A Right Toys dolls house - or two?

When an Australian-made dolls house is listed on Australian ebay or gumtree several times from the same area, it's a fair guess that it was made in that area. This type of dolls house on wheels has appeared many times in Victoria:

 

When I was looking through the Australasian Sportsgoods and Toy Retailer at the beginning of last year, I was pleased to find this dolls house in a photo of a toy fair stand in 1975:

The caption says:

"RIGHT TOYS: Another new manufacturer, also featuring wooden toys, run by partners Peter Fortune and Gary Mellish. The range embraces some 21 items including doll's house on castors, table and chair set, walker wagons, blackboards, rope ladders, swings, go-kart, etc. Holding a truck is sales rep. Beverley Hall."

Right Toy Manf. Pty. Ltd. also had a display at the 1976 toy fair, sharing a stand with Sun Dip soft toys. The caption indicates that Right Toys displayed a '2-storey, 4 room unpainted dolls house on castors' - it is just visible at the front left, under a very large Pink Panther soft toy!

These entries don't give an address for Right Toys, but I have been able to find both partners in the Australian electoral rolls, and their addresses indicate that these dolls houses were indeed made in Victoria. In 1977 and 1980, Gary Mellish lived in Bentleigh, a south-eastern suburb of Melbourne; he was self-employed. Peter Fortune lived in Dandenong, a bit further out than Bentleigh, in 1977, when his occupation is given as 'woodworker'. In 1980, his address was in Seaford, a beachfront suburb further south again. Peter Fortune's occupation in 1980 was stated as 'foreman' - was Right Toys still in operation, and if so, were Gary Mellish and Peter Fortune still partners in it? I don't know.

For some years, I had watched these dolls houses come up, and I was very pleased to be able to buy one earlier this year. I only have a couple of photos of it, which I took when I was in Bathurst in May:

If you've been following my blog for a while, you probably know that I love dolls houses with original wallpaper, so I was delighted to find this Right Toys house decorated with typical 1970s wallpapers! Why pink curtains, though? I suspect they are not from the same period as the wallpaper! I have not yet furnished this dolls house, so I haven't decided whether to keep the curtains or change them.

The layout, of two rooms upstairs and two downstairs, with the stairs on the left and fireplaces on the right, is the same as in two of the other Right Toys dolls houses I showed at the top of this post. One has only two rooms, but the same positioning of the stairs and fireplaces:

I have another dolls house on castors from Victoria, too. It also has four large window openings, although the bottom two have no bars, and the top two have sliding doors:

Left: front of dolls house, closed; right, inner front of dolls house.

The sliding doors, the balcony wall and the back wall of the dolls house are made of laminex on plywood. The main walls are made of chipwood. The curtains came with the house, and seem to date from the 1970s - there is a pair for the other downstairs window too, but they need new wire to hang on.


The front of this house opens from the other side - from the left side, rather than the right side as in the Right Toys dolls houses above. There are no stairs, and no fireplaces. (I haven't furnished this dolls house either yet, though I've had it longer than the one above. I have bought some pieces of furniture in hot pink and bright blue, to match the curtains, so I must try setting it up. It will need some flooring too, I think!)

This house does have a chimney, which is not only on the other side of the house - the left, rather than the right - but runs all the way up the side of the house, rather than sitting on the roof:

Is this also a Right Toys dolls house, despite the differences? I don't know.

I don't know, either, whether these other dolls houses on castors from Victoria were made by Right Toys or by another company:

This one in the three photos above, said by the seller to date from the 1970s, is made of pine wood, rather than chipboard, and has two opening fronts rather than a single large one. The windows are divided into 9, rather than 4, and the stairs and fireplaces are on opposite sides to the Right Toys dolls houses, with the chimney on the roof, but on the back left rather than the front right. (This dolls house has two fireplaces; I have also seen the same model with only one fireplace.)

This dolls house in the two photos below looks more recent, with a piano hinge instead of two smaller hinges. It does have one opening front, and the windows are divided into 4 panes - but there is a front door instead of a fourth window. Like my second dolls house, there are no stairs and no fireplaces. I can't see from the photos if there's a chimney; if there is, it's not on the front of the roof.

