Friday, February 1, 2013

The excitement of finding a label

At first, I thought that all the furniture in the Toy Works dolls house was modern pine furniture. A few pieces have painted red and blue trim, like the stove, sink and kitchen corner unit (not a bread box, as Troy pointed out!) ....
But this bureau has books painted in more colours .... and the handle on the pull-down desk lid is a tiny metal nail, not a large wooden knob like on the corner unit ....

Bureau: roughly 5" tall, 2" wide, and 1 1/4" deep when closed.

So I looked more closely - and found that on the back, there is an old label and remnants of glue or paint:


953 - an old stock or catalogue number?

So I looked at the back of all the other pieces, and found - woohoo!


The remains of a Walther & Stevenson label!!!

This is on a stove, which also has little nails as knobs and handles:

Stove: roughly 2 1/2" high (to top of splashback), 2 1/2" wide and 1 3/8" deep when closed.


Walther & Stevenson was a toy shop in Sydney, at 395 George St. I have catalogues from 1933 and 1956/57 - both have dolls house furniture sets pictured in them, but not these pieces. I have found on another website that Walther & Stevenson closed in 1969, and I suspect that these pieces could date from the 1960s.
As far as I know, this is the first lot of dolls house furniture I have from Walther & Stevenson!! And Australian-made - and commercially-made - dolls houses and dolls house furniture is pretty rare, so it was very exciting to find it, especially in a fairly ordinary dolls house. (The 1933 catalogue states that the furniture is Australian-made, from plywood; the 1956/57 doesn't say whether the dolls house furniture is made in Australia or imported.)


Both the bureau and the stove are made of plywood, and fixed together with tiny nails.

None of the other pieces has a label or the yellow residue found on the stove and bureau, but the bed did have a label at one time, and it's made of the same kind of plywood:






Bed: roughly 5 1/4" long, head & foot 2 3/4" wide and 2" high.


So I think the bed is also from Walther & Stevenson. 

One other piece is made partly from plywood, and that's the dressing table - which also has the same kind of tiny nails for handles as the stove and bureau:

Dressing table: roughly 3 1/2" wide, 3 1/4" high and 1 1/2" deep when closed.
 
As you can see, the mirror has come off ...

This side-on view shows the plywood back and top clearly:


The opening doors, and non-opening drawers, are made from pieces of solid wood:




I'm thrilled to have one labelled piece of Walther & Stevenson furniture, and I think it's very likely that I have three other pieces, too. Finding any dolls house furniture in an antiques and collectables shop is rare - finding vintage, wooden, labelled, Australian dolls house furniture is amazing!!! So you can see why I had to buy the dolls house it was in! I'll keep these pieces of furniture with the house, as I think they date from the same period, and they may well have been together for over 40 years.

16 comments:

  1. Hello Rebecca,
    What a wonderful find. In these pictures the furniture, while a little bulky, really is very charming and looks very well made. It's fun to see sturdy furniture with a little style.
    Big hug,
    Giac

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    1. Hi Giac, Thanks - I think it's very charming too, and I love the lines of the dressing table, bed and bureau. It's much less bulky than the more modern wooden furniture that was also in the house - I'm hoping to clean the house up and take a photo with these pieces (and perhaps the lounge suite, that's also quite delicate) - I think it will look quite good!

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  2. What an excellent find! And what a unique way to make the curved doors on the dresser. I am thinking the seller didn't realize what a little treasure was inside your new little house!

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    1. Thank you, Florine! I don't think the guy in the store realized what the furniture was at all, but I think he thought the house was rarer than it is, so he didn't lose by the sale at all! Without these pieces, I don't know whether I would have bought this house (or the other one they had) - they are pretty common in the UK, and I have seen others here in Australia too. But the furniture is real treasure!

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  3. How exciting! See..there was a reason you had to get the dollhouse! :)

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    1. Hello Anna! Yes, I'm so glad I turned the house around, and then got it off the shelf to look more closely and think about it! I would hate to have missed out on these pieces of furniture.

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  4. Exciting find Rebecca. Just goes to show you need to have a closer look at some of that simple wooden furniture. I love the bureau. I also love the Toyworks house. I think it all looks great together.

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    1. Indeed, 12Create, and now that I know the kind of plywood and construction used in these pieces, I will be keeping a keen eye on any vintage wooden furniture that pops up on ebay! I'm sure that most will be more like the blue & red painted more modern pieces, but you never know!
      I'll try to get the house cleaned up and take another photo!

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  5. Hi Rebecca. Hope you are feeling better....and glad that you are getting out and about. Congrats on finding such little treasures. Is interesting to see the Walther & Stevenson labelled piece. Have to say that I've not heard of the company/store before but it is an interesting piece. Thank you for sharing this information. If a piece with that label turns up in the future over here....I will now know which part of the world that it's come from! Celia

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  6. Hi Celia, I am feeling heaps better, thank you! You never know where dolls house furniture will turn up, so maybe one day you'll come across some .... As Isobel Hockey pointed out when I posted scans of the 1933 catalogue, they did also sell imported goods as well - a Triang dolls house was shown along with Australian-made houses - so some things with W&S labels might have been around the world! Now I'm hoping I can find more catalogues, and perhaps even find these pieces in them :-)

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  7. Hello from Spain, congratulations on finding such treasures. I like very much. Keep in touch

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  8. Dang, and here I was thinking it might be Twigg...

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    1. Yes, I think it looks rather like Twigg too (and as I haven't seen a Twigg label, that would be exciting too!) It also reminds me of some early Barton and Dol-toi, so I will be able to furnish the rest of the house with similar items, even though not Australian.

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  9. love it !!!! You are such a sleuth. cm

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    1. Thanks, CM! Well, without the label, I would have had no idea what they were - so thank goodness for labels, which allowed me to go sleuthing! Yay!

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