TOY SOLDIER HQ INC

T.COHN (SUPERIOR)

TOY SOLDIERS AND FIGURES ID GUIDE

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The T.Cohn company was founded about 1900 by Tobias Cohn. The company made many tin litho toys such as sand pails. The first "playset" type item made by T.Cohn was a doll house in 1948. During the Korean War in the 1950s plastic was in short supply and the Lido Toy Company supplied T.Cohn with many plastic figures for their playset line. The term superior was used as a brand name for the T.Cohn company. One logo used as seen above was found inside the blacksmith bucket (seen below). The logo in the bucket is football shaped with "MADE IN USA over TC over SUPERIOR". The anvil stump (seen below) also has a logo but the only marking inside the football shape is the intertwined "TC". Eventually it seems the T. Cohn name was removed. SUPERIOR inside a pennant was a more common logo used on the doll house furniture and some of the tin buildings. Confused collectors have since called the company "Superior" but it stayed as T.Cohn with superior simply being a sales slogan implying you were buying a better product. The small mounted western figures were based upon earlier figures made by The Bergen Toy & Novelty Co. As these figures were also copied by Lido, Ajax and Archer among others it can be difficult to tell who made what. In 1961 T.Cohn had molds made to make plastic farmers, farm animals, farm implements and more and made a series of farm playsets. In 1963 Lido announced that they were for sale ( to Bala in 1964). T.Cohn then had military figures and vehicle molds made to use in a TV COMBAT licensed set and new cowboys and Indians for their Fort Cheyenne playset. In 1968 T.Cohn filed for bankruptcy and their tooling was bought by Brumberger. Brumberger made quite few dollhouses and service stations with the ex T.Cohn tooling. They also continued to make small farm, Fort Cheyenne and military playsets at least through 1979.

Western Items

The black smith came with a two piece anvil + a bucket. Finding all of the pieces is very difficult as the set was only made for 1 or 2 years. A ladder was also made in the same mold.

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Cannon, non shooting, worst playset cannon ever made.

7th Cavalry headquarters and stable, tin litho.

FIGURES MADE BY LIDO AND WHOLESALED TO T.COHN

The early Lido, Ajax & Archer mounted cowboys and Indians were based upon or copied from Bergen (Beton) mounted figures and Lincoln Log foot metal figures. The figures found in the early T. Cohn (Superior) western playsets with the exception of the blacksmith were supplied by Lido. The western horses in these early T.Cohn Fort Superior playsets are actually marked LIDO! The above pictures shows you some of the figures that can be found. At some point soft plastic versions were made with the kneeling poses having bases. Lido sold some of these figures with metallic coatings. The horse is a copy of a Bergen horse and Lido, Ajax, Archer and eventually T.Cohn all copied it. The horse was later copied in Hong Kong perhaps by Effrem Arensteins Toy Innovation Company located in Hong Kong.

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1957 T.Cohn western set using later Lido figures.

Fort Cheyenne

After Lido was sold in 1968 T.Cohn began making their own figures for their playsets.

The first two cowboys and all of the Indians were copied from poses made by the Marx Toy Co. The running "cowboy" looks more like a G-Man. The cannon is poorly designed without a trail. The wagon is the same as Lido's and either one copied the other or both copied someone else (most likely). The horses are copies of a Bergen Toy & Novelty (BETON) horse. Lido, Ajax and T.Cohn all copied this horse pose. Brumberger continued to make this set after they got the T.Cohn playset molds about 1969 after T.Cohn went out of business. They made playsets at least through 1979 which is the latest catalog we have seen.

Forts were mostly hard plastic, but the poles for the guard towers were made of wood and the guard tower floors of heavy cardstock.

SPACE SETS

T.Cohn got GIs made in hard plastic and in metallic colors wholesale from Lido for this playset. The picture shows five of the eight poses that were used.

The T.Cohn Space Port was made of tin litho, but the figures and spaceships were made of hard plastic by Lido Toys who wholesaled them to T.Cohn.

Lido also sold them with a tie in to the popular Captain Video television show that ran from June 27, 1949, and April 1, 1955.

Figures made by T.Cohn

MILITARY SETS

1950s T,Cohn military playsets were made using GIs wholesaled to them by Lido Toys, hard plastic vehicles imported from great britian, and their own in house produced hard plastic and vacuform scenery pieces. The small tin rock pile used in western sets was also sometimes included in the WWII sets.

Battle accessories are made of swirled brown or reddish brown hard plastic and perhaps 60mm in scale.

T.Cohn also used vacuform pieces in their military playsets.

Jeep wheels are marked Made in Gt Britain and both the jeeps and the Cromwell like tank on the left have metal undersides and obviously were made by the same maker. The Sherman/Patton tank on the right may have had an under wheel of some type.

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T. Cohn made an interesting Naval base with the 45mm figures (copies of various Marx poses) and accessories seen above along with smaller scaled ships and other accessories all on a tin lito base. The figure mold had 29 cavities making what you see in the picture + two torpedoes.

Battlegound Playsets

T.Cohn's first military battleground playsets were filled with LIDO soldiers in green and gray. With Lido announcing they were for sale in 1963 T.Cohn made their own figures about 40/45mm in scale that were knock offs of Marx and Monogram figures. Their vehicles were made in about 1/72 scale and Airfix made some very similar ones a few years later. There are two different MG tops that could be placed either on the APC or on the tripod for the infantry. Hard plastic accessories were closer to 60mm in scale.

