The paper presented here deals with the prehistory and the first years of the MÄRKLIN metal construction set. It is based on contemporary documents, such as business letters, brochures, price lists and instruction booklets, as well as on surviving metal construction sets of that time. After the MÄRKLIN management has agreed to a publication, I hereby make the document available to all interested spanners. I hope you enjoy studying the changing circumstances and the technically demanding developments in the early days of this construction kit system. The document has ben translated with the free version of www.DeepL.com/Translator. An improved English version can be downloaded in the next picture. Most of the pictures in this report are shown below and can thus be viewed enlarged.