The Ives Manufacturing Company was an American toy maker from 1868 to 1932, founded by Edward Ives. He produced a large range of toys. Other toy manufacturers copied Ives toy designs and sold them more for less money. This caused Ives to shift towards making trains, first producing floor clockwork trains.
In 1900 a fire destroyed his plant and all of the equipment in it. Afterwards Ives created the new line for the 1901 catalogue which included both cast iron and stamped steel O gauge trains and 1 gauge clockwork trains. He was the first US maker of preassembled sectional track, and patented the three position reversing unit.
In 1910 Ives became the leading manufacturer in the American electric train market. Ives has history with American Flyer and Lionel. In 1930 Lionel purchased American Flyer’s portion of the company, building Ives trains through 1931 and kept them on the market until 1932. In 1934 the Ives name was dropped. The Ives name is still currently owned by Lionel.
Ives is a real piece of model railroad history. Trainz offers a selection of Ives trains and train parts.
If you want to check out other brands prewar as well, feel free to head to our entire prewar model train collection.