So, I definitely have one dolls house made by Right Toys, and the first three I showed here are also by Right Toys. For the moment, I can't say whether my second dolls house and the other two houses shown here are Right Toys variants, or similar models made by (an) other manufacturer(s). Hopefully, I will find more information in catalogues, toy trade journals, or even from the manufacturers themselves! Hopefully, too, I'll be able to show you my dolls houses furnished and inhabited before too long!

A Crazy House Lady

I love cats, but don't qualify as a crazy cat lady - I only have one cat now, two until late last year ... but a crazy dolls house lady, yep, I definitely qualify for that!

I spent last weekend in Sydney with my sister. This is her car, packed for our trip from Sydney to Bathurst yesterday (Monday) morning. On the right is a dolls house I drove to Castle Hill to collect on Sunday morning, and on the left is a model house frame I bought on Saturday afternoon. My suitcase (brown) and carry-on (black) hold lots of dolls house furnishings I brought down from Darwin for the dolls houses I have in Bathurst.

I found the house frame at Recycling Works in Annandale, where I've previously found dolls houses. My visit this time coincided with a hail storm over Sydney and the Central Coast, which was accompanied by torrential rain. Recycling Works has a corrugated iron roof, so the hail was very noisy. I was out the back looking at this frame house, which one of the guys there had just lifted down for me, when the rain started coming in - I'd picked up a few small things as I went, and I grabbed another I'd been looking at and retreated to the front section of the shop. Just as well I did, as this is what the back section looked like after the storm:

My sister's photo

In Bathurst, I had another house waiting for me, which is so big I have no idea where I'm going to put it! For the moment, it's still in the garage on the pallet it was delivered on -

It's huge - 1.6 m wide, 80 cm high and 60 cm deep. I didn't realise how big it was when I bought it - and I stupidly hadn't asked until I was booking the freight. But I was intrigued by it - here's the best shot I could get of the front at the moment:

I bought it from someone on the South Coast of New South Wales, near Jervis Bay, who said that she had picked it up a few years ago from an elderly couple - the husband had made it for his grandchildren. I don't know when he would have made it - it sounds like it couldn't have been much earlier than the 80s. The design looks a bit older, with the dormer windows and small panes in the main windows - perhaps he modelled it on a real house?

The garage has a lift-up door:

The handles on the internal doors were placed quite high, as they were in the 1920s and 30s - and the dark stained wooden doors and architraves are reminiscent of that period, too.

The hallway

The landing upstairs

Upstairs right - like the hallway, this seems to be the original wallpaper

Upstairs left - there seems to be some wallpaper under the contact

Downstairs right, with a bay window and more original wallpaper

Downstairs left - the kitchen, behind the garage - more contact!

This house came with original dirt, spiders, etc, included. I probably won't clean it until I sort out somewhere to put it - which I think will mean some remodelling and reorganising in either the largest bedroom (now a spare room) or the garage.

Here is the house I picked up in Castle Hill, in Sydney:

I forgot to ask the seller what she knows about it. It does look genuinely old, ca 1920s or 30s, I would say. The roof lifts off:

It doesn't look as if it has been papered at any stage - if it has, it's been very cleanly removed. It came with homemade 1930s style furniture, some of which is also stained wood, and some which is painted. When I have cleaned it all up, I will take photos of the furniture in the rooms - first, though, I need to treat the termites which have been eating some of the base!

The left side

The back

The right side

Detail of the front porch

While I'm in Bathurst, I hope to spend some time on the other dolls houses I have here, cleaning or stripping some, and trying out the furniture I brought in others. Then next weekend I'll be in Sydney for the dolls house fair! I had hoped to display some vintage dolls houses (I was thinking about my cardboard houses, as being the easiest to transport from Darwin), but I didn't get organised with display cabinets etc, so that will have to wait for another year.
I'm still looking forward to seeing fellow collectors and bloggers there - if you're going too, I hope we can meet up!

Woodtoys - another house and more info

While I was staying with my sister in Bathurst, we spent a couple of days in Canberra. As well as catching up with friends, meeting a collector, and picking up a dolls house that Anna-Maria was holding for me, I was able to spend more time in the National Library of Australia, and go through four years of the Australasian Sportsgoods and Toy Retailer journal, 1975-1978.
I found lots of ads or displays at fairs for dolls houses made both overseas (I'll show some of the them in another post) and in Australia - I now have several new names of dolls house makers, and have identified the makers of some of my new dolls houses.

