A New Year, a summer holiday, and op-shopping!

It's so long since I have posted anything on this blog that I feel I should be wishing you Happy Everything, not just Happy New Year! I do hope that this year brings us all health, happiness, peace of mind, and lots of mini enjoyment - and I hope to keep in touch more with my blogging friends!

I wish my summer holiday could have been longer - but I did manage to avoid the really hot weather that arrived just after I left, so I can't really complain. I had hoped to work on some of my dolls houses in Bathurst which need restoring, but didn't really have time. I did make a start on reorganising one of the rooms where some of my houses live - the former main bedroom of the house - so that they are easier to access, and so I could also fit a couple of new houses in (more about them in later posts).

My sister and I went to a few op shops (thrift stores / charity shops), which we always enjoy doing - and my haul of dolls house related things was better than it often is! Above you can see most of what I found in two op shops. Two things are from the art gallery shop - the little figurine may go in a house or a dolls house art gallery as a sculpture, and the postcard has lots of great mini portraits! The place mats have a nice woven pattern of green and red through them, and will make good flooring - and the silk tie will come in handy for bedding or cushions or curtains ....

My sister found the Blue-Box dolls house in one of the op shops - I have several other Blue-Box houses, but not this one, so I was thrilled to find it! It cost the princely amount of $4!!! (much less than its original price of $27.00, probably in the late 1970s - I have an ad for this dolls house from 1978, though I'm not sure when it was introduced or last available).

The mat is missing, but I think all the other pieces are there (plus a couple of extras) - hopefully I'll have time to photograph it all next time I'm there.

(The box does not have the Blue-Box name on it, strangely, but it is impressed on the bottom of the house.)

In another op shop, we had taken our finds (mainly books) to the front counter, and I had a look in the glass cabinet there, where small things are kept - and was amazed to see these two containers of miniature plastic plants!

The Britains flowers even have the planting tool (it's the long blue piece with a label about complaints attached to it). (These are two views of the same container here, by the way.)

 

 

Silver birch trees with moss foliage, and plastic conifers - are these also Britains?

In the op shop where I found the place mats, silk tie and Blue-Box dolls house, I also looked through the books. There were quite a few vintage carpentry manuals and children's annuals, both of which can be sources of plans for dolls houses or dolls house furniture, so I had a good look through them - and struck lucky with one, called The Handyman's Complete Carpentry Guide by Andrew Waugh, with furniture designed by William Greenwood. This was published by the former Australian newspaper company Consolidated Press - there's no date in the book, but it was advertised in newspapers in 1954 (and was a "privilege book" (ie offered at a discount) for purchasers of Consolidated Press's newspapers, including The Argus in Melbourne).

The inside covers show some of the items described in the book - including the dolls house (the small thing just to the left of the bed, with a green roof and red walls). (As you can see, this copy of the book was originally sold at Boans, a Perth department store, so it had made its way right to the other side of the country.)

The book gives instructions for building a house, as well as for making furniture, a slippery dip, an extension ladder (!), a sleep-out - and toys, including a dolls house:

The dolls house has a rather strange front, to my way of thinking. The roof is asymmetrically pitched, but the removable front has a "double-gable appearance" - a false roof line matching the steeper side of the roof, as well as the real roof line of the shallower side ... Perhaps they thought it looked better, as the false roof line would be parallel to the porch roof. I don't think that I've seen a dolls house made to this design, but I'll look out for it now - if this plan was followed faithfully, it would be quite distinctive.
The suggested colour scheme for the dolls house was cream coloured walls, apple green window sashes and frames, and a terracotta roof (quite different from the illustration on the inside cover!).

Most of the dolls house furniture is quite simple - it might be possible to identify pieces made to these plans, but some look quite similar to commercially made pieces. The book recommends that the dolls house furniture be "stained and finished with French polish or clear lacquer", with scraps of fabric for the settee, bed and dressing table).

I was very happy with these finds - and I hope to be back soon to show you the two dolls houses which were waiting for me in Bathurst.

Sherry and Pepper have a party

Pepper and Sherry are having a party. Things look a bit strained, though, and Sunny and Mandy don't seem very comfortable ..... Are Pepper and Sherry arguing?

Or are they just talking to some of the girls in the other rooms?

Lacey is feeling a bit off colour, and is staying in bed.

