TynieToy

A Homemade Nantucket Cottage I built this house in the Spring of 2002. The design was based on the dimensions given in the original Tynietoy catalogues and also influenced by the design published in the December 1920 issue of the Ladies' Home Journal. Its construction was described in detail in my article published in Miniature Collector's August 2003 issue and I have altered some of the furnishings since the article was published. I used 3/8" finished plywood to construct my replica house so it would look more like the one pictured in the catalogues.

I purposely positioned this house in front of a window to allow natural light into the rooms, as this house is not electrified. Even though I usually keep the facade in place, the interior gets pretty dusty because it is just up the stairs from our wood stove (the bane of my housekeeping aspirations). I particularly enjoyed painting the hollyhocks on the exterior facades. The mural painted in the background of this room depicts a large stone farmhouse across the valley from me as it would have looked in the 19th century. If there weren't so many trees around me now, it would be my view right outside my window (it still has an apple orchard beside the house).

The interior is more fully furnished than it appeared in the magazine article. The Nantucket Cottage featured in the Ladies' Home Journal had only four rooms and houses built according to those plans seem to be more numerous than authentic Tynietoy houses! Since Tynietoy made such a variety of dining sets, I wanted to make sure my house had a dining room when I built it.

The parlor is accessorized with an authentic Tynietoy map of Nantucket with an appealingly yellowed old varnish. The alcove under the stairs can be a challenge to furnish and many collectors use it as place to tuck in a telephone table and chair. The bookcase I have placed within the space is an uncommon version with an open base rather than cupboard doors. The fireplace mantel is decorated with classic Tynietoy brass candlesticks and a pair of tiny hand-carved figurines of fishing folk.

For this photo, I removed the drop leaf table and Windsor chairs to show the butterfly table, small braided rug and pretty painted fire screen. The ladies are about to share tea. The photo below shows the table in close-up with its lovely patina and 1930's treenware tea set.


This unusual lady doll is dressed in her original costume consisting of billowing silk breeches, tall boots and a boyish tie - and yet, she is wearing earrings. I've never seen another doll like her. The ceramic bowl of fruit is by Debbie McKnight and the Windsor chairs came from the Mansion previously owned by Dorothy Dixon - I felt their informality was better suited to this cottage.

The dining room features a Rufus Porter style mural hand-painted on the three walls shown here. I assembled a set of seven painted ladder back chairs to arrange around the maple trestle table and I made the petit point carpet from a kit which has been discontinued. A large treenware soup tureen is centered on the table with additional pieces stacked on the table in the background.

A close-up view of the dining room's corner cupboard with original green-painted interior which has been decorated with vintage blue and white china - these pieces date to the late 1970's. The gravy boat was in my collection for thirty years before I acquired the other matching pieces with the Mansion.

The little Scottie dog was in my grandmother's house as far back as I can recall and is so evocative of the '40's when FDR's little dog Fala was so popular. I still haven't got around yet to making curtains for this house and perhaps I prefer them as they are. Simple white swags would probably look right.

The Nantucket Cottage has a rather small kitchen and I was challenged to furnish it realistically. The only Tynietoy pieces in here are the table and the pair of charming green Windsor chairs that came from the Mary Merritt Museum (possibly my favorite purchase from that auction). I used a Wisconsin Toy Co. Hoosier cabinet, an enameled tin stove and refrigerator and a sink I refurbished. The three little kittens drinking cream from a saucer are Vienna bronze.

The vintage German sink was originally much shorter so I replaced the legs. I could have put a Tynietoy sink here but I wanted something smaller to place in front of the window. The FW Gerlach cast metal steam iron still has its cord wrapped around its handle. I love the apple green paint on the vintage refrigerator.

Many collectors furnish this small room as a bathroom, but I chose to make it a second bedroom furnished with the Victorian spool bed and matching dresser and stand. The orange Windsor chair is from the Delaware Toy and Miniatures Museum.

I just love the sweet expression on the face of this little Hertwig toddler doll, and her little jump suit.

The low wall on the right side of this room seemed perfect for displaying vintage Erzgebirge toys and a smaller scale tin stove makes a good plaything as well.

The master bedroom displays my first Tynietoy canopy bed and I painted the walls a robin's egg blue to coordinate with its fabric. The bedside table is the hard-to-find stand from the furnishings designed for a maid's room and has a painted maple finish.

