Lewis Polk, owner of Aristo-Craft Trains, must have had an interesting childhood. After all, his father was none other than Nat Polk.
Along with a handful of other men, Nat Polk helped to create the hobby industry. Before Nat and his friends got started, hobby merchandising was a hit or miss proposition. I don’t think I entirely appreciated these early founders of the hobby business until I recently stumbled into “An Interview with Nat Polk” on www.aristocraft.com. Go to the main site and then look down the menu bar on the left side of the window, clicking on “Articles & Photos.” Scroll down.
The secret of this interview is a very knowledgeable interviewer, Bruce Manson of Train Collectors Quarterly magazine. Of course, it doesn’t hurt a thing that Mr. Polk had such a lively spirit and rapid recall of names and events. Nat Polk passed away in August 1996, but he left behind an entire industry built upon his values and hard work.
For him, the hobby business wasn’t just about trains, though that was a field of interest. Rather, it was about merchandising a new type of product. Whether it was specially shaped balsa wood for airplanes, specific paints for automobiles, tiny parts for model railroaders, or engines for boats, it was all in the hobby world. Nat has been quoted as saying, “The way to improve business is to increase the pie and then get your share of it.” And that’s just what he did. He took the model hobbies from being just a bubble in the toy business to becoming a substantial industry of its own.
The interview is presented on the web site in six parts. I’m going to take the liberty of putting just the opening part of the interview and let you take up the rest of it from there.
Bruce: What we want to do, Nat, is to start with day zero. Let’s start with the Polk Brothers. We know you through the TCA meets and you have a brother named Irwin. Are you the senior member?
Nat: No, I’m the junior member.
B: Both youngsters at heart! You fellows started in the hobby business in approximately what year?
N: We started in New Jersey in 1933 on Halsey Street and my brother at that time was still working for Hearst Newspapers running the model aviation program in seventeen newspapers. In 1935, he was the Field Director for the Junior Birdmen of America.
You know William Randolph Hearst actually brought in the Boy Scouts of America. He always liked boys organizations and he had an organization called the Boy Scouts of America, who wore Daniel Boone fur hats. And they were not scouts as you know them today, they were like western scouts. And when the Boy Scouts came over here from England, we pleaded with Hearst to give up that name and he did reluctantly. He always hungered for youth organizations, and after Lindbergh flew across, the aviation thing was wild and the young people were so involved in it he started with what they called the Junior Birdmen of America. Hearst ran a column daily with a full page or two on Sundays in seventeen of his newspapers. My brother was the Field Director working to put the seal of approval on various model aviation kits and running the contest all over the country.
B: Were there model aviation companies as we know them today?
N: Oh yes, there were companies like Comet who made kits and they also made railroad kits too, you know. They were all model airplane companies at that time. In fact, during those days you didn’t have any model railroad shops, you didn’t have hobby shops, you had model airplane shops. We were the ones who eventually took and showed them how to sell trains, because at that time Varney and John Tyler of Mantua were selling by mail.
B: Most of those airplane model shops were in department stores, weren’t they?
N: We ourselves had leased departments in about thirty department stores throughout the country.
B: Did they sell strictly airplanes?
N: Airplanes, glue, supplies, wood, and all.
B: When did that hobby start?
N: As soon as Lindbergh flew across in 1927, after that it was go. In fact, Bamberger Air Club asked us to form a club which we did with the Newark Evening News, and they asked if my brother or one of us would go to work for them and then they would open the department.
B: So you had shops, franchises in thirty department stores?
N: Yes, that went on until the late 1930s and so on.
B: How did you get into model railroading?
N: Model railroading, of course, was a love of ours always. Because we sold Lionel and American Flyer and Marx — that was strictly from the toy end. When people like Gordon Varney and John Tyler from Tyco or Mantua it was called then, because the company was in Mantua, NJ, started to sell by mail, we got very interested and talked to those two.
