RAPCO - Martin Yale Industries
Chicago Ill. 1965-1969
In 1965 Martin Yale Industries Inc., of Chicago bought out the remaining Rapaport Bros., and became RAPCO, Inc. These moulds were sold thru a variety of names including RAPCO, Cast Rite, and Home Foundry. Additionally, Sears and Montgomery Wards (remember them?) got into the action repackaging the moulds under their label.
By 1969 it was becoming clear that children melting lead on the kitchen stove, and playing with lead models was probably not the best use of lead. By the 1970's lead toys were being banned in both the US and Europe, Thus bringing down RAPCO.
In the early 1970's Bert Dunken, remembering his childhood casting toys, reached out to RAPCO/Yale and ended up purchasing much of their inventory. Bert began Dunken Co., and started selling these moulds as "adult" models thereby bypassing the whole issue of children playing with lead.
In 1974 Bob Blanc, who was a Sales and Product Development manager with RAPCO left the company and started REB Toys. He then purchased RAPCO's entire tooling and mould inventory and founded Castings Inc., starting out in Illinois, then moving to Longwood Florida, and finally to Washington state. He restarted the production of the metal moulds (using zymac alloy) using the original Rapaport Brothers patterns. Bob expanded the company offerings with silicone rubber moulds of fully round models of both humans and animals, with the humans being approximately 1/32 scale.
Sadly the REB/Castings website no longer exists. The good news however is Dunken Co. appears to have at least the inventory from REB Toys if not the actual patterns.
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