Tonka

For other uses, see Tonka (disambiguation).

Tonka

Industry	Toys and games
Founded	1946
Headquarters	Mound, Minnesota, U.S.
Parent	Hasbro

Tonka is an American toy company most known for its signature toy trucks and construction equipment.

1978 model Tonka bottom dump truck

History

On September 18, 1946 Mound Metalcraft was created in Mound, Minnesota with three men as partners, Lynn Everett Baker (1898–1964), Avery F. Crounse, and Alvin F. Tesch. The first products produced by the fledgling company were two versions of a metal tie-rack. Their original intent was to manufacture garden implements. However, when their building's former occupant, the Streater Company, attempted to market two metal toys and failed, the three men at Mound Metalcraft thought they might make a good side line to their other products.

After some modifications to the design by Alvin Tesch and the addition of a new logo created by Erling Eklof with the Dakota Sioux word "Tonka", which means "Great" or "Big", the company began selling metal toys. This soon became the primary business.^[1] On November 23, 1955, Mound Metalcraft changed its name to Tonka Toys Incorporated. The logo at this time was an oval, showing the Tonka Toys name in red above waves, presumably honoring nearby Lake Minnetonka.^[2]

The impact of the Tonka truck concept has been enduring and pervasive, especially the Mighty Dump Truck and associated "Mighty" line of construction equipment models introduced from 1964. The all-metal "Tonka trucks" were sold throughout the world and earned a reputation as being indestructible, although the steel has been increasingly replaced by plastic from the late 1980s onwards.

The company was purchased by Hasbro in 1991.

Tonka trucks were inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame at The Strong in Rochester, New York, in 2001.

Other products

Tonka has produced a wide variety of toys over the years, including dolls (Star Fairies, Bathing Beauties, Maple Town, and Hollywoods Dolls) and other toys aimed at girls like Keypers and aimed at boys like Gobots, Rock Lords, Spiral Zone, and Steel Monsters. It was also the original manufacturer of the Pound Puppies toy line, and in the late 1980s were the U.S. licensees of products inspired by Maple Town, an animated series from Japan's Toei Dōga.

Tonka also produced a variety of computer games, including Tonka Raceway, and purchased the rights to distribute and market the Sega Master System after Sega of America decided to stop competing against the Nintendo Entertainment System in the U.S. However, the Master System's market share declined, since Tonka didn't have experience with video games or how to market them.

Hasbro sold the digital gaming rights for various properties (including My Little Pony, Magic: The Gathering, Tonka, Playskool, and Transformers) to Infogrames for USD$100 million in 2000, buying back the rights for USD$66 million in June 2005.^[3]

In 1964, Tonka acquired the Mell Manufacturing Company in Chicago, Illinois, allowing Tonka to expand into producing barbecue grills, eventually under the "Tonka Firebowl" label.^[4][5]

The Winifred Museum in Winifred, Montana, has a collection of more than 3,000 Tonka toys, possibly the largest collection in the world, according to the museum.^[6]

References

1. ^ Dennis David and Lloyd Laumann, Tonka (MBI Publishing Company, 2004) p14
2. ^ [1]
3. ^ Hasbro Reacquires Digital Gaming Rights From Infogrames for $66 Million, Hasbro press release, June 8, 2005.
4. ^ Dennis David, Lloyd L. Laumann, Tonka, 2004, MBI Publishing Company, pp. 85–6, ISBN 0760318689
5. ^ Life magazine ad, May 27, 1966, 2Neat Magazines
6. ^ Winifred Museum home page, accessed May 11, 2008

External links

• Tonka Toys – Comprehensive collector site
• Neat Old Toys – Site with large amount of information on Tonka history
• The Rock Lords collector archives – Collector guide for the Rock Lords toy line from Tonka/Bandai
• Action Figure Archive – Vintage Tonka action figures guide, message boards and online store.