Vintage Nylint Pressed Steel Ford Pickup Truck & Trailer No. 5900 Race Team

Description

Vintage Nylint Pressed Steel Ford Pickup Truck & Trailer No. 5900 Race Team. The truck measures about 11 1/4" long and trailer is 9 3/4" long, the pair weighs 1 pound 15 ounces. The truck does not have windows if it ever did, the truck and trailer are present but no car is included. Very good condition with some average age related wear. Please see my 12 detailed photos.
The Nylint Corporation was founded in 1937 by brothers Bernard and Ragnar Klint, and David Nyberg of Rockford, Illinois. Their uncle, David Nyberg, supplied much of the initial capital to start the company. The company name of Nylint is a combination of both the Nyberg and Klint names. It was incorporated under the name “Nylint Tool and Manufacturing” and its initial operation was located at 5th Avenue and 13th Street in Rockford. Bernard (known as Barney) Klint and his wife Grace remained actively involved for nearly 60 years in this privately held company until their deaths in the mid-1990s.
In 1951 Nylint started to make high-quality construction toys that were patterned after real construction machinery. The first construction toy was patterned after the Tournarocker made by the R.G. LeTourneau Company. While it was high-quality, it did not have the high price of toys made by Smith-Miller and Doepke. Smith-Miller and Doepke, because of increased competition, were soon forced out of business. Nylint also introduced a second heavy construction toy in 1951, a large high-quality road grader. This toy, while realistic, wasn't patterned after any specific manufacturer's grader, although it did resemble an Adams grader of the day.
Through the mid-1960s, Nylint produced toys patterned after manufacturers such as LeTourneau (now part of Cameron International), the J.D. Adams & Company of Indianapolis, the Frank G. Hough Company of Libertyville, Illinois, the Pettibone-Mulliken Corp. of Chicago, the Austin-Western Works of Aurora, Illinois, and the Clark Equipment Company of Benton Harbor, Michigan. Nylint made their toys as realistic as possible, and they gave credit to the real-life manufacturers. By the early-1950s, demand for quality toys was paramount as the first wave of post-war baby boomer boys (and girls) were hitting the ages of four to eight. Disposable income was high, and the demand for pressed-steel trucks and other toys was at an all-time high.
For several years in the early to mid-1950s, Nylint made construction pieces exclusively. In 1956, Nylint started to take advantage of the Cold War military craze. They made several missile-launching gun toys and made an uncharacteristic plastic ballistic missile set. These military toys had many operating features and sold well. Nylint also made a couple of battery-operated toys in this period including a modified version of the Elgin Street sweeper and a military Electronic Cannon truck.
During the late 1950s, Nylint's construction toys, while high-quality and realistic, moved away slightly from the requirement that the toy be a replica of real-world equipment. After the cold war phase ended in the early 1960s, Nylint returned to its strict “realistic” formula. Other toy companies were moving in the opposite direction—going to more generic or futuristic looking toys not patterned after real vehicles. This phase began around 1959 and peaked about 1965 when Ford toys dominated the Nylint product line. This era lasted throughout the 1960s into the early-1970s. By 1962, Nylint was producing Ford toy replicas for Ford dealership promotions. Nylint was building excellent renditions of the Ford F-100 line of trucks, the Ford “C” tilt-cab, and the smaller Econoline series. By the mid-1960s the company also made a replica of the Ford Bronco. Nylint was blatant about using the Ford label on its toys, stamping “Ford” on tailgates, above the grille, on hubcaps, depicting the Ford “Twin-I-Beam” badge, and a detailed hood decal. Some of these Ford toys were exclusives for Ford dealers, such as a Nylint pickup replica of a camper that housed a Philco AM radio, and was an enticement to bring parents into dealerships.
During this phase, in addition to the Ford trucks and pickups, there were several Nylint Ford jalopy hot rods made.