Maker record
Paya
Payá was a Spanish toy maker based in Ibi, where the Payá family’s tinsmith workshop began producing toys in the early twentieth century. Its early products included miniature household objects such as buckets, cups and watering cans, made from tinplate. The range later included model trains: the Valencian Toy Museum identifies Payá’s 1931, 0-scale electric locomotive, reference 984, as one of Spain’s first electric toy trains. Payá’s work forms part of the history of Ibi’s toy industry, which expanded into other manufacturers and materials over the following decades.
- Founded
- 1902
- Countries
- Spain
- Locations
- Ibi, Spain
- Founders
- Rafael Payá Pardo
The story of Paya
The Payá family worked as tinsmiths in Ibi before entering toy manufacture. By the late nineteenth century, their workshop was making miniature versions of household goods sold at markets, including buckets, cups and watering cans. In 1905 Rafael Payá transferred the tinsmith workshop to his sons; the Valencian Toy Museum identifies this as the point when toy production began to gain ground. Ibi’s municipal history also associates the family’s early toy production with a new method of joining pieces without solder. By 1909, the workshop had a display of more than one hundred pieces.
Payá became Ibi’s first toy manufacturer, followed in the early twentieth century by firms including Rico, Juguetes y Estuches and Claudio Reig. The museum records a Payá electric train, reference 984, made in Ibi in 1931, and identifies it as one of the first electric toy trains produced in Spain. In 1934, Payá and Claudio Reig jointly developed the Rai sound film toy. The Spanish Civil War interrupted Ibi’s industrial development; new toy firms appeared in the 1940s, and the town’s toy industry grew substantially from the 1950s as plastic entered production. The evidence cited here documents Payá’s activity through 1934 but does not resolve its later corporate or production history.