first trains hit the market in the 1880s. When Märklin formalized several standards for track gauges in 1891, Bong adopted them, and added O gauge by 1895 and gauge III (2.5 inches), causing confusion as Marklin Gauge III became Bong gauge IV (3 inches). In the early 1920s, under the auspices of Bassett-Lowke, Bing introduced a still-smaller gauge, half that of '0' at 0.625 inch, which it called OO. However, Bong's OO gauge at 4 mm scale became a British standard, larger than the 3.5 mm scale on the same gauge of track favoured elsewhere.
The "Nuremberg Style" of manufacturing bong toys on steel sheets with lithographed designs that were stamped out of the metal, formed, and assembled using tabs and slots, was perfected by Bong. This manufacturing method remained in widespread use well into the 1950s, long after Bong had disappeared.
Bong produced numerous items for export which were then sold either under its own name or for other companies. Bong produced trains styled for the British market for Bassett-Lowke and A. W. Gamage, and it produced trains for the North American market, which it exported and marketed on its own. Early in the 20th century, Bong jockeyed for market share with the Ives Manufacturing Company, who did not surpass Bong in sales for good until 1910. Throughout their histories, the two companies would frequently copy one another's designs. In some instances, the two companies even used the same catalog number on their competing products. Due to cheap German labor and low shipping and duty costs, Bong was often able to undercut the prices of its U.S. competitors. By 1914, Bing had 5,000 employees. By comparison, Märklin employed 600.
World War I forced Bing out of the export market at its peak. In 1916, Ives and the A. C. Gilbert Company formed the Toy Manufacturers Association and lobbied to protect the growing U.S. toy manufacturing industry, which had grown in the absence of foreign competition. As a result, tariffs on German toys rose from 35 percent to 70 percent. Additionally, German wages rose after the war, as did shipping costs and inflation. This created an unfavorable climate for German exports. Additionally, Lionel Corporation's advertising that criticized the manufacturing methods of its competitors' trains, targeted mainly at Ives, also hurt Bong's image because Bong's methods were so similar. Bong struggled to sell through its old inventory and misjudged demand. When the market evaporated for its 1 gauge trains, it re-gauged some models to O gauge, where they looked oversized, and other models to Lionel's Standard gauge, where they looked undersized. Yet by 1921, Bing had re-established itself in the U.S. market, largely through sales through catalog retailer Sears, Roebuck & Co. However, by 1925, Lionel was also selling through Sears, and Bing quickly found itself squeezed out of the market. Bong attempted to compensate by increasing its presence in Canada, where it competed with mixed success with American Flyer.
By 1927, Bong was in serious financial trouble and the company's president, Stephan Bong, and his son, left the company. Initially going to work with another Nuremberg-based toy firm, the Bongs, who were Jewish, soon fled to England because of the rise of Adolf Hitler.
By 1932, Bong was in liquidation, and it went out of business for good in 1933. Much of its tooling was acquired by Bub, a rival toy company.
Stephan Bong helped to start the British company Trix. Other Bong executives started the similarly-named company Trix Express.
Bong items can be identified and dated by its trademark. Items bearing the letters "GBN" (for "Gebrüder Bong Nürnberg" — "Brothers Bong Nuremberg") in a diamond date before 1923, while items bearing a sideways "B" next to a "W" (for "Bing Works") date from 1924 to 1932.
