Funny Little British Bear

One of my favorite antique teddy bears, and one of the first I purchased years ago, is this comical little 8 1/2 inch British bear, made in the 1920s. I can't identify a maker, but that doesn't really matter: he has such a great expression and so much charm.

 "Don't I just look irresistably kissable?"

Antique Aetna Teddy Bear

One of the rarest antique teddy bears in my collection is this one, made by the American company Aetna around 1907. Aetna made beautiful bears with gentle, almost wistful, expressions, but for some reason the company was very short-lived, making their teddies hard to find today. One of their defining characteristics was cardboard lining in the soles of the bears' feet. My example measures 11 inches tall and sports a new ribbon with a vintage American flag pin.

Old Dollhouse Grocery Shops

There was such a surprisingly positive reaction to my latest dollhouse grocery shop last week, I thought perhaps I should do a group post (I have six shops so far). So here they all are! They date from 1914 to the 1950s, and include American, German, Danish, and British examples.

My earliest shop was made by the American toy company, Cass, in 1914. It's constructed of cardboard, with a little wooden counter, and measures about 9 inches tall. The base the counter rests on folds up into the store for storage. The cough drop box on the top shelf is original to the store, while the other pieces, while old, are not, but they seemed suitable. It's amazing to me that such a fragile little toy has survived for so long.

On the bottom shelf is one of my oddest old dollhouse food items, a 1 1/2 inch cardboard and tin can of "Heinz Vegetable Salad in Mayonnaise." I nominate it for Most Disgusting-Sounding Canned Food Item ever conceived. Blecch.

Next is my 1920s Danish grocery shop, staffed by a 5 inch Steiff bear. The shop is 16 inches wide by 7 1/2 inches tall. It's made of wood, with a separate counter, and retains many of its original items.

This shop is unusual in that it features a display window, and the back is printed with advertising:

"Could I interest you in some Knakbrod?"

 

Here is the first antique dollhouse shop I acquired: a 1930s German Art Deco style grocery. Made of wood and measuring 14 1/2 inches wide by 8 inches tall, it came with lots of old products, and I've added some more. Some of my loveliest, and oldest, dollhouse food is in this shop, including plaster meats, sausages, and cakes from the late 1800s-1920s.

My 5 inch Steiff bear staffs the cheese and sausage counter:

A closeup of the cake shelves:

Some closeups of the meat and cake items, all very old German-made plaster pieces:

This next shop is a lithographed tin grocery made in America by Wolverine Toys in the 1930s. It's the largest of my shops, measuring 20 1/4 inches wide by 12 inches tall. The two lithographed side panels fold in to close the shop up for storage. It's missing its separate counter, but the phone and scale, as well as most of the products, are original to this set.

Both side panels feature fantastic illustrations of children shopping in the store. On the left side, a little boy in denim overalls and a cap purchases a can of tomatoes and box of tea (?) from a clerk with a '30s platinum marcelled hairdo:

 The right side panel shows an adorable little girl choosing sausages at the butcher's counter:

My smallest dollhouse grocery shop is this one, made in America in the 1940s, wooden, and measuring only 10 inches tall by 4 3/4 inches wide. I believe almost all the products are original to this piece, with the exception of a few Grandmother Stover's and Dolly Dear accessories. The counter features an attached "paper roll" (made of wood) on the left side.

The week's shopping, ready to be bagged.

My most recent, and one of my most unusual, shops, is this 1950s-early '60s British "Circle Grocery", also made of wood. It's quite large, measuring 15 inches wide by 10 inches tall, and distinctively painted in red and turquoise. Being British, it naturally came with lots of packages of tea, as well as many other interesting pieces. The groceries upon the counter are a much smaller scale than those on the shelves, but it all came together and seems to work out. The golliwog sticker on the counter was a premium from Robertson's, which I believe was a preserves manufacturer.

 The itty bitty Ovaltine can and Lyons Ready-Mix Pudding box 

are particularly cute:

Boxed Pewter Dollhouse Tea Set

Another addition to my toy tea set collection, this boxed version dates to 1934, and was made by the H. Fishlove Company of Chicago, who were more frequently producers of novelty joke boxes and gags. The set is pewter (except for the tin tray), and the pieces are rather heavy. The teacups measure 1/2 an inch tall, and the box is 4 1/4 inches wide.

Vintage Boxed Toy Tea Set

Although I don't much like tea in real life, for some reason I love toy tea sets, and am always on the lookout for another one to add to my collection. The dollies and teddy bears just can't get enough tea sets.
My most recent find was this, a very unusual boxed wooden set, circa the 1950s or early '60s. The small box measures just 4 inches wide, and contains a complete set of tiny tea things, along with four legs that, when inserted into the box lid, create a tea table. It's pretty amazing.

The assembled box-table:

Antique Shoofly Rocking Horse

On my birthday antiquing trip this past weekend, I found two old rocking horses, this 40 inch long shoofly rocker circa 1900, and the 1930s homemade spring horse shown in the previous post. Like most old shooflys, he's been painted over, although it looks like this was done long ago. I'll probably strip and refinish him, since the repaint covers all his impressed details, including his mane and tack. Still, I thought he was a nice horse, and he was a steal at $20. The teddy bears are going to enjoy riding in him.

Old Folk Art Spring Horse

I found this unusual spring rocking horse while on my birthday antiquing trip this past weekend. The wooden horse is 34 inches tall, and looks to be homemade. The giant spring appears to be from a chair or sofa. He's pretty ingeniously constructed. I'm guessing he's from the 1930s, a Depression-era daddy-made toy.

