Germany cornered the wooden toy field before the 19th century, having made more of the toys than other countries in the world. There, toy makers created wooden toys using mostly pine, which was sturdy and simple to carve. Birch and maple were also used, but were mostly the materials for finer toys.
Small wooden toys were carved by hand, and the maker used a knife. Those that were larger were created using pieces of wood that had been sawed and then assembled using glue and nails. These assembled toys, which were created in the late part of the 19th century, were often decorated by gluing Lithographed paper directly on the wood.
The wooden toys created by United States manufacturers were often bigger than those created in Germany. Pine was still common, however oak and ash were also used for large toys because they were strong. American-made wooden toys were often made with a lathe instead of by hand.
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Early wooden toys were usually hand painted, but around 1850, stenciling came onto the scene. Later, lithography would become popular in the later part of the 19th century. These three methods are decoration are easily used to date antique wooden toys.
From the 1860s to 1900, Charles Crandall produced jointed wooden toys that usually depicted scenes of everyday life, as well as fairy tales.
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