Before the trains: Märklin’s doll kitchens and Caroline’s sales trips

Märklin began with miniature kitchens, carriages and toy prams. In 1859, tinsmith Theodor Friedrich Wilhelm Märklin established the Göppingen business that would become famous for trains.

Caroline Märklin helped build its sales network, travelling through southern Germany, Austria and Switzerland to take orders. After her husband died in 1866, she kept the business going. Their sons Eugen and Karl took over in 1888.

The railway turning point came in 1891. Märklin acquired tin-toy maker Ludwig Lutz and presented a clockwork railway with a figure-of-eight track at the Leipzig Spring Fair. More than thirty years separate the founding of the business from that railway debut.