From this angle, the viewer can appreciate the very rare ribbon-back chair and the light maple highboy and chest of drawers. The highboy was from Herb Hosmer's Mansion. The hooked scatter rugs are by Chestnut Hill and are slightly out of scale but lend a cozy atmosphere.
			The bureau displays a tiny gold pin with an equally tiny photograph inside it - perfectly scaled for a dresser top, and a tiny antique wooden penny doll is seated beside it to create a sweet vignette. The cushion on the wing chair was made from an old embroidered hanky with vintage lace trim added. The chair below is the very rare ribbon-backed side chair, copied from a set of such chairs at Mt. Vernon and offered in later catalogues as a special order. I've seen only two others. The intricately carved back of this chair is typical of the artistry of George LeClerc.
(2.11.09)
After the magazine article was published, a fellow collector used my drawings to make his own Nantucket Cottage, with some modifications. Here is how his turned out:

He hasn't added the hollyhocks to the front, but did add a back door to the kitchen and I like the way he painted the doors blue on his house.

The owner's photo shows a painted dado in the dining room and a rare set of maid's bedroom furniture upstairs. When I built my own house, my husband cut out a second set of pieces so I could make another house to sell. Before I could put it together, another collector bought the pieces from me but asked me to paint another mural in the dining room before I shipped it to her. She purchased a Mel Davey Nantucket Cottage at an auction so she eventually sold the pieces to yet another collector and I'm still hoping to see how that one turns out. I've also wondered if there are any more replica houses out there made from the plans in my article - if you have one, please contact me!
The Village House In some ways, the Village House is the least interesting of all the Tynietoy houses while also being one of the rarest. I know of only 5 authentic examples but I imagine there are others out there that have escaped notice because they are less interesting and recognizable than other houses. With only four very basic rooms and a very simple, unrealistic-looking staircase, I can imagine potential customers comparing this house to others and then finding some other option more desirable. The exterior is severe in its simplicity without any sidelights or transoms to distinguish the doors and the roofline is also quite basic. I've never seen or heard of an example with rear windows so the interiors are comparatively bland. The catalogue photo shows the removable front facade and the side door with an arbor. The right side of the house has two windows below and one above and the back is solid. In the color photograph, the original yellow ochre color is visible and the doors are rich blue. This example features dimensional trim pieces painted white and the classic white chimney trimmed in black. The former owner of this house thought it might have been assembled from a kit as he found some components to be a bit rough, but the catalogues never mentioned that it was available as a kit. It was a comparatively inexpensive house priced at only $28.50 in the 1930's when the Nantucket Cottage was $50 and the Townhouse was $98. Another drawback to this house is the lack of a dining room - Tynietoy made so many different styles of dining room sets. It seems a shame to try to squeeze any sort of dining area into the two ground floor rooms and when people try to, it makes the small house look even more cramped than it already looks. So the room to the right is invariably furnished as an eat-in kitchen and the other room with the staircase serves as a parlor. The open area under the stairs is awkward and the catalogue photo suggests placing a bookcase there but I think the Astor piano looks better in that dark corner of the room.... The top of the stairs open into a room the same size as the parlor and the stairs face the doorway into the smaller room that is sometimes furnished as a bathroom. The second floor rooms are open to the roof ridge and that helps to make them feel a little more spacious than they really are. This house is only 28" wide - a Townhouse is just over 48" wide! Someone with limited space would find this house a lot easier to accomodate! Thank you to Les Payne for his photos. (6.15.2015)
Still to come: The South County Farmhouse and The Blue Door House as well as Gardens, Garages and other structures.

An Unusual Tynietoy Fireplace

Among the archival Tynietoy papers and photographs I acquired last year were several copies of this photograph showing a fireplace with unusual decorative mouldings. The other Tynietoy items in the photo are all familiar from the catalogues, although the lamp is a less common electrified version (more about that later). The fireplace I've posed in front of the photo was removed from a vintage Massachusetts dollhouse later moved to California that had been furnished with Tynietoy and other vintage furniture. The owner damaged it in removing it from the wall where it had been attached and the rear of the firebox was still painted black on the wall, so it never had a paper or cardboard backing. This fireplace is unusual in that it is stained rather than painted, it has an applied composition decorative molding and it lacks a marbleized or brick painted face around the firebox. Also, the hearth base has a brick-textured finish which may have been added by a later owner, although I see no earlier finish in the areas where the texturing has chipped off. It is the same basic size as a Tynietoy fireplace, it has the distinctive stepped mantel and it has routed fluting on each side that matches that found in some fireplaces built into later Tynietoy houses. I suspected it was Tynietoy when it came in the box with all the furnishings I bought from that house and when I later found this photo documenting an authentic fireplace with applied composition decoration, I felt more comfortable attributing this unique fireplace to Tynietoy. (2.6.09)
Tynietoy Floor Lamps

