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• Buddy L (also known as Buddy "L" or Buddy-L) is an American toy brand and company founded in 1920 as the Buddy L Toy Company in East Moline, Illinois, by Fred Lundahl.[1]

Buddy L made such products as toy cars, dump trucks, delivery vans, Buddy L fire engine, construction equipment,[3] and Buddy L trains.[4] Fred Lundahl used to manufacture for International Harvester trucks.[1] He started by making a toy dump truck out of steel scraps for his son Buddy. Soon after, he started selling Buddy L "toys for boys", made of pressed steel.[1] Buddy L International Harvester Truck Many were large enough for a child to straddle, propelling himself with his feet.[1] Others were pull toys. A pioneer in the steel-toy field, Lundahl persuaded Marshall Field's and F. A. O. Schwarz to carry his line. He did very well until the Depression, then sold the company.[1] Sturditoy Truck Value Buddy L Locomotive Buddy L Box Car

From 1976 to 1990, Buddy L was owned by Richard Keats, a well-known New York toy designer who went to work for Buddy L the day after he graduated from Brown University in 1948.[1] By 1978 the company was located in Clifton, New Jersey. Free Buddy L Truck Value Guide

Buddy L Truck Value Pressed Steel Toys Auctions Buddy L Toys filed under bankruptcy protection. By 2010, Buddy L Toys was owned by Empire Industries of Boca Raton, Florida. 1929 Arcade Cast Iron Moving Van Antique Buddy L Trucks Always Buying Buddy L Trains

In the 1990s, Buddy L made Splatter Up, a wet version of T-ball.[6]

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In November 2000, Empire of Carolina and its wholly owned subsidiary, Empire Industries, Inc., filed for bankruptcy and, in July 2001 Vintage Pressed Steel Toys Wanted  Buddy L Red Baby Wanted Contact Buddy L Museum. 1920's Buddy L Oil Truck Buddy L Wrecker Buddy L Flivver One Ton Express Truck  

Buddy "L " Toys                                                                                                                                                  Division of the Moline Pressed Steel Company

In 1962 the Moline Pressed Steel Corporation located at 5th Street, East Moline employed 250 people making Buddy L Toys from pressed steel

Fred Lundahl started the Moline Pressed Steel Co., located in East Moline, in 1910. He made automobile fenders, truck and farm-implement parts.  The company primarily supplied parts for the McCormack-Deering line of farm implements and the International Harvester Company for its trucks. About 10 years after opening the business, he made a vow to his only child, 5-year-old Arthur. Having noticed the shoddy workmanship of the boy's toys, Lundahl fashioned his own version of a miniature dump truck, using scrap metal from his company. The truck was a big hit in the 15th Street neighborhood, and other children coveted the sturdy prize. Lundahl saw an opportunity.

In 1921, he converted part of his machine shop into a toy-making shop. He made miniature trucks, cars, tugboats, trains and other toys out of metal. And he named the line after his boy, nicknamed "Buddy." Because little Arthur wasn't the only boy in the neighborhood with the nickname, he was referred to as "Buddy L," for Lundahl, and so was the toy line.

As their popularity took off, despite their immodest price tags, Marshall Field of Chicago and FAO Schwarz in New York City carried Buddy L toys in their department stores. Given that Lundahl's plant was revolutionized to accommodate new manufacturing methods in 1925, it would follow that his $5,000 second mortgage on the 15th Street house was taken the same year to support the enterprise. Sadly, Lundahl had only five years to enjoy his success. In 1930, at the age of 47, he died from complications following surgery at Lutheran Hospital in Moline, just a few blocks from his home. His company was sold. But Buddy L toys would survive much longer, growing in value and fame and reaching the highest collectors' peak to date about a decade ago.

Fred Lundahl's locally produced line of sturdy steel toys hit the same roadblock as any other American manufacturer during World War II. By the early 1940s, Lundahl had been dead for a decade, and the availability of steel was gone, too. The leader in the manufacture of pressed-steel toys, Buddy L went into the wooden-toy business out of necessity. By the time the war ended, lightweight plastic toys hit the market, and heavy steel became passe. Free toy appraisals

From 1976 to 1990, Buddy L was owned by Richard Keats, a well-known New York toy designer who went to work for Buddy L the day after he graduated from Brown University in 1948.