A Lumberjack dolls house, without doubt!

This was one of the dolls houses waiting for me in Bathurst. I had bought it on ebay, and as it was in Sydney, it made more sense to have it freighted to Bathurst than all the way here to Darwin!

As well as having many similarities to the Lumberjack dolls house I had found in a toy store catalogue in the National Library:

- different coloured shutters (yellow instead of green), but the same front door - it has a label on the side which says Lumberjack BWG Screenprint:

so it's definitely a Lumberjack.

It's wider than the house in that catalogue, with three rooms up and down:

Unlike the house in the catalogue, the upper rooms don't have dormer windows - which will make placing furniture easier!

The interior is painted white - the traces of white on the floors, and the missing bit under the stairs, indicate that this was done by an owner, not in the factory.

A child has also added stickers in many rooms - I'll be keeping them, as they're a reminder of a former owner, and some, like this one on the back of the front door with kangaroos and a koala saying "HI!", are also reminders of the house's Australian origin:

The top left room has a sticker saying "Holidays", with people running with bags:

The top middle room must have been used as a bathroom, as it has a mirror and a towel rail attached to the walls:

The top right room has three stickers, including one of a lovely orange and white tabby cat:

This room has the opening to the stairs in it. The stairs are missing a couple of treads, but it shouldn't be too hard to replace them:

(That sticker says "Don't Forget:", with a pink space to write what you're not supposed to forget!)

Here's the bottom middle room, with the front door again:

And the bottom left room:

The sticker here has an Easter egg and a chick.

I haven't furnished this house yet, just cleaned it and photographed it. I'm thinking I might use my Europa furniture in it - I'll see.

Last year I found some more information about Lumberjack in issues of the Australian toy trade journal, the Australasian Sportsgoods and Toy Retailer, from the late 1970s. Here's a full page ad from the October 1976 issue:

which gives the address then for the "Lumberjack Toy & Gift Company" as 13 Hills Street, Gosford, NSW 2250. It shows a couple of other items made by Lumberjack - a service station with carwash, and a magnetic chalk/paint board.

Here's a close up of the dolls house:

Like mine, it has three rooms across - but unlike mine, it has both dormer windows upstairs, and an inbuilt garage on one side of the ground floor, with a "fully operative tilting door". It's described as 12th scale, 28" x 18" x 18". I measured the rooms in my Lumberjack as 21cm (8 ¼") wide, 31 cm (12 ¼") deep and 19 cm (7 ½") high. So 12th scale furniture would work - I think I'll try out the vintage 16th scale Europa anyway, and see how it looks.

This ad mentions printed carpet, lino and stained floors in the bottom storey, so it does seem that they were sold with undecorated walls and upper floors and ceilings. Here's another Lumberjack I saw on ebay, which has not been painted inside:

Photos © ebay seller untide1

Another three bay model, with dormer windows but without a garage, and with the front door on one side, rather than in the middle. (It seems to have been given carpet upstairs.)

In 1979, Lumberjack had a stand at the Toys and Games Manufacturers of Australia fair, where they displayed three dolls houses:

The caption reads: "Lumberjack: Popular wooden toys including dolls houses with much interest in the limited edition 2-story colonial dolls house; chalk boards; garages; block wagons and blocks; cradles; nursery furniture; playcastle and playfort; stilts; billiard table; games table; table tennis table, dartboard cabinets, etc. Number of new releases inc. a Car Yard and Roadhouse in WOODY WOODPECKER items; Space Station with space buildings; Cape Cod house and single storey Colonial house." (I don't see a single storey dolls house in the photo, unless they mean the one on the right with dormer windows and rooms under the roof?)

Another photo shows a closeup of the limited edition colonial dolls house, with two people from Lumberjack: Frank Marsh on the left, and Don Windus standing on the right. (Seated on the right is John Bassingthwaighte, who had a sports and toy store in Dubbo.) (I think that, in the photo of the whole stand above, Don Windus is seated on the left, and Frank Marsh on the right.)

