Talk:Bead maze

Initial stub

This is a classic children's toy, so I was surprised to not find an article about it here when I was trying to look up more information about it. Despite its prevalence, it was hard to find quality sources about it (most of my online searching just resulted in links to shopping sites for buying the toy), but I created this initial stub article using the marginally-acceptable sources I was able to find so far. It would be great if people more familiar with the topic could expand on it; I was particularly interested in the history of the toy, but couldn't find much about it online. — Umofomia (talk) 16:35, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

I was later able to find a higher-quality secondary source book, though with minimal additional information, which I've added. Additional online searching also led me to find a company called Anatex that asserts that it's the first manufacturer of these toys in North America when it was founded in 1982. I had the impression that these toys were older than that, but a Google Ngram check seems to show mentions of it only starting in 1983, so perhaps that assertion is true. I didn't find any other additional [high quality] corroborating sources for this though, so I haven't added this information to the article, but it's potentially an avenue to research further. The book I referenced only mentions a company called Educo International, which appears to be a Canadian company founded in 1983, though the book doesn't make any claims about it being the originator of the toy. — Umofomia (talk) 19:25, 15 July 2022 (UTC)

After digging some more, I found that both Anatex and Educo claim to have introduced the toy to North America, and I found some secondary sources which seem to support both accounts. One source in particular, Dr. Toy, who seems notable enough to have an entry on Wikipedia, also supported both accounts, though didn't definitively say whether one or the other was the original one. I added this information, along with the various awards their respective toys have received in this recent addition. — Umofomia (talk) 22:18, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

I also wanted to note that this information only mentioned the North American market, so the article currently only talks about the history there. Other than the mention of the Australian inventor, I couldn't find any other information about how the toy was received worldwide. — Umofomia (talk) 16:46, 20 July 2022 (UTC)