COMIC BOOK FLATS

THE VERY FIRST RECRUITS !

Back in the late 1940's, the now famous novelty toy maker, Mr. Milton Levine (of "Uncle Milton's Toys" fame), was a young, still-unknown WWII veteran looking for a good business opportunity in post-war America. He read a newsletter article that suggested several ideas which were sure to be big money makers in the near future - "plastic toys" being one of them. "I'd been reading Kiplinger's Letter," he says, "and it said that if you were just out of the Army, the best businesses to go into were toys or bobby pins."

Pondering this information, Milton chose toys, and in 1946 he teamed up with his equally motivated brother-in-law, E. Joseph "Joe" Cossman, to form a mail-order novelty company (this seems to have been called "E. Joseph Cossman & Co." a.k.a. "Cossman & Levine.") Milton and Joe eventually had the brilliant idea to contact a plastics company in Erie Pennsylvania that manufactured the small toy "prizes" that were put into Cracker Jack snack boxes and they suggested that this company sell them big wholesale lots of their plastic toy figures. Evidently the company agreed to the scheme. (In his 80's when we spoke by phone in 2003, Milton could not recall the name of the plastics company, but research suggests that it was most likely "NOSCO Plastics", a division of the National Organ Supply Company.)

Now prepared with a very good source of inexpensive plastic Toy Soldiers, Milton and Joe then turned around and sold thousands upon thousands of them by mail-order in small boxes advertised as "100 Toy Soldiers for only $1.00." Milton first placed the small ads in local newspapers and then later in Comic Books - becoming among the first known people to sell mail-order Toy Soldiers in Comic Books!

**** We are currently seeking any evidence that such ads appeared in vintage comic books earlier than 1950's but we have not found any yet. If you can help by sending images or info about any comic book with toy soldier ads from pre-1950 "Golden Age" of comics, please get in touch!

THIS WEB SITE IS ACTIVELY SEEKING ORIGINAL COPIES OF THESE TOY SOLDIER ADS BY "E. JOSEPH COSSMAN & CO." OR "COSSMAN & LEVINE." PLEASE GET IN TOUCH IF YOU HAVE COPIES OF ANY OF THEIR ADS OR CAN CONFIRM SEEING THEM ANYWHERE.

Milton says the Toy Soldiers by mail idea was so successful that he ended up hiring a staff of several women just to open the huge amounts of mail he was getting. He says he was soon making trips to the bank with "$1,000 in $1.00 bills!"

GI SOLDIERS

The very first soldiers Milton says he sold were GI type Flats. See image at top of this page for examples of what are believed to be the first known GI soldier Comic Book Flats. Also shown is an original 1950's Footlocker Box Set from E. Joseph Cossman & Company. These styrene-based, hard plastic soldiers had a unique marbled green color mixed with various shades of black and/or white. The marbled effect was similar to that seen in some early bakelite plastic products. All the figures had fairly highly detailed sculpting and several figures had distinct left and right sides. For example, several figures have their Army rank stripes on their shoulders and the Sailor figure has his Navy logo on his sleeve.

See image at left for a small ad (measures only 2" x 2 1/4") that was found from the early 1950's which featured the "100 Toy Soldiers For $1.00." These were being sold by a mail order company called "Mastercraft" from Boston, Mass. The set did not include the famous Footlocker yet, so it is believed that this set existed prior to the Footlocker being introduced. It is not known who owned this company in Boston, but it is possible that they bought their toy soldier stock from Cossman & Levine, or possibly were connected in some way to their mail order operation.

These early GI figures did not have any manufacturer's stamp on them at all (later versions of the GI Footlocker Sets would have the words "Hong Kong" stamped into some or all of the pieces in the Sets; and these later Sets had slightly different molds as well.) This lack of foreign stamp is further evidence that suggests these figures were in fact manufactured somewhere in America - possibly by NOSCO.

COWBOYS & INDIANS

Milton said he also sold Cowboys & Indians which did just as well. See image above to view what are believed to be the boxed "100 Cowboys & Indians" Set that Milton was referring to (although this has not been absolutely confirmed yet.)

This set of 100 western figures came in an illustrated box which had sections that could be popped out and set up as diorama pieces. This boxed set featured the typical flat NOSCO Cowboys & Indians that came in various colors. These figures are actually marked NOSCO on the base and were also used as prizes for Cracker Jack boxes (samples of which can be seen above in the center image just below the NOSCO boxed set.)

CIRCUS FIGURES

In addition to the Cowboys & Indians, Milton and Cossman tried a line of Circus Figures but Milton said these did not sell as well. See image at bottom of this page for an example of a 1951 E. Joseph Cossman & Company "3 Ring Circus" Set which contained the same type of plastic NOSCO Circus figures that were seen in Cracker Jack boxes. This unique Circus Set featured paper pop-out build-it-yourself structures and the envelope clearly notes "Plastic Figures" were included.

The full Circus series of 12 NOSCO/Cracker Jack figures can be seen at the bottom of this page.

Milton says he sold these various types of mail-order Toy Soldiers for only a couple of years, then moved on to other business ventures until he and Joe Cossman came up with another brilliant invention - the infamous, ever popular "Ant Farm" live ant habitats! The rest is history.

"Cossman & Levine" began selling thousands of Ant Farms immediately until Milton and Joe became very successful businessmen. In the early 60's, Milton bought Joe out and both men did very well on their own. Joe Cossman went on to be one of the most successful business and marketing consultants in the world. Meanwhile, Milton renamed his company "Uncle Milton's Toys" (Now "Uncle Milton Industries"), and his company is still a major toy producer which is now run by Milton's son. The Ant Farm toy line is still their biggest seller.

It appears that there were some other folks in the toy business in the 1950's who evidently carried on with the Comic Book Toy Soldier business for decades after Milton and Joe moved on. Milton says he was not associated with those later companies like Helen of Toy or Lucky Products, Inc. and does not know who owned or ran those outfits.