Collection de modèles de cowboys et d'indiens en élastolin et lineol, Hausser, Allemagne, 1ère moitié du 20ème siècle

Some marked "GERMANY", some marked "ELASTOLIN".

In 1904 the brothers Otto and Max Hausser took over the wholesale company Müller & Freyer in Ludwigsburg and in 1910 they started the production of board games and composition figures, mostly depicting soldiers and other war toys. They were made from a paste with wire frames in tin moulds. The brand name ELASTOLIN used by Hausser was soon used colloquially even beyond Germany as a generic name for composition figures made by other manufacturers. By the end of the 1930s, over 3 million figures were produced annually. The toy production was discontinued in 1943 and only resumed in 1946/47. In 1969 the production of traditional composition figures was discontinued and Hausser now produced, similar to Timpo Toys, plug-in figures in which the individual components were injection-moulded from differently coloured plastic. After many successful years, sales declined and O. & M. Hausser KG had to file for bankruptcy in 1983. Trademark rights and figure shapes were taken over by the Preiser company, which still produces hard plastic figures on a scale of 1:25.