Candy Containers as Antique Doll House Furniture

As children do today, children at the turn of the last century often found packages of candy under their Christmas trees. But the candy wasn't the as big a thrill as the boxes they came in.

The variety of candy containers was almost endless. They were made of glass, celluloid, paper mache, composition, wood, plastic, and everything else used to make toys and collectibles. Although you can still buy toys containing candies today, the golden age of candy containers was from the 1870s up into the 1920s.

Containers came in many shapes - animals (some covered with real fur), trees, people, historical figures, household appliances, furniture, decor, flowers, vehicles, holiday items, and anything else you could imagine.

My collection of candy containers is, of course, doll house furniture. I believe these were made in the early 1900s.

The red patterned armchair with matching side chairs and table is made of cardboard and covered with a print patterned paper.

When the boxes are opened you can see that the original shredded paper excelsior is still in place.

The furniture is a 1 inch to 1 foot scale, so each piece must have held only one or two pieces of candy.

The black patterned set doesn't have any excelsior, but the insides of the boxes have paper lace edging.

The construction is the same as the red set.

The sofa and the chaise would have contained more candy than the chairs, but, I am sure, would have cost more.

The piano is also paper covered cardboard.

Here is a view of the piano looking down from the top

The candy space is revealed when you push back the top of the piano.

Here are the two tables side-by-side for comparison of their construction.

The black patterned one has a wooden base. The red one has a base of thick cardboard.

The side chairs are identical in construction. The backs are slightly padded.

The arm chairs are quite large in comparison to the rest of the furniture. I guess these were for the father of the family. The construction is identical, but the chair on the right is missing a padded piece of cardboard on the back, which I assume represents a cushion.

You can find  many other examples of antique candy containers on the internet by putting that phrase into a Google search.

I was amazed at the variety of items. Holiday themed containers like Santas and Jack O'Lanterns were very popular. Unusual papier-mâché and composition examples can bring very high prices.

There is even a Candy Container Collectors of America club

I would have loved to find any of these wonderful items under my Christmas tree.

I wish they made such quality items to delight and entertain us today.

Happy Holidays!

Susan

My Lady's Boudoir - Antique Dollhouse

Okay my mini collecting friends, I am going to need your help with this one. I have this set of incredible antique (I think) hand painted furniture and I don't know what they are or where they were made.

This room display is my rather poor attempt to emulate
the room boxes in the November 2012 Theruault action

I was lucky enough to win this lovely set on eBay. I love it, but I have searched all my dollhouse reference books and the internet and can't find anything like it.

The furniture is too big for my little cardboard room. The room is scaled for 1" scale, but the furniture is more of a 1.5" scale.

I am thinking of building a room box for the furniture based on some of the antique rooms I see in the Therault's action.

The set came with three chairs, a dining table, two side tables,
a bed, a settee, and two tall hall stands, or servers, or vanities.
I am not actually sure of their original purpose

For the room setting I put aluminum foil in the tall stands to represent mirrors, but I don't know if they had them originally.

Although all the pieces look alike there are two slightly different hand painted designs. You can see them here.

This makes me wonder if these are actually two different sets. One paint style is for the bedroom and the other for the sitting room.

Here are the two stands side by side. The taller one has a plainer flower (or blue decoration) than the shorter one.

Two of the chairs are painted to match the taller stand. The leaves on these pieces are more of a blue green than those of the other pieces.

The side tables also match the pieces above. These have gold trim on the underskirt on three sides, but none on the fourth, which I assume is the back. I have shown both front and back here.

I absolutely love the basket painted on the taller end of the bed. How sweet is this? I also love the hand painted gold trim on all the pieces. These must have been fun to decorate.

Here is the shorter end of the bed, I assume the foot, but this means that the pretty basket is against the wall in most room settings. It just doesn't seem right.

The glue had dried out on most of the pieces and a previous owner had used a hot glue gun to put it all back together. It looked horrible. I cleaned it all off and re-glued everything.

You can see that this piece had been broken.








Here is the side rail of the bed with more pretty blue flowers.

These three pieces have the blue flower decoration at the top and the base of each back.

The table top is a masterpiece! It has the lighter green leaves of the single chair and the settee.

Here is the table with all three chairs. You can see the slight differences in the patterns on the char seats.

A doll would have nothing but Sweet Dreams in this pretty bedroom!!

 I have added this sweet little glass-eyed doll to the scene, although she did not come with the set. She seems to fit though. She is wearing a regional costume that I can't identify. She is about 6 inches tall.

She has a wonderful hairdo under her elaborate lace bonnet. I love the colour of the hair.

Here is a close-up of her sweetly painted face.

I hope you enjoyed the visit to my mystery room. If you can help me identify it please leave a comment. I would love to know more about it.


Hugs,
Susan

Happy Halloween!!

Those of you who are in my age range will be familiar with the hair-stand-on-end TV show The Twilight Zone. Do do do do. Do do do do ...  Pretty scary, eh kids?

In the episode "Miniature" from February 21, 1963 Robert Duvall falls in love with a doll that lives in a dollhouse in a museum.

And, they lock him up. Why? It sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

I can't find the full episode video online, but below is a snippet from YouTube.



If anyone does find the full episode please share.

For a less scary (for some of us, anyway) vintage video about a real person shrinking down to dollhouse size check out this cool Petite Princess commercial from the 1960s. How I wanted to be this little girl when I was young. Enjoy!



