Friday, March 26, 2010

Toy Town


Toy Shop from the "Toy Town" series of postcard cut-outs and pantins. No year, but if I had to hazard a guess, I'd say it dates from the era of the first World War, say 1916 or thereabouts. Most of the artwork in the series is signed Geo. Piper; the toy shop has no signature. Copyright: W.E. Mack, Hampstead, N.W.3. Marked No. 025; the card indicates card 025A has the roof and companion figures. (Just checked eBay, and it looks like 025A is for sale, and it is signed by the artist going by the name of Ellam. So this might be the work of Ellam, too.)
This is the kind of card you wouldn't want to send through the mail! But just think of the lucky recipients, many of whom no doubt reached automatically for the scissors.

I have two other Toy Town cards, Peter Pan and A Sailor, posted on my first blog two years ago:


Here are other Toy Town postcard image grabs from around the internet, mostly eBay:






Check out The Best Hearts Are Crunchy for more vintage postcards, including a quite beautiful post today. And thanks to Beth for hosting Postcard Friendship Friday.



17 comments:

  1. These are nice.

    BTW: The Torchy Brown/Torchy's Togs image you shared with me last year for the black paper doll article I was working on is in the March & April 2010 issue of Doll Castle News. Thank you again for sharing the image with me.

    dbg

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  2. Oh, my goodness! I'm so excited! I've never seen anything like these.

    Thank you so much for sharing them.

    Have a great PFF!

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  3. Hi!
    Awesome set of postcards. I've never seen any like this before. Have a great day!

    Sherrie
    A View of My Life

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  4. these are amazing! thank you so much for sharing them...i LOVE the charlie chaplin one! happy PFF!

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  5. I too have never seen any card like this. And these did not get cut up, played with, and thrown away.

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  6. What wonderful cards - unique!

    Thanks for stopping by & looking forward to *seeing* you again!

    Happy PFF!

    XOXO LOLA:)

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  7. These are wonderful. What wonderful history! Paper dolls ... I remember playing with them. Happy PFF!

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  8. Those are the sort of things that would worry me - too nice to cut up, but too nice not to use as intended.

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  9. Wow, I've never seen any like those before either, wonderful!!

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  10. Put together properly these will move like puppets. I'd love to see the butterfly in actiom! Nice post!

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  11. I was trying to decide which one I liked best, but I couldn't. They're all so good.

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  12. I put the Charlie Chaplin together with brads and hung it in my father's room at his nursing home two years ago--he was a huge Chaplin fan. The Little Tramp will always remind me of him.

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  13. Those are nice cards. I never saw them before.

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  14. What unusual cards and how amazing they are still in one piece after all these years. I remember cutting these up as a kid, not I hasten to add from postcards, but I can't remember whether they were on the back of cereal packets or came with comics.

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  15. What a cute series of postcards. I imagine that kids loved to receive these.

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  16. These are very cool! I vaguely remember receiving something like this as a kid, but perhaps in was in a birthday card, and not a postcard. Thanks for sharing them!

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  17. Oh my gosh, these are so much fun!!! thanks for stopping by. PFF

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