Late last year, I had a comment on my blog post about my possible Lumberjack dolls house from Adrian Windus, Don's brother, who said:

"The Toyworld dolls house was made by Lumberjack Toys in Gosford NSW. The company was owned by a Don and Del Windus. They were sold to toy shops in Qld, NSW and Victoria. This I know as I'm a brother to Don, I also owned Lumberjack Toy Wholesales in 1976 selling Don's products. Hope this enlightens you a little. Adrian Windus"

Wonderful information, as the photo caption doesn't say what Frank Marsh or Don Windus' roles at Lumberjack were.

I had found other information online, suggesting that Lumberjack later moved, and changed hands. A company called Lumberjack-Bestoys was registered with the address 25 Engadine Crt, Engadine, NSW 2233. The websites which hold that information don't give dates, but Lumberjack bought Bestoys at the end of 1984, so that address probably dates to 1984 or 85. Did Don Windus still own Lumberjack then? I don't know - I hope to find out more from Adrian or Don Windus, sometime.
Then later there's another company name and address: Lumberjack Toys Pty Ltd at The Old Cheese Factory, Hoddle Street, Robertson, NSW 2577.  The name associated with that company is Allan Jackson, who was a carpenter.
So it seems likely that Don Windus sold Lumberjack at some point, whether directly to Allan Jackson or to someone else in Engadine who then sold it on again later. Perhaps it was a later owner who made the other dolls house I have, which has the same front door, the same yellow window shutters, and the same screen-printed brick front wall as this labelled Lumberjack house, but which is otherwise made of polished pine, with a plain hardboard back? 

 

John Sands and houses of card

Most Australians will know the name John Sands, our longest-established publisher of greeting cards. They used also to publish many other things - books, maps, pamphlets, and especially board games - and last year I discovered that they had produced a cardboard dolls house in 1968.

First, I saw this ad in the Australian toy trade journal issue for June 1968:

The dolls house was just visible in a photo of the Sands display at the TAGMA (Toy and Games Manufacturers of Australia) exhibition in 1969:

Then this brochure popped up on ebay, 'Welcome to Gameland with John Sands':

On the back of the leaflet is the dolls house:

so now I had a colour image of it:

Then, late last year, I was delighted to spot the actual dolls house on Gumtree, and the seller was able to post it!

According to the lid, it originally came with furniture for four rooms - the lounge room, dining room, bedroom and kitchen. None of this has survived with this dolls house, unfortunately.

The base of the box is up-ended, and forms the garden and ground floor of the house, into which the walls and fences are slotted:

The house itself is also missing a few parts - the porch, the lamp over the door, the dormer window and chimney, and the little balconies under the side windows. Luckily the awnings are still there - they make the house look nice and cheerful!

Apart from the missing bits, and a smudge of paint on one side (which I haven't yet tried to remove), the house is in good condition.

Does anyone know what the furniture looked like? Hopefully one day I'll find a more complete set, or, if I know what it looks like, I might possibly find the furniture separately. I'd love to see the house furnished!

Amazingly, not long after finding this John Sands dolls house, I spotted another one on ebay! The second one is much older - I think probably from the 1930s.

This is called the Play Time Doll House. Some collectors, particularly those in America, will probably recognise it - I think that this was republished by John Sands from an original published (probably) by Warren Paper Products Co of Indiana. Built-Rite / Warren Paper Products was one of several companies making cardboard dolls houses in the 1930s, and they produced a range of models. I have one which I bought some years ago, from Wendy Stephen in the UK. It has exactly the same wording on it - "A Large, Rugged, Easy to Build House" - though I have just noticed that in fact it has no publisher's name on it at all!

The bottom of this John Sands box again forms the base of the house. Being much older, the sides of this box have collapsed a bit, so I placed the base on a couple of books to get the required height.

You will, of course, have noticed the very large Rogers sign on the roof! The Rogers logo also appears on all four sides of the box. It is printed on the box, but on the roof it's a label which has been pasted on:

In tiny letters, on the bottom left, is the name of the publisher: John Sands Ltd., Sydney. The house was obviously intended to promote Rogers paints, stating on the roof "Always use Rogers - the Mark of Quality - Paints and Varnishes - "If it's Rogers - it's Right!"

