Mercury (toy manufacturer) Marklin, the company was started in 1932, by Attilio Clemente and Antonio Cravero, but its first toy was a gun produced about 1939 (Batazzi et al 1974; Force 1992, 5; History of Mercury 2013; Ralston 2009, 62). The company first began making toy cars just after World War II, so is one of the earliest diecast model makers preceding Corgi and many others and it was the earliest producer in Italy (Richardson 1999, 134). In Italy there was little competition for Mercury through most of the 1950s (Force 1992, 5). Early cars were more Tootsietoy-like with simple cast bodies, wheels
James C. Toy Hickory, Harford County, Maryland to Eleanor Toy (1853-) and her husband, carpenter and farmer John Toy (1803-c.1872), James was the third of six sons; the family also included five daughters but no slaves. He married Mary Toy in 1874. Their son William was born in 1876 and daughter Rose in 1883. During the American Civil War, James Toy and two of his brothers volunteered to serve for three year terms in the Union Army. All were initially sent to Maryland's Eastern Shore, a hotbed of Confederate sympathizers, perhaps because of its agricultural dependence on slavery. James Toy joined the Purnell