Melly and Sandy have come to keep her company, but Sandy's idea of keeping her company was to play the radio very loudly. Melly turns it down, and tells Sandy off for being selfish and not thinking of Lacey ...

Heather and Libby are in the kitchen finding some food ... Perhaps some drinks would help make the party livelier, too?

Michaela is in the bathroom, despairing at the state of her hair.

"Why don't you get it cut short, like mine?" asks Susie. "It will be much easier to take care of then."


The girls are Dolly Darlings by Palitoy. Sunny and Susie have their original names, but who would want to be called Lounge Suit or Powder Puff?

 

I have just discovered that Dolly Darlings had their own playrooms - a bedroom, bathroom, living room and kitchen. However, I don't have them - the rooms my Dolly Darlings live in are by Blue-Box.

They don't have a date on them, as some Blue-box dolls houses do. Many of the furnishings, and the colours, look quite retro ...

But that looks like a laptop computer in the bedroom, so they must be considerably later than the 1970s!

Never mind, I think the rooms suit the 1960s Dolly Darlings very well - who knows what they make of the laptop! I added some extra furniture - Fisher Price bunk beds and kitchen table and chairs, Linda from Hong Kong lounge chairs.

The buttons you can see at the front of each room turn on battery-powered lights and sounds in each room. Sometime I'll take videos of them, so you can get the full effect!

PS. I have turned on the Comment Verification again. I got tired of getting comments from spammers who said things like, "Great post, and by the way have you seen my website, house painting in Missouri?" I hope it won't be too hard for you to work out those pesky numbers - why are they such poor images here, when some other websites have quite clear verification numbers?!

Super City Skyport Building Set - buy it now!

I got curious about whether the Super City set of my last post had been available in the US. So I had a look on US ebay - and guess what? The Super City Skyport Building Set is for sale right now - 2 sets, mint in box, buy it now - and seven have already sold. Sounds like old store stock. It's described as Marx Toys 6548 - interesting, when mine says Ideal Toy Corporation. Was there a link between Ideal and Marx, I wonder?
I'd love to hear if any of you buy a set!

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!

Blue Box 1980 dolls house

I have three dolls houses made by Blue Box, a Hong Kong based company. This one dates from the 1980s - the base of the house, and the bed, have 'Copyright 1980' on them, as well as 'Blue Box Made in Hong Kong', like all the other pieces. The front of the house is so typical of many houses built in Australian towns and suburbs in the 80s - a light-coloured exterior (light bricks or brick veneer, or brick covered with cement rendering, in contrast to the dark brown, liver-coloured or red brick of earlier years), an arched porch to the front door, a carriage lamp to light it, and French windows opening to a balcony enclosed by columns, rather than metal or wooden railings.


The house and furniture are both made of plastic. Some of it is a bit discoloured - Bundaberg and Darwin both have hot climates. The flooring is made of loose cardboard inserts. The colours seem typically 80s - beige, tan, mushroom (a muted browny pink very popular in Australia) - much softer than the bright orange, green, yellow and dark brown of the 1970s.

I bought this house on Australian ebay from Bundaberg, in Queensland. It was definitely owned by a Queensland child, who has added stickers to decorate the walls and floor:


In the upstairs room, there are two stickers for the World Expo held in Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland, in 1988. The platypus on the left was the mascot of the show (and probably had a name, but I don't know it.)


In the downstairs right room, there is a Queensland Police 'Stranger Danger' sticker, warning kids of the dangers of talking to people they don't know.


There's also a Commonwealth Bank sticker (from before it was privatised):

No doubt at all that this was owned by an Australian child!

There is a 'garden' stuck on the front of the base, perhaps by the original owner:


This child also acquired a second bathroom, so one is in the entrance hall! I have put the main bathroom in that little room on the right downstairs, which actually looks to me like a garage - but on the original box, it's furnished as the kitchen, and the bathroom is upstairs:


Mine didn't come with its box, but I have seen them on other ebay auctions.

I like this house, so typically 1980s, but I would prefer to have dolls which can move (or be moved). The plastic dolls which come with the house are posed and not jointed, so can't be moved. (One, the mother, is missing from my house.) As the house is 1/24th scale, it's not easy to find other dolls of the right vintage and scale. (I tried some of the Ari dolls who used to live in the Vero house, but even the smallest was too big.)