Happy Halloween!! From Susan and all her dollhouse dolls. Pretty scary, eh kids?!?

Gottschalk at the Strong Museum - Antique Dollhouse

This gorgeous dollhouse is on display at the Strong Museum in Rochester NY.

They call it the Elevator house. I think it is a Red roof Gottschalk. Dated 1900 with Germany as the country of manufacture this three storey house with attic has a beautiful exterior complete with fence, balconies and bay windows.

We can't see inside the attic, but the other three floors are open for our eager eyes to enjoy.

The centre hall features an elevator which works on a pulley system. Notice that there is no staircase.

The third floor bedroom has Golden Oak Schneegas furniture from Germany. It was made before the first World War. I think the rocking chair is American, possibly Cass Co.

You can see the pulley in the back of the third floor hall.

I love the bathroom wallpaper and tiling. The bathroom fixtures are very modern for the age of the house.

There is more Schneegas golden oak furniture in the second floor bedroom, plus a wire wash stand.

The second floor landing shows the elevator rope

The elegant drawing room is on the second floor. I believe the upholstered furniture is German, and the piano is more Golden Oak Schneegas. I really like the wallpaper and border in this room.

The kitchen also has some great paper tiling. I believe the high chair is Kilgore. Love the stove!

The lower hall has a wonderful light fixture as well as the elevator. The gown on the lady is just beautiful, and I love her hat. The child's outfit is also gorgeous.

The golden oak Schneegas dining room suite looks great in the dining room. Again, I love the wallpaper and border. The light fixture is pretty special too.

Access to the attic is through this small opening at the top of the house.

Another view of the whole house.

Bye for now. I hope you enjoyed the tour.

Barbie's Doll house commercials from the 1960s to the 1980s

Barbie's first Dream House - A wish com true for both of you ... Oh, how I wanted this when I was a kid. I have it now.

There are several other Barbie commercials in this video. I couldn't find a video that had only the first dream house in it. Just hit the stop button if you don't want to see them all.
Barbie's Real Estate empire expanded a few years later. I finally own these ones too.
The Little Theatre and the costumes were pretty much the ultimate items to have in 1964. You knew a kid had well off parents if she had these (at least that's how I felt at the time) Fast forward into the future (the past now) and Barbie's house has grown much more elaborate:
I love all the propaganda in this next commercial. Mom and Grandma are so into the house that I am not sure if the little girl will even get near it. I call it propaganda, but I could be either one of them.

F.A.O. Schwartz Mystery Dolls' House tour - Antique Dollhouse

This incredible dolls' house is in the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester NY, and is one of at least four of these magnificent houses from the collection of Margaret Woodbury Strong.

It has a gambrel roof with carved shingles on the main roof as well as on the wing of the house. It is painted a soft green color with dark green chamfered wood (often referred to as Tramp Art), This house embraces chamfered decoration on all three sides.

The facade is displayed below the house.

There are two entrances; one going into the main part of the house and the other going into the kitchen wing.

The main floor rooms have very high ceilings. Here is the dining room furnished with Schneegas golden oak pieces.

The green striped vases in the china cabinet in the back wall are German blown glass from around 1900. Other examples of this glass and some Treen items are also featured in the dining room.

A soft metal cruet set with yellow glass bottle can be seen on the marble topped server

You can clearly see the lovely parquet floor in this picture.

The quaint kitchen has a blue and white theme. The dresser on the back wall is painted tin, as is the wonderful canister set on the tin shelves beside it.

The stove appears to be tin as well. The dishes on the server and the covered bowl on the table are painted wooden treenware. I love the keys on the bisque housekeeper's belt. The dog, cat, and little boy offer sweet touches to this kitchen scene.

All three bedrooms have the same red and white wallpaper. I don't know whether it is original, but I find it charming.

This bedroom has three Schneegas golden oak beds of different styles and sizes. The rocking chair, washstand and dresser are also Schneegas golden oak. I think the bowl and ewer and other red and white dresser accessories are treen. Most of the items in this room are from around 1900.

The second bedroom also has Schneegas golden oak pieces and a lovely bisque doll with blue eyes.

I don't recognize the highboy on the back wall, but I am sure it is from the same period as the rest of the furniture.





The third bedroom contains furniture I don't recognize except for the Boulle chair. I think some of it may be tin. And the chamber pot looks like treen.

I love the parlor. It is furnished with Boulle. The Kestner gentleman is very dapper with his little mustache and striped waistcoat.

I have never seen a lamp like the tall brass one with the glass shade in the back of the room.

The front hall has an interesting alcove under the stairs. I love the red wallpaper with the green painted stairs and railings. The floor has a lovely narrow pattern here.

 The red patterned wallpaper continues into the upper hall Here there is a Schneegas coat rack, what appears to be a tin dresser and a beautiful chair with elaborate cut outs.

 Another view of the bedroom.

The door surrounds are so nice. I wish they did that sort of thing in all dollhouses.

 The dining room again.

All the rooms have lovely old wallpapers, baseboards and raised panel connecting doors.

The wonderful floors are often referred to as parquet floors but are actually scored and hand painted to look like parquet. An elaborate staircase has an alcove carved under the staircase!  

Additional attic rooms are in the openings on the roof. This picture shows the painted detail on the dormers.

The beautiful mystery house in it's situation between two other lovely antique dollhouses in the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester NY.

I would highly recommend a visit to this museum if you ever get to the Rochester area. It is enchanting.