1934 was the year that Al Kalmbach started Model Railroader, and that was the year we opened in New York City. Bill Walthers was already in the mail order business. So we went to Tyler and to Varney and said we think we can sell these train kits and locomotives and so on through the model airplane shops. Well, they didn’t believe that, but they were willing to have a go at it. So, we bought a bunch of stuff and gosh, in one month we got rid of it because it was very easy to teach those model airplane shops to go into model railroading. After that they were called hobby shops, no longer model airplane shops and we did very well.
* * *
So this details the beginning. It’s interesting to note that Mantua/Tyco and Varney were selling mail order, making that a more historical enterprise than we like to think of it today. But that’s just one of many insights to be drawn from this passage alone, and the entire interview is loaded with them.
I only rarely unearth something that causes me to sit back and just ponder what I do from day to day, but this interview certainly did. Nat speaks of Josh Cowen, who’s middle name — Lionel — is a big part of our industry. He also drops names, many of them the very pillars of our industry. For starters, he speaks of Louis Marx, A.C. Gilbert, Irv Athearn, Bernie Paul, John Tyler, Alan Ginsburg, Mills Testor, and very many more. It’s an odd and often amusing walk through an improbable history. When it comes to hobby shops and model railroading, you have to be careful with this interview. It could change how you think about the hobby business.
I don’t suppose I ever thought of the hobbies as being “pioneering,” but this interview has changed my mind about that! At one point in the interview, Mr. Polk talks of warning Josh Cowen not to go too heavily into OO scale because HO was coming on strong. This was in the late thirties, and Nat’s vision proved true. Pioneering requires vision and considerable risk. Fortunes were bet on model railroad products and still are. While it’s amazing all that has changed in the hobby world, at the bottom of it, it’s even more incredible what hasn’t.
Nat talks of the industry and how small and closely-knit it was. Often he felt he didn’t have time to have friends outside of the industry, so all of his close friends were fellow hobby businessmen. To this day, it remains a remarkably small industry, and as much as folks in the trade compete hotly with each other, they also care about one another. From all of this I would offer some advice about those who are quick on the lawsuit: This is a delicate business that won’t long endure selfish, me-first legal squabbles. This is a place where competition is not cutthroat. Make the pie bigger and then get your share of it.
Along with a handful of other men, Nat Polk helped to create the hobby industry. Before Nat and his friends got started, hobby merchandising was a hit or miss proposition. I don’t think I entirely appreciated these early founders of the hobby business until I recently stumbled into “An Interview with Nat Polk” on www.aristocraft.com. Go to the main site and then look down the menu bar on the left side of the window, clicking on “Articles & Photos.” Scroll down.
The secret of this interview is a very knowledgeable interviewer, Bruce Manson of Train Collectors Quarterly magazine. Of course, it doesn’t hurt a thing that Mr. Polk had such a lively spirit and rapid recall of names and events. Nat Polk passed away in August 1996, but he left behind an entire industry built upon his values and hard work.
For him, the hobby business wasn’t just about trains, though that was a field of interest. Rather, it was about merchandising a new type of product. Whether it was specially shaped balsa wood for airplanes, specific paints for automobiles, tiny parts for model railroaders, or engines for boats, it was all in the hobby world. Nat has been quoted as saying, “The way to improve business is to increase the pie and then get your share of it.” And that’s just what he did. He took the model hobbies from being just a bubble in the toy business to becoming a substantial industry of its own.
The interview is presented on the web site in six parts. I’m going to take the liberty of putting just the opening part of the interview and let you take up the rest of it from there.
Bruce: What we want to do, Nat, is to start with day zero. Let’s start with the Polk Brothers. We know you through the TCA meets and you have a brother named Irwin. Are you the senior member?
Nat: No, I’m the junior member.
B: Both youngsters at heart! You fellows started in the hobby business in approximately what year?
N: We started in New Jersey in 1933 on Halsey Street and my brother at that time was still working for Hearst Newspapers running the model aviation program in seventeen newspapers. In 1935, he was the Field Director for the Junior Birdmen of America.
