Kaden models
The state factory, started around 1950, was also called by the acronym KDN which led to the spelled out and somewhat more western name Kaden.
[1] Approximately through the 1960s, the KDN logo included those letters inside of two overlapping circles, like a Venn diagram.
Many, but by no means all, Kovap models were apparently retooled 1960s and 1970s CKO/Georg Kellerman pressed metal toys from Nurnberg, West Germany.
Typically, East European toys and other more sophisticated models replicated the actual vehicles chosen by these governments for the people, the workplace, or more often, the communist party elite.
Real vehicles were not manufactured as a result of research development response to market demand, thus Eastern European automobiles usually lagged far behind the west.
Real factories such as Škoda and Tatra developed unique designs and clever engineering features which were lacking in communist industrial environments elsewhere.
Some of the first KDN toys manufactured in the late 1960s and through the 1970s were either more conservative plastic construction vehicles like a cement mixer, a dump truck, and a road roller – or brightly colored lithographed tin tractors and forklifts among others.
Many vehicles, even though often done in plastic, had a refined western quality and solid feel lacking in other communist bloc toys (with the exception of many Russian models which were often much more impressive in miniature than the real cars they represented).
Some of the smaller early cars like the Innocenti Mini and Mercedes 280 sedan were a bit simpler than the later Miniauto range.
These could be offered in tasteful whites, grays, and reds or odd, unrealistic, and very un-Politoys bright pinks, chartreuses, purples, and oranges.
Newer VW-influenced Octavia sedans and wagons were also model selections with specially decorated boxes for dealers.
Early on, in larger 1:20 scale in plastic, Kaden offered a Stahlberg-like (but more toy-like) series of Skodas in brighter yellows, blues, and also white.
Probably the most compelling Kaden Tatra 815 was the GTC ("Grand Touring Caravan") which in 1987, (while Czechoslovakia was still Communist) was driven by a crew over 200,000 kilometers across six continents and through sixty-seven countries.
Nevertheless, some vehicles were also offered in 1:24 scale and many were made in pressed steel, including a World War II half-track, a Jeep, and a Nazi Kubelwagen.
Kaden finely crafted metal pieces in an exacting and precise way resulting in a very professional look.
In 1991, shortly after the fall of communism, but before the split between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, the company Kovodružstvo Náchod apparently changed its name to Kovap Náchod probably reflecting the new line of pressed steel cars and trucks from tooling inherited from the old German Kellerman CKO firm.
On the bottom of the Volkswagens, which are almost all tin, it still says "CKO" with the word "Replica" and the Kovap logo applied as a sticker.
With the fall of communism, as with all the Soviet satellite countries, products were recrafted and repackaged to be sold to the western markets and toys were no exception.
[9] The company (which it now legitimately can be called – not being a communist party factory anymore) has also moved into the buzzing European 1:87 scale market.
