Friday, August 28, 2009

Siku - A Brief History

In 1921 Richard Sieper built a casting foundry company in Luedenscheid, the base of the Sieper-Werke today. They started producing consumer goods like cutleries made of aluminium and ashtrays.

The brand name SIKU (SIEPER KUNSTSTOFFE) was registered in 1950. SIKU joined the exhibit at the 1st Nuremberg Toy Fair and displayed there for the first time toys made of plastic (incl. a farm with animals). In the following years the product range expanded.

In 1954 production of the first 32 SIKU toy-model vehicles were made of plastic, at a well suitable scale of 1:60 for children. In contrast to the competitor at that time, WIKING, who was
producing vehicles at the H0-scale (1:87), SIKU developed car toy models at a
larger scale.

The first 20 model airplanes on a scale of 1:250 were successfully introduced in the market. In 1963 they started production of toy models made of metal using zinc casting process. It all began with 16 models – today the assortment has reached 250 toy models.

*taken and summarized from the Siku Official Website.

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