Freaky Marx Dollhouse Family

I found this family of vintage dollhouse dolls in their original box while antiquing for my birthday last weekend. They were made by the Marx Company in the early 1960s, and have plastic heads, hands, and shoes on poseable wire bodies with felt clothing. The children are about three inches tall, the parents five.

They're really not terribly attractive dolls, and they're also not nearly as old as most of the dollhouse pieces I usually collect. But here's why I bought them: their faces. Fast, haphazard painting by a factory line employee in Hong Kong has unintentionally resulted in crazy expressions. Mom looks like she's smelled something bad, and dad looks...well, I can't quite place his expression. Chagrin? Discomfort? A guilty conscience? The sudden realization that he left the toilet seat up? Stunned disbelief at learning the swaddled baby isn't his? Who knows, but it's definitely amusing.

Meanwhile, brother's expression can only be described as "shifty", as he glances toward his innocent little sister, malice clearly apparent in his cold, beady eyes:

Marx Troll Village

A few months ago, back when I did my troll blog-a-thon, I mentioned my longing for the elusive 1960s Marx Troll Village playset. I finally got one for my birthday: yay! 

The Marx Toy Company made all sorts of playsets like these back in the 1950s and '60s: western ranches, medieval castles, army forts, family farms, and pretty much any other imaginative setting a kid could want, complete with tiny figures, buildings, and a box or case that held all the parts.

The Troll Village is one of their most unusual such sets, as well as one of their smallest. The box measures 10 inches wide, and the little trolls within are only 1 1/2 inches tall, the size of a typical gumball machine prize troll. The set includes trolls, animals, fences, rocks, trees and foliage, a little house, and caves. Originally it also had a printed vinyl playmat, but this is often missing from the set, as it is with mine. Still, it's a fantastic toy for troll lovers, and no good troll collection can consider itself complete without one.

 The village. As you can see, many pieces are delightfully
out of scale with each other.

The little troll house is just 4 inches tall, with a crazy roofline.

Hangin' out in the troll cave...

Two of Troll Village's denizens.
As you can see from the troll in the back,
the village is not officially a nudist colony.

For a sense of scale, a Troll Village troll is on the right,
next to a standard-sized, 3 inch troll
also made by Marx. Their trolls have a very distinctive appearance.

1871 Bliss Building Blocks

The name "Bliss," when speaking of antique toys, usually brings to mind their famed lithographed paper dollhouses. But the American company made other toys as well, including this set of small wooden blocks, still in their original 7 1/2 tall box with its paper label intact. I spotted these on a birthday antiquing trip last weekend, and was thrilled to find them.They were only $20, which seemed like a steal for such a lovely, and old, toy.

The label dates the set to 1871, and the text features one of the earliest toy safety endorsements I've ever read:

"No. 248.

Improved Architectural Building

BLOCKS

Free from PAINT or other POISONOUS colorings.

Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1871,

by R. Bliss Manf'G. Co., in the Office of the Commissioner 

of Patents at Washington."

Silver Dollhouse Decanter Set

I'm always looking for interesting little things to add to my dollhouses, and I found this on my birthday antiquing trip over the weekend: a silver decanter set. It has a Mexican silver hallmark on the underside of the tray, and appears to have some age to it, although I couldn't say exactly how old it may be. The tray measures a little over 4 inches wide, and the mugs are just 1/2 an inch tall. The keg-shaped decanter has a turquoise stopper, and rests on a stand.

My seven inch German doll is just the right size to serve as a barmaid. I expect the teddy bears will be arriving soon, ready to throw a few pints back...

Antique Bisque Doll Head

My sister is a minimalist, and doesn't share my appreciation for antiques, which she disdainfully refers to as "a bunch of old junk." For my recent birthday, I took myself on an antiquing shopping spree, and my sister later asked me what I found. "Ooooh: an absolutely fantastic broken old doll head," I replied, beaming over the beautifully sculpted and painted bisque head, circa the 1880s. My sister looked at me scornfully, and said, "You bought a broken doll head?" Yes. I did. But just look at her: she's beautiful! And technically speaking, it's only her shoulderplate that's broken...

Antique Dollhouse Grocery Store

If you've followed my blog for awhile, you'll know that I love antique dollhouse grocery shops. I found a fabulous one last week, just in time for my birthday, which gave me an excuse to splurge on it. Made in Denmark in the 1920s, it has a glass display window, removeable counter, all of its drawers with their original pulls, and lots of accessories, most of which are original to the shop. The store measures 16 inches wide by 7 inches tall, and the largest product bottle is 2 inches high.

My 5 inch Steiff bear makes a perfect shopkeeper:

Here are some closeups of the products:

 

 

The outside of the shop features colorful signs 

advertising wine and tobacco. 

I'm not sure what "Kobmand" means: any Danish speakers out there?

Schoenhut Dollhouse

One of my birthday gifts this year was a 1930s Schoenhut dollhouse, made of wood and fibreboard with teeny tiny green shutters and printed "wooden" floor coverings. It's a very petite little house, only 10 1/2 inches tall. The roof is a bit crumbly and saggy, but it's still there, along with the often-missing original door.

I've fitted it out with 1/2 inch scale 1920s - 1930s Tootsie Toy furniture and the tiniest dollhouse food I've ever seen, made in England by Dol-Toi. Each plate is just 1/2 an inch wide, and the food, obviously, is even smaller.

Inhabiting the house are a 1920s German dollhouse couple, only 3 1/2 inches tall. They look ready for an evening on the town (or my birthday party).

I think the Mrs. doll was actually meant to be a maid, and that's a maid's cap on her head. But she arrived sans clothes, so I can't be sure. I'm pretending she's wearing a chic 1920s head wrap, instead. Either that, or we pretend she was the maid, but she ran off with the man of the house, seen below, and this is their secret rendevous country cottage.