Lionel's operating profit dropped to $82,000 - its operating profit in 1927 had been more than $500,000 - and in 1931, it lost $207,000. The trains were considered a luxury item, and at the height of the Depression, one of Lionel's more extravagant locomotives cost as much as a used Ford Model T. In an effort to compete with companies which were willing to undercut Lionel's prices without diluting its premium Lionel and Ives brands, Lionel introduced a line of inexpensive electric toy trains under the Winner Toys' or Winner Toy Corp. brand name, which were sold from 1930 to 1932. The starting price for a set, which included a transformer, was $3.25. These and other efforts to improve its financial standing were unable to keep Lionel from going into receivership in May 1934. The product widely credited with saving the company was a wind-up handcar featuring Mickey and Minnie Mouse which operated on O gauge track, and sold for $1. Lionel manufactured 250,000 units, but was still unable to keep up with demand. At a wholesale price of .55 cents, the handcar's sales didn't provide enough profit to pay off Lionel's debts of $300,000; however, it did provide much-needed cash. In reality it was the success of the more expensive but profitable 752E City of Portland Union Pacific Streamliner which not only gave the company much needed funds, but also as Lionel's first scale model, it gave the company considerable presence in the model market and showed the way forward with the start of the scale detailed die-cast look. Whilst a number of equally successful streamliners were issued in the following years, the handcar experiment was not repeated and the novelty market was left to the cheaper toy manufacturers. Lionel avoided bankruptcy and emerged from receivership the next year. By 1939, Lionel had discontinued its standard gauge products, concentrating instead on the more-affordable (and lucrative) O-gauge and OO gauge, which it had introduced in 1938. Lionel ceased toy production in 1942 to produce nautical items for the United States Navy during World War II. Lionel produced ads aimed at American teenagers, to begin planning their post-War layouts. Lionel also introduced the so-called Lionel Wartime Freight Train, a detailed set of cut-and-fold models of Lionel trains printed on cardstock which was notoriously difficult to put together. Competition During the pre-war era, Lionel competed with Ives Manufacturing Company, Boucher Manufacturing Company,