You know William Randolph Hearst actually brought in the Boy Scouts of America. He always liked boys organizations and he had an organization called the Boy Scouts of America, who wore Daniel Boone fur hats. And they were not scouts as you know them today, they were like western scouts. And when the Boy Scouts came over here from England, we pleaded with Hearst to give up that name and he did reluctantly. He always hungered for youth organizations, and after Lindbergh flew across, the aviation thing was wild and the young people were so involved in it he started with what they called the Junior Birdmen of America. Hearst ran a column daily with a full page or two on Sundays in seventeen of his newspapers. My brother was the Field Director working to put the seal of approval on various model aviation kits and running the contest all over the country.
B: Were there model aviation companies as we know them today?
N: Oh yes, there were companies like Comet who made kits and they also made railroad kits too, you know. They were all model airplane companies at that time. In fact, during those days you didn’t have any model railroad shops, you didn’t have hobby shops, you had model airplane shops. We were the ones who eventually took and showed them how to sell trains, because at that time Varney and John Tyler of Mantua were selling by mail.
B: Most of those airplane model shops were in department stores, weren’t they?
N: We ourselves had leased departments in about thirty department stores throughout the country.
B: Did they sell strictly airplanes?
N: Airplanes, glue, supplies, wood, and all.
B: When did that hobby start?
N: As soon as Lindbergh flew across in 1927, after that it was go. In fact, Bamberger Air Club asked us to form a club which we did with the Newark Evening News, and they asked if my brother or one of us would go to work for them and then they would open the department.
B: So you had shops, franchises in thirty department stores?
N: Yes, that went on until the late 1930s and so on.
B: How did you get into model railroading?
N: Model railroading, of course, was a love of ours always. Because we sold Lionel and American Flyer and Marx — that was strictly from the toy end. When people like Gordon Varney and John Tyler from Tyco or Mantua it was called then, because the company was in Mantua, NJ, started to sell by mail, we got very interested and talked to those two.
1934 was the year that Al Kalmbach started Model Railroader, and that was the year we opened in New York City. Bill Walthers was already in the mail order business. So we went to Tyler and to Varney and said we think we can sell these train kits and locomotives and so on through the model airplane shops. Well, they didn’t believe that, but they were willing to have a go at it. So, we bought a bunch of stuff and gosh, in one month we got rid of it because it was very easy to teach those model airplane shops to go into model railroading. After that they were called hobby shops, no longer model airplane shops and we did very well.
* * *
So this details the beginning. It’s interesting to note that Mantua/Tyco and Varney were selling mail order, making that a more historical enterprise than we like to think of it today. But that’s just one of many insights to be drawn from this passage alone, and the entire interview is loaded with them.
I only rarely unearth something that causes me to sit back and just ponder what I do from day to day, but this interview certainly did. Nat speaks of Josh Cowen, who’s middle name — Lionel — is a big part of our industry. He also drops names, many of them the very pillars of our industry. For starters, he speaks of Louis Marx, A.C. Gilbert, Irv Athearn, Bernie Paul, John Tyler, Alan Ginsburg, Mills Testor, and very many more. It’s an odd and often amusing walk through an improbable history. When it comes to hobby shops and model railroading, you have to be careful with this interview. It could change how you think about the hobby business.
I don’t suppose I ever thought of the hobbies as being “pioneering,” but this interview has changed my mind about that! At one point in the interview, Mr. Polk talks of warning Josh Cowen not to go too heavily into OO scale because HO was coming on strong. This was in the late thirties, and Nat’s vision proved true. Pioneering requires vision and considerable risk. Fortunes were bet on model railroad products and still are. While it’s amazing all that has changed in the hobby world, at the bottom of it, it’s even more incredible what hasn’t.
Nat talks of the industry and how small and closely-knit it was. Often he felt he didn’t have time to have friends outside of the industry, so all of his close friends were fellow hobby businessmen. To this day, it remains a remarkably small industry, and as much as folks in the trade compete hotly with each other, they also care about one another. From all of this I would offer some advice about those who are quick on the lawsuit: This is a delicate business that won’t long endure selfish, me-first legal squabbles. This is a place where competition is not cutthroat. Make the pie bigger and then get your share of it.