This is one of the houses I have in Bathurst - I bought it on ebay from Sydney late last year, and the seller was happy to post it. I bought it because some features reminded me of other houses - though now I can't remember which, or by which maker.

 

Well, never mind - I now know that it was made by Woodtoys in 1977. You may remember that I bought a house nearly two years ago that is a dead spit for a Bodo Hennig model (1979-1987), but which has the name Woodtoys on the brick paper on the back of the house.

In the toy trade journal, I found information about Woodtoys dolls houses in 1975, 1976 and 1977. 

 

"The four toys shown in the accompanying photo are the work of Woodtoys, PO Box 64, Lakemba, NSW 2195, which is a partnership of father and son, I J and A T Burden. Father is a former departmental buyer and the son is a former 'Knight Of The Road' with a large general toy wholesaler.

The Burdens make no apologies for the fact that they are in a modest way, and they have had some ups and downs. "In fact," says young Burden, "the respect we have for fellows like Jim Bonaretti [of Bestoys - RG] and, in the past, Keith Lovelock, has increased tenfold - paint dust in everything, no room to move; shoving equipment around to make room for something else; returns from customers through carriers' rough handling. I could go on for hours!"

However, the trauma has passed and now the duo operate in about 3,500 ft. of space, which still is not enough but is a big improvement on the original area. They now do all their own work since the installation of a table saw, band saw, docking saw, sander and other units and employ labour.

The items illustrated show a Georgian style Dolls' house, a pony rockaway, dolls cradle and a table and chair set. They propose several new lines in 1976 including a traditional type rocking horse on a stand similar to the one put out years ago by Roebuck."

Australasian Sportsgoods and Toy Retailer, December 1975, p 62.

Woodtoys' 1976 display at the toy fair shows the same Georgian-style dolls house, which seems to be painted in a range of colours. The caption reads:

"Woodtoys, Lakemba, NSW, displayed Georgian-style dolls houses, pony rocker, toy tidy; dolls wardrobe, rocking cradle, Ampol service station; kitchen dresser; table and chair set; rocking horse and box of blocks. Pictured is proprietor Ian Burden."

Australasian Sportsgoods and Toy Retailer, March 1976.

 

In 1977, there are photos of Woodtoys' displays at both the Sydney and Melbourne toy fairs, so we get several views of their new dolls house.

Yes! It's my new dolls house! Can you see the canopy over the downstairs window, and the poles supporting the roof of the carport?

The caption says:

"Australian-made range of wooden toys, including coloured table and chair set, a toy tidy which makes into a desk, pony rocker, dolls house, cradle, dropside cot, Mickey Mouse and Abba table and chair sets. All toys come unassembled and are individually cartoned with assembly instructions ... they are all NEW. Most popular item on display was the Deluxe Rocking Horse."

Australasian Sportsgoods and Toy Retailer, April 1977.

I can't read all the writing on the sign, but I can see that the address for Woodtoys is now Greenacre, NSW, a suburb next to Lakemba - so perhaps the Burdens had moved to new premises with more space.

  

Detail of the house from the photo above - it's on the right, in the centre.

 

Australasian Sportsgoods and Toy Retailer, July 1977.

The photos of the display at the Melbourne toy fair show the dolls house end-on - and it's a very distinctive view, with a doorway from the rooftop patio to the house cut out of the end wall of the house:

The other Woodtoys dolls house I have has printed paper wallpaper, brick paper and flooring. This dolls house has the wall and floor designs printed straight on to the plywood.

Note the fabric "hinge" which attaches the front door to the wall.

 

The interior, showing the floors.

 

Parquet tiling downstairs and hexagonal tiling upstairs.

 

A geometric design upstairs, and a blue houndstooth design downstairs.

 

Simple red tiling for the rooftop patio, and in the carport, grass around the edges, gravel in the centre, and clear plywood for the driveway and the parking space.

This house is 16th scale. I haven't furnished it yet - I will look out some of my 16th scale pieces to take down next time I go to Bathurst.