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!

Seen on ebay: 1960s Ideal dolls' house & ?70s Vero

I'm hoping to have time over the weekend to clean and photograph another dolls' house or two. I've been spending a bit of time this week looking for furnishings for my Kaleidoscope house, getting inspiration from other bloggers' sites, and looking at modern dolls' house furniture makers' websites as well as ebay. I'm particularly looking for kitchen, bathroom and living room furniture - the latter because I doubt I'll find (and win) a Kaleidoscope lounge suite, and the others because I'd like a bit more detail than the originals have.
I came across these dolls' houses on ebay:


This was on German ebay, and it's a Vero Erika house.

I've seen pictures of other Vero houses from the 60s (bottom of page) and 70s on a virtual museum of German dolls' houses, and on The Shopping Sherpa's blog, and I actually have a Vero bungalow, which I must set up (first, I have get more shelves put up, so I have somewhere to put all these houses!).
This one I hadn't seen before. It's furnished with a mishmash of styles, but what caught my eye was the simple design, and the very groovy floor patterns:

Top right:

Top left:

Bottom right:

Bottom left (unfortunately you can't see much of the floor):

and the balcony:

I would love to furnish this house! but the seller was not posting it out of Germany.

Another one, with very similar design, was also listed on German ebay:
Not such groovy floors, but a great staircase.

UPDATE: Karin Wester has very kindly identified this house as one made in the Netherlands by OKWA. Diepuppenstubensammlerin has one too.

On US ebay, I saw this house, a folding cardboard house which the seller stated was made by Ideal in 1963 (I'm not sure which Ideal, and now I wish I'd asked for a photo of the maker's name):


I would have bid for it (cardboard is surely lighter than wood or metal, for shipping), but the dimensions exceeded those accepted by the USPS.

This is the living room (with extra patio furniture):


and a bedroom with team pennants on the wall:


The kitchen:
It looks like a few pieces are missing, but still, it's a nice mix of early 1960s pastels, with some orange creeping in to the living room. And so easy to store!