The floor of the house (base of the box) also has labels stuck on, proclaiming "For renewing Cars, Cycles, Woodwork or Furniture, use Rogers - the Mark of Quality - Ace Full Gloss Super Finish, Made in attractive deep shades & in soft pastel tints for inside use".
The interior of this house, though, is plain white!

I have found ads for Rogers paints with the same logo, dating from the late 1930s, like this one from the Northern Star newspaper (of Lismore, NSW), on 8 July 1939:

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article98592464

The house itself is a lovely old English style, popular in Australia at the time. There's an arched porch door under a steeply sloping roof:

All the windows have shutters and window boxes filled with gaily coloured flowers:

The windows have cardboard panes which can be punched out, but most are, amazingly, still in place. The tabs on the sides of each piece of wall or roof are more fragile - some are missing altogether, and others are splitting after many attempts to fit them through the triangular slots.

It's interesting that, though this house shows signs of having been much played with (the missing tabs, and the sticky tape holding the box and the sides of the house together), more of the window panes haven't been removed. I would think that it would make the interior more attractive and more realistic, to be able to see out ...

I wonder how it was furnished? This box doesn't say that the house came with furniture, but perhaps John Sands also made the cardboard furniture produced by Built-Rite / Warren Paper Products in the US in the 1930s.

While checking the digitised Australian newspapers for Rogers paints, and any sign of their promotional dolls houses, I came across this ad, published in regional newspapers in Victoria in July and August 1930:

The Electricity Commission of Victoria was offering at their showrooms, "free for the kiddies "Yallourn Cottage", which is a handsomely colored cardboard "doll's house" with doors and windows that open."
I wonder if John Sands also published this? I would love to know what Yallourn Cottage looked like - it was clearly named for Yallourn, the town built between the 1920s and 1950s to house employees of the State Electricity Commission of Victoria, who operated the nearby Yallourn Power Station. When the coal mine next to the town expanded in the 1980s, the town was closed and removed!

Do you know of other Australian-made cardboard dolls houses and furnishings? Now that I have two houses, I'll certainly be keeping my eye out for more!

Perhaps they're earlier than I thought!

Today I searched the digitised Australian newspapers on the National Library of Australia website for Walther & Stevenson. As well as many ads for model trains, surf boards, and saddles, I found this:

This advertisement appeared on 11 June 1947. The bookcase (no 6, lower left) is identical to the one I bought!

The stove (no 13, upper right) is almost identical, though the handles look a bit bigger in the ad:

The dressing table (no 5, above the bookcase, lower left) is similar to mine, but the one in the ad is not symmetrical like mine is:

So perhaps these pieces of furniture date from the late 1940s or early 1950s - as I mentioned, they are not in the 1956/57 Walther & Stevenson catalogue.

It's really interesting to see the other pieces of furniture, too. The bath is fairly basic, but I would love to find the bath heater (No 10) - so reminiscent of older Australian houses! Both the houses I grew up in had gas hot water tanks in the laundry, which piped hot water to the kitchen and bathroom as well as the laundry, but in older houses I lived in in Canberra as a student, there was a gas hot water heater over the bath. We had to remember to turn the water to the tank on before turning the tap on (I think - it's a long time ago!), so that it wouldn't overheat and blow up! At least it wasn't a chip heater - having to cut and light wood chips to heat the water for a bath or shower was not something I had to do, thank goodness!

I was also excited to see the Kitchen Set, 5 pieces in attractive box (lower middle of the ad), as I think I have it too!

It's the Tiny Town kitchen set (No 1), by Goodwood (Australia) Productions, which I was lucky enough to buy on ebay 2 1/2 years ago. So I'll be able to use it with the stove, which it suits, according to the ad!

I have cleaned the Toy Works house the furniture came in, and the pieces of furniture too. They look much better, but the house is still missing a door, some shutters, and all its clear plastic windows.

The lounge chairs are modern, I think, but more finely made than the other chunky recent pieces, so I think I'll keep them here too. It needs a bit more furniture - I'll probably use some Twigg and early, unstained Barton or Dol-toi pieces, to go with the Walther & Stevenson furnishings.