How many toys do the US and UK sell each year? Well up until this year the growth has steadily risen at about five percent and the actual sales in Us dollars for the end of 2006 (the 2007 results are as yet to be announced, but will be about the same or slightly lower than 2006) for the US is $23 billion and the UK $4 billion. Incidentally the UK has the biggest sales in the EU.

Some of the retail shops and online web stores have seen up to a 24% rise in natural wooden toys, from wooden rocking horses to trains. There has been a sustained rise over the past few years with these type of toys, but a 24% rise exceeds expectations.

It can only be assumed that these toys are selling so well because partly the prices are coming down to a level more affordable for the masses and the negative environmental issues of other types of materials used in toy manufacture are helping natural wooden toys to become a more attractive alternative. What about another idea being suggested that the baby boomers of the fifties and sixties are beginning to buy for their children and grandchildren these wooden toys because that is what they can remember playing with?

Whatever the reasons of this upsurge in popularity for wooden toys there is no doubt that the ones purchased now will be remembered for their good workmanship and precision carving as well as their lasting qualities for being fashionable and for lasting generations.