Monday, April 19, 2010

Super City Construction Set

I recently found this Super City set on Australian ebay.

I hadn't heard of it before, and I don't remember seeing it in supermarkets - it was sold at Coles Stores and New World Supermarkets. Coles is an Australian supermarket chain, and used the 'New World' tag from 1962 to 1990. I would guess that this might date from the 1970s, but there's no date on it. It does say 'Made in Australia':


and also that it's a registered trade mark of the Ideal Toy Corporation:

so perhaps there's a US version as well.

It's a modular construction set, not a dolls house - it's designed to build a city with shops, utilities, businesses and houses. You can tell it's Australian from the spelling of the signs:



What caught my eye was the coloured plastic sheets that form the walls of the buildings, so that you can construct multi-coloured buildings - a similar concept to the Marx Imagination house or the Bozart Kaleidoscope house.

I've had a go putting together one of the buildings:



and also making a small house that I could almost use as a dolls house in the Kaleidoscope house. The square plastic frames, into which the coloured inserts go, are 5.5 cm wide, so this structure is about 13 cm x 7.5 cm, or roughly 5" x 3":







I think the tiny plastic dolls house furniture I've used in the top pictures came with the 1949 Ohio Art Corporation metal dolls house, although it may have been available through other companies too. I bought it from an Australian woman who played with it as a child.

I haven't tried the modern home with its second floor overhang:


or the research centre or medical centre:



and I'd need the Skyscraper Kit to make the skyscrapers shown on the lid of the box, and also in the Building Guide and Plans - no doubt so that kids would ask their parents to buy it for them!

21 comments:

  1. Wow how innovative! Glad you found it for us to see! CM

    ReplyDelete
  2. how cool is this!
    I'm not the person to be envious, but in this case...
    This is a great find and great fun guaranteed. Like what you have done.
    Best wishes to Australia!

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a great find Rebecca! I love the coloured plastic sheets as well and the little house you put together is really cool! The bright tiny furniture you used suits the house perfectly too! Would be fun to see a photo of it in the Kaleidoscope house.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Gosh the modern home looks really cool. Sounds like you had some fun and that makes me smile. What a great find. Thanks for sharing it. Gosh oh golly... Now you have a Super City! I sure like it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Excellent post! Love the mini K House and its tiny furniture, too. Really neat kit. Why don't they make them like this anymore???!

    ReplyDelete
  6. What a great find! Love the pictures and it looks like a lot of fun to play with.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I love the jewel tones of the transparent pieces...and I hope you make the mini-modern house and show us!
    Having just built with Legos last week with my grandson, I know you had fun with these buildings....:)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Great find. I have never seen these before. I love the little building you put together. The colours really work well and I like that you can see the furniture inside.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Thank you, CM, Oese, Pubdoll, Amy, Callsmall, Mini Dork, DiePuppenstubensammlerin, Florine and Pan, for all your comments - I'm glad you like it too :-)

    @ Oese, I'm sure that you could do marvellous things with a kit like this - I'd love to see what you'd make! I'll keep an eye out for others, and let you know. There is one on US ebay at the moment, which makes a skyscraper and skyport, so it's worth looking there too.

    Hi Pubdoll, well, having a mini K house to put in the K house might just spur me on to setting it up and taking some photos of it! It's a bit of a mess in there at the moment, one of my dolls should set up a business as a cleaner :-(

    @ Florine, Doesn't it look jewel-like? I should have a go at that modern house - I'll post pictures if/when I do!

    ReplyDelete
  10. It's amazing what there is around to pickup if you have the eyes. Well done Rebecca

    ReplyDelete
  11. Super City, now that was a great set. (I was a little bit to young when I got it) lol

    ReplyDelete
  12. Ideal's Super City building sets were designed as a 'companion' to it's highly-successful Motorific model racing sets. It was a toy generally found in 'mainline' retailers here in the USA such as Sears and J.C.Penney.

    My minor dissatisfaction with the sets were that one could only construct buildings of a square or rectangular 'footprint, as the pieces were limited to a 90-degree join at the corners.

    Nice find Rebecca, do enjoy that amazing toy ever-so much !

    One last bit, do consider printing your own insert panels for the open-frame pieces, a nice 90lb paper or light cardstock should work well in a color laser or inkjet printer. Also considered making said inserts from embossed-textured craft papers.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thanks Rebecca, I had this back in the 60's and yes they were sold through Coles.. played with them for hours..

    ReplyDelete
  14. I had lots of it as well in the late 60's. Was great! Enjoyed it more than Leggo and Mechano.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Oh the hours I spent with this set, and fond dreams of my childhood since. Really was the best!

    ReplyDelete
  16. I loved my set when I was a kid, I had the Skyscraper Kit, and I used to imagine the people from the TV show 'Land of the Giants' would live in it. Sadly the set didn't survive my three younger brothers...oh well, many thanks Rebecca for the good memories.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thanks for this! We had several of these kits and they were so awesome to build with!

    ReplyDelete
  18. As a Young Kid I put together many Biulding Set,s Super city was one of easiest to work with.one set even had a working water Fountane

    ReplyDelete
  19. My brother and I had this set when we were kids. We loved it. We were talking recently and realized we sometimes still look at buildings with this set in mind. So glad I was able to feed my nostalgia with your postings!

    ReplyDelete
  20. I had a set for the skyscrapers available in the States. Loved the color panels. Built wondrous structures for my Matchbox fleet. That was in the late 60s or early 70s.

    ReplyDelete