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? 

 

A Lumberjack dolls house?

I've been spending this week in Bathurst, with my sister. Sunday was the third anniversary of our mother's death, and we like to be together on that day and on her birthday.
This time, I flew down from Darwin and hired a car in Sydney to drive to Bathurst. Usually I get the train, but hiring a car meant I could meet up with my aunt in Sydney, and also collect two dolls houses in Sydney suburbs along the way.

The first one I collected was this:

It's 72.5 cm (28 1/2") wide (at the base) by 19 cm (7 1/2") deep. The lower rooms are 20.5 cm (8 1/8") high, and the front door is just under 15 cm (6") high by just over 9 cm (3 3/4") wide.

It has some features identical this one, which I found in a toy catalogue in the National Library a year ago:

The design of the door and the brickwork are the same, they both have shutters, although they are a different colour, and the same plastic windows are used. I think they are probably made by the same manufacturer. I wrote last year that I had found entries in recent business directories for Lumberjack-Bestoys, in Engadine, a suburb of Sydney, so there may be a link to Bestoys. I wasn't sure of the date of the Geoff Emerton 'Toyworld' catalogue I found it in, but thought it was probably from the late 1970s or the early 1980s.

With this dolls house, I can say that it probably dates from the 1980s at the earliest, as the front door is made from MDF, large-scale production of which began in the 1980s.

The main body of the house is pine wood, the front wall is hardboard, and the back wall and front door are MDF. It's an interesting design, which needs to be accessible from both sides at once, perhaps intended for two children to play at the same time. Some rooms are only accessible from the front, and some only from the back:

I think the door was originally attached by that bit of fabric which has come unstuck. I'm not sure if the bit of wood, forming a kind of latch, is original, although it may have been meant to stop the door swinging forward through the opening.

A bag of plastic furniture came with the house. Most of it is Linda from Hong Kong, the bathroom is Jean of West Germany, and some is unmarked.

The kitchen furnishings consist of a bright yellow sink and stove, with a table and chairs. Only the chairs are marked (Made in Hong Kong).

 

The bedroom has a lovely bright green Linda of Hong Kong set:

Most of these pieces are not marked at all - I recognise them from the Linda boxes I have (although the bedroom set on my boxes is shown in pink and red). So it's possible that the unmarked kitchen pieces are also made by Linda, but they are not the kitchen set shown on the boxes.

The dining room is also Linda:

- or at least I recognise the dining table and the sideboard from the sets and boxes I have. The chairs are a different design - they are marked Made in Hong Kong, but whether they are from Linda or another brand, I'm not sure. I'm not sure who made the bookcase, either - I have one sold by Fairylite, but it doesn't have the sliding doors. Unless I find these pieces in a boxed set, I probably won't know!

The pink bathroom set is clearly marked W. Germany, and is by Jean:

The yellow cot and the rocking horse are from the Linda nursery set, but I don't know who made the baby bath / change table - although it's marked Made in Hong Kong, it's a soft plastic quite different from the Linda pieces. (I'm not sure what the thing in front is - possibly baby scales, missing the bowl to place the baby in??)

I like the bright yellow, green and pink furniture against the pine (and MDF!) walls of this house. There's no living room furniture, so I may bring my red Linda living room pieces down from Darwin.

I wonder which dolls lived here? Probably they would have been plastic, like all the furniture, so perhaps I'll look for some 1980s plastic dolls who need a home.

Tell Laura I Love Her ...

I recently bought two fantastic catalogues on Australian ebay, from a Sydney toy shop called Hoffnung's. They are from 1968 and 1969, and as well as the toy shop's list of stock, prices, and some black and white illustrations, they both have bound into them various manufacturers' catalogues! Both have Bestoys catalogues!
The Laura dolls house is in both years. You may remember that when I showed my Bestoys Bambolina dolls house, I mentioned that Anna-Maria is very kindly storing for me another Bestoys dolls house called Laura, which she collected for me from a Canberra seller. That Laura looks like this:

The 1968 and 1969 Bestoys catalogues show two other, different Lauras!!!

Here is the one from 1968:

and here is the new Laura from 1969:

I think that my Canberra Laura probably dates from 1970 or just after - it has the same diamond-shaped moulding on the roof as the 1969 Laura, and I can imagine that the artificial flowers might have looked great to start with, but not lasted very long ... so replacing them with a fancy lithographed railing would make sense.

Not long after I received the catalogues, I spotted the 1968 Laura on ebay!!

Missing the front door, but still, look at that lovely sixties crazy paving style flooring!

And the gorgeous aqua shutters!

So, I put a bid on straight away. A middling bid - not as high as I would probably decide to go, but not low either.

