Paul K. Guillow, Inc.

Paul K. Guillow, Inc., better known as Guillow's, makes balsa wood model airplane kits. The company was started by Paul K. Guillow in 1926 in Wakefield, Massachusetts, under the name NuCraft Toys. Guillow, born in 1893, served as a naval aviator in World War I and came back from Europe with a fascination for aviation-themed toys. He later earned a degree from Worcester Polytechnic Institute and died in 1951.

Company history

The company’s first products included a 1927 card game called The Lindy Flying Game and a 1928 board game titled Crash: The New Airplane Game. After Charles Lindbergh’s solo transatlantic flight in 1927 sparked a nationwide aviation craze, Guillow's launched a line of balsa wood model kits. The initial set featured twelve non-flying shelf models of World War I biplane fighters, each with a six-inch wingspan and sold for ten cents.

Every kit came with a three-view plan, balsa wood cement, two bottles of colored aircraft dope, and a strip of bamboo for wing and landing gear struts—considered good value at the time. By 1933, demand was strong enough that the company moved from the family barn to its current location in Wakefield. During the 1940s, Guillow's also published several books on building flying model planes.

During World War II, balsa wood was diverted for military use in rafts and life jackets, so Guillow's turned to cardboard or pine for its kits. The company also branched out into building target drone aircraft for gunnery training. After the war, to match changing customer tastes, it shifted focus from stick-and-tissue kits to mass-producing cheap hand-launched gliders and rubber band-powered toy planes sold in many retail outlets.

In 1948, Paul Guillow filed a U.S. patent for a model airplane glider designed to be made in various sizes, used for teaching flight principles, and assembled easily from few parts. The patent was granted in 1952, after his death, to his wife Gertrude. Gertrude expanded and modernized the company until her retirement in 1980. In 1953, the company introduced a line of simple, inexpensive balsa gliders packaged by high-speed machinery; they sold well.

In the 1990s, Guillow's bought competitors Tiger, Inc. of Los Angeles and Comet of Chicago. Tiger specialized in promotional flying toys printed with company logos, and Comet was a direct rival in balsa kits and gliders.