The Source Of Wind-up Toy

In the 18th century, some clock manufacturer in Europe design the clock shape into a variety of image, and make the movement to drive some of the attachments. Besides the function of keeping time, this kind of clock can also make some interesting action. For example, the owl eyes on the owl wall clock can continue to open and close, and timing chirp. There are variety of characters on the castle clock window, and they can perform various actions. This has led to a wind-up toy production. The earlier popular wind-up toy in European was the music box. There are a group of different length of steel sheets and a cylinder with a convex column. The spring drive the cylinder to rotate. The convex column sequentially shift steel sheet, and then play interesting music. The convex column is arranged according to certain rules of design, can play a variety of popular music.

In the 19th century, under the influence of Europe, Guang Dong province in China began to produce the wind-up toy, and they were mainly for the Qing Royal family members to play. In the 1920s, a company in Shanghai began to produce the wind-up toy. The earliest production of varieties is "chicken rice", which is also called “jumping chicken”. Its shell was made with a thin sheet metal stamping after printing. Chickens jump and make a peck rice action after wind-up on foot. There are similar varieties of "jumping frog" and "jumping sparrow". In the 1960s, the wind-up toy production in China has a great development. When the famous toys were “bear photos”. By the spring driving, bear can rotate right and left, it stops after a moment, the bear lift the camera with flash, and flash light shining. It is the outstanding works of wind-up toys at the time.