Founded in 1906 by Karl Arnold in Nürnberg, K. Arnold & Co. began its life producing tin toys and related items.[1] They produced an extensive line of model ships, doll house items and other toys. In 1935, K. Arnold & Co. hired Max Ernst as their managing director. Ernst, not to be confused with the German realist artist of the same name, was a significant factor in the future of Arnold.
History
Nürnberg was badly damaged by allied bombers during World War II, and, at the end of the war, all of the Arnold facilities were in ruins. Postwar production continued at a facility in the Upper Palatinate (Oberpfalz), with the company beginning its slow recovery with the manufacture of window hardware. The postwar operation of the company was under the direction of Max Ernst and Ernst Arnold, son of Karl Arnold. The factory buildings in Nürnberg were rebuilt and the Arnold Company continued to grow.
In the postwar period, smaller model train sizes became the order of the day. In earlier times, model trains had been largely the plaything of the well to do who had enough money to live in houses large enough to support the display of the larger scales of model trains. The growth toward smaller scales had begun in the early 1900s, with O scale being the first "small" scale. In the 1930s, HO/OO scale became the "small" scale. In the late 1940s and 1950s, TT scale