Then, the night before the auction ended, I was working late on the Dolls Houses Past and Present magazine (as I have been most evenings the last few weeks), then stopped, went to ebay, put a bid on one auction and .... zooop! ... the power went off. Not just in my house, but all around too. So I got the torch, lit some candles, and did the night chores by candle light - went to bed by torch light - and got up the next morning to find - yep, STILL NO POWER!

The power was off right across the Darwin region, even as far south as Katherine (300 km away). The government had to shut schools and government offices, the police ordered the buses off the roads because it was too dangerous, and had police cadets directing traffic at some intersections until they could get generators for the traffic lights ... and I couldn't bid on my Laura!!!

In my consternation, it didn't occur to me to ring my sister and ask her to bid for me. I have a landline that doesn't need power - very useful in a place that often has blackouts, though they are not usually this long except after cyclones. The power was out at my place for over 12 hours - some suburbs got it back sooner, some later (they had to stagger it, apparently).

So I lost my Laura! To know about three different models of the same Australian-made dolls house, to have the possibility of owning two of them - and then to lose, because of a power outage - I was devastated - and also very cross!

I did message the seller to explain, and say, in case of non-payment or any problems, I was still interested! However, both seller and buyer have left feedback on the auction, so Laura has a new owner, who is not me :-( I just hope they don't wreck renovate her and destroy the original features!

At least I have the photos, so I know the colours of the walls, shutters, flooring and so on ...

Similar colouring to the Canberra Laura, but that is plainer:

The Canberra (ie probably ca 1970) door slides, rather than being hinged as the earlier door is:

So, although I have two Bestoys dolls houses (Bambolina and Canberra Laura), I can't really say I have a collection, yet. Perhaps another Laura will pop up ...

In fact, one already has - with balcony railings and shutters which have the diamond-shaped moulding, but with a hinged door! so clearly I do not yet have enough evidence to date the series ....

But this Laura has been overpainted :-( Is it worthwhile trying to buy her? She would not be as easy to reach as the Laura I lost, which was in the Blue Mountains - this one is in a western Sydney suburb ...

The Bestoys 1969 catalogue has given me another dolls house to dream about, too: Cinderella! Strange name for an A-frame, but I won't hold it against her.

Hansa, not Hanse

At the end of last year, when I was preparing Valérie Braun's article for Dolls Houses Past and Present about Hanse and Lisa dolls houses from Denmark, I thought I'd seen another Hanse house on Australian ebay. I did a bit of googling, and found that the house I'd been thinking of was actually made by an Australian company called Hansa! I was able to buy one earlier this year, and here it is:

It's a quite simple 4-roomed dolls house for children, made of solid pine wood except for the back, which is hardboard. It's 51 cm (20") high to the peak of the roof, 63 cm (24.75") at its widest point (the eaves), and 20 cm (about 8") deep.

The main thing of interest to me is the printed paper backing showing details of each room.
Here's the kitchen, complete with mis-spelled dog bowl (it says DOGY, in case you can't see it):

The living room, which shows more details through the windows:

The scenery is not particularly Australian (unlike in another dolls house I picked up on the same trip to Sydney), although barbed wire fences can be found in many country areas in Australia.

 
The children's bedroom looks out onto more fencing extending over hills, with some sheep scattered around. Inside, there is wallpaper with pandas, and toys including a clown, a ball and a teddy bear.

The main bedroom has a similar rural scene outside, and inside, just a chair and chest of drawers with a mirror.

Thankfully, the maker's name is printed at the bottom of the living room wall:

Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have known that this dolls house was made in Australia (although perhaps the power points give a clue). I certainly wouldn't have known the maker. The Hansa company is still operating. It currently makes stuffed animals, with a special range of endangered animals. Their website says that the company was started in Melbourne in the early 1970s by Hans J Axthelm (so Hans A, I suppose). They began making plush toys in 1989. I'm not sure when this dolls house was made - hopefully, when I am able to look through more issues of the Australian toy trade journal, I will find it. I think it probably dates from the 1980s. I did find a Hansa toy garage in a late 70s / early 80s toy catalogue in the National Library:

Geoff Emerton Toyworld catalogue, Kingston ACT, late 70s, early 80s?

It looks like my house was varnished at home, rather than in the factory, as there were lots of hairs from the paintbrush stuck in the varnish!

Perhaps they were sold as raw pine, to be finished at home. There's another one for sale on ebay right now which has been painted in bright colours.

My dolls house came with dolls house furniture that I think is more recent - it's all wood, painted white with pink seats, knobs, etc. I think I'll look through my stash for furnishings that match the printed ones, perhaps blue and yellow in the kitchen and kids' bedroom, purple and pink in the main bedroom and living room - I'll see what I can find. It came with dolls, too - Fisher Price Loving Family parents, older girl, and many babies! I'm not sure if they'll stay. So - more on this house later on, when I've furnished it. Before that, I'll probably show you the other Australian-made timber dolls house I got on the same trip, which also has printed paper backing showing features of the rooms.