OFFICIAL WEB SITE
TuckLyne has a long and often-painful history. It all began one summer afternoon on Great Pond, one of the Belgrade Lakes of Maine...
Hat Ball
Mr. and Mrs. Lyne were taking care of their grandchildren, young Toph and Willy Tucker, while the children's parents participated in a tennis tournament. The four of them, bored with sitting around and doing nothing, started making balls and catchers out of newspaper kept as fuel for regular fires. They threw the balls from one side of the deck to the other, sometime even trying to get the balls all the way over the roof! The catchers looked somewhat like strange newspaper hats, and thus it was called Hat Ball.
Soon, these founders of TuckLyne began experimenting with other newspaper toys. There was Javelin Throw, a game where a newspaper rod was thrown through a hoop handing from the ceiling. A similar game was Ring Toss, where newspaper rings were thrown onto a peg on the ground. A tagline was canned: "If you don't like the news, just toss it!"
That night, once Toph and Willy's parents returned, the company was founded. It would be called TuckLyne -- a contraction of Tucker, Toph and Willy's surname, and Lyne, their grandparent's name. Each family member was assigned a position. Toph, for example, was President of Merchandising and Advertising, and Willy was the President of Security. Annie Lyne was christened the President. Toph was, at the time, just learning how to design web sites, and pledged to create a section on his forthcoming site for TuckLyne.
The Early Days
The early days of TuckLyne was an exciting time for all. New products ideas came regularly; new family and friends were welcomed to the company. Toph created the TuckLyne web site, and would later start a newsletter, the TuckLyne Times.
Sabrina Fiori joined and helped the company diversify, introducing many non-newspaper toys. From the smash hit "Flower Power" (one of the first products TuckLyne ever sold) to "Foam Fun," "Clay Creatures," and "Tic Toys" (co-developed with Annie Lyne), she helped improve our product line greatly and received TuckLyne Times' "Employee of the Issue" award for it.
TuckLyne wasn't getting any business, but that didn't bother anyone.