Joustra: the Strasbourg name behind the moving toys

Joustra’s name comes from Jouets de Strasbourg. The company was founded in the Neudorf district in 1934 by the Kosmann brothers, according to the Musée du Kochersberg’s account of its Joustra exhibition.

The museum arranged the toys partly by the ways they moved: a display traced materials and mechanisms from 1934 to 1982, while another grouped inexpensive friction-driven figures. Aircraft and helicopters hung above the cases.

One particularly curious pairing was a monorail train and its counterpart running on two rails. The exhibition also brought together all the toys shown in the company’s 1952 catalogue.

Our museum’s Joustra aircraft and cranes are pieces of that broader range of moving toys. Has anyone here kept a Joustra monorail set with its original track?