Figures

Top row are Marx GI copies, 2nd row Marx Marines copies and the bottom two rows are copies of Monogram model kit figures. Several shades of green and gray were used over the years.

Marx GI copies

Officer with pistol.

Kneeling shooting MG.

Running with rifle x chest.

Kneeling shooting rifle.

Butting with rifle.

Kneeling with mortar shell.

Marx Marine copies

Kneeling with rifle x waist.

Radioman.

Running with ammo box.

Kneeling loading rifle.

Running with rifle in one hand.

Monogram GI copies

Officer pointing.

Flamethrower.

Rifle across waist.

Tommygun across waist.

Kneeling with loading bazooka.

Kneeling shooting bazooka

Throwing grenade.

Standing shooting rifle.

Mine detector.

Prone shooting rifle.

Prone shooting MG.

Standing with handie talkie.

Looking through binoculars.

MG on tripod.

Mortar.

Vehicles

6.00 2 1/2 ton truck.

5.00 M47 Patton tank with rear turret ammo storage.

5.00 M48 Patton tank with oval turret.

5.00 M110 155mm gun platform.

8.00 LCVP landing craft.

6.00 APC with both weapons.

5.00 Jeep with windshield & hitch.

2.00 Ammo trailer.

3.00 Howitzer.

Civilian Items

Doll House Items

T.Cohn made a 6 piece family for their largest farm sets and selected doll houses. Father, mother, daughter and dog seen above plus a son who is running with one foot off the ground & baby standing holding rattle. They are 58-60mm in scale and not easy to find.

Large scale actual size in photo.

Dustpan, red, SP.

Large roasting pan, red, SP.

Service Station and Freight Terminal Items

T. Cohn made a 16 piece gas station accessory and figure set. They copied four of the Marx 30/35mm gas station attendants and perhaps some of the accessories as well, but it was payback for Marx copying their idea to make a service station. The T.Cohn service station attendants were usually in hard plastic while Marx generally made theirs in soft plastic, but we can not tell them apart for sure. Photo of 16 piece mold shot seen below courtesy of Gary Carlington

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T.Cohn attendants.

Photo courtesy of Gary Carlington

T.Cohn also had a mold usually run in white that had two workers + a series of accessories. This group was also placed in larger service station and freight terminal playsets. This mold included the nice workbench with individual tools. The work bench was made in three pieces that plugged together and all told each "mold shot" had a total of 26 pieces. These same two worker poses are also found in the T.Cohn navy set made in blue as dock workers.

FARM ITEMS

- logo found on barn base near left edge.

Tin Items

To go with their tin building T.Cohn had two molds that made groups of hard plastic items in red and shades of yellow to enhance their farm sets. Tom Loback (tomtin on ebay) was kind enough to allow us to use the following four photos to show some of the hard plastic pieces;

The above picture shows some of thr "yellow" farm hard plastic accessory mold. this mold had the cupolas, milk cans and litter carrier as well as winches, silo chute doors and other attachment pieces necessary for the barn and conveyor.

T.Cohn had one mold that made two farm workers (based upon Marx poses but with switched tools), a horse, two cows (one larger than the other), haybale & feed sack. These pieces would then of course be in matching colors in a playset and larger sets would have two groupings. The cows are completely hollow belly which makes them easy to tell apart from Ohio Art cows. Colors most commonly seen for this group include; white, cream, tan, gray and dark gray.

Partial sprue -

FARM ANIMALS - These animals are soft plastic and many are copies of Marx. There seems to be two early slightly different versions of these which we believe resulted when the bases were made larger on some animals for increased stability. Finally a third version was made when the mold was remade (In Portugal) and the larger animals now have what look like skis to provide even greater stability. These animals are usually seen in yellow or brown. One mold set consists of 1 colt, 1 calf, 1 pig, 1 sheep, 2 piglets head up, 2 piglets head down, 2 lambs head turned, 2 lambs bawling, 1 rooster, 1 pecking chicken, 8 chicks, 1 duck, 4 ducklings, 6 fence birds, 1 2 piece small haystack, 1 hook & 1 stool. larger farm sets might have two groupings while smaller sets would only have one.

FARM IMPLEMENTS

The farm implements were made in two molds. One mold held the wheels + 2 seated farmers and other accessories (usually made in yellow or black and some in silver)while the other mold (usually run in red and some in green)had the implement bodies + other accessories such as the larger 2 piece hay stack. The pickup truck was made in a separate mold and the smaller "tailgate" piece can be attached to approximate a normal pickup truck and then the larger "tailgate" piece can be attached to the smaller one to create a covered bed truck.

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FARM ACCESSORIES

The T.Cohn farm accessories were made in several molds along with animals and implements. The feed sack and hay bale were in the large animal mold. The stool, hook and small two two piece hay shock were in the small animal mold. the large 2 piece hay shock, feed box bottom and trash can were in the "implement" mold and the feed box top, trash can lid, bucket, shovel, pitchfork and two weather vanes were in the "wheel" mold. In addition the cupola and milk cans were made in a distinct mold as were the crop rows and the fence pieces. Many of these are direct copies of Marx farm accessories.

Doll House Items

Pieces are marked with T.Cohn's SUPERIOR FLAG LOGO.