A short note about Tynietoy's proprietary wooden floor lamps. They were made in at least two versions: one was electrified and the other, which is far more common, was not. The non-electrified lamp stand was turned from a single piece of wood and finished in what Tynietoy catalogues listed as a mahogany stain (but the effect is more like walnut) or painted - often black but also in other colors such as Chinese red or gold. The electrifed lamp is shown in the photo on the left next to a copy of an original Tynietoy archival drawing dated 1927 that shows how the lamp was assembled from four separately turned components so that the interior could be hollowed out for the wiring. The lamp shown here is made from hardwood, which would have made it stonger to withstand the drilling of the interior. The lamp shade frames are very similar, with an opening in the center for the electric light bulb in the electrified version. Frames were also sometimes made from solid pieces of metal, much like the lid of a small tin can, nailed directly to the base. The electrified lamp was priced originally at $1.75 and later $1.85 in the catalogues while the non-electrified version remained at $1.00. Tynietoy lamps are moderately difficult to find and were sometimes subject to damage in vulnerable spots. When they are missing their shades, they are sometimes mistaken for coat racks by some vendors! (2.8.09)

Dating Tynietoy Houses and Furniture There are distinct differences and subtle variations that can help collectors estimate the relative age of their Tynietoy houses and furnishings. The features discussed in the following paragraphs are based on my personal observations and on painstaking research conducted by long-time collector Letty Schwartz, who personally researched Providence city directories and interviewed former Tynietoy employees. In recent years, several individuals have published her research in magazines and on-line without properly crediting her – that's not happening here! The generalizations made here are just that, and there are almost guaranteed to be exceptions. But if your Tynietoy house or furniture displays several of the characteristics described here, you should feel comfortable assigning a probable date. With houses, construction methods and paint finishes provide the clues. The most commonly found Tynietoy house is the New England Townhouse. Earlier versions of this house (as well as the Mansion) feature a fairly bright white painted exterior with a chalky matte finish, almost like a primer coat, with the roof painted a dull Spanish brown or battleship grey. The kitchen wing is sometimes built as a separate structure that can be removed from the main part of the house by unscrewing small joining plates on the back of the house. Inside, the door trim is usually outlined with blue or turquoise paint, and the fireplaces may or may not have a chimney breast. The opening in the second floor ceiling for access to the attic features a sliding panel, which is usually absent in later houses. Side windows may not have exterior shutters at all and inside, the window trim is often fashioned from flat strips of wood with no contour, if they are present at all. The floors are stained a nut brown with a rather flat finish. Early multi-paned window sashes were hand-painted, and looked it, while the later houses benefited from a silk-screening production method and are uniform in appearance. During the Depression, Tynietoy struggled to survive and some of the houses from that period seem to have been made from inferior materials. I have seen such a house where the inside of the removable front façade showed evidence that it had been made from recycled packing crates. The later Townhouses and Mansions have a creamy hard enamel paint finish on the exterior and usually have a green or blue-green roof. Contoured interior door and window moldings probably date to later years of production, but they may be found on some early houses as well. I find that later houses also seem to weigh a bit more than early houses. Some early houses vary from the standard 3/8" thick walls with interior walls or floors made from ¼" plywood and are thus lighter in weight. The floors of later houses are finished with a warmer reddish brown stain or a lighter maple stain and more highly polished varnish. The Nantucket Cottage can be confusing because apparently quite a few of them were made from the plans published in the November 1920 issue of The Ladies' Home Journal, and some were also made by former Tynietoy employee Mel Davey over the course of many years – in fact, most of the Nantucket houses I have encountered are Mel Davey products. One should expect an authentic Tynietoy house to be constructed of good quality 3/8” plywood, whereas the copies were usually made from ¼” plywood. Also, amateur copies frequently use over-sized hinges on the doors. Tynietoy apparently made some larger variations of the five-room cottage shown in the catalogues, perhaps as custom orders. Aside from a few documented custom houses, perhaps the rarest of Tynietoy houses is the New Model house, which it's believed was introduced after around 1930. Few authentic examples are known to exist; at least one facsimile example has been produced by dollhouse restorer Jim Reus. Many variations and differences distinguish early Tynietoy furniture from later examples. Among the most obvious characteristics are examples made from ¼" plywood, with little or no effort made to disguise the exposed alternating grain. Plywood furniture feels heavier than later pieces, which were primarily made from a northern New England softwood called lignum vitae, although some special pieces were made from mahogany. Early unpainted furniture was finished with a dull brown stain and usually left unvarnished, creating a somewhat unfinished appearance that some collectors find unappealing. (Plywood continued to be used for parts of the Empire style tables that were offered in the Victorian line of furniture.) Early fireplaces featured flat wood pieces with faux paneling indicated with the same blue paint used in the house interiors, while later fireplaces have carved molding along the sides. Tynietoy's creators were very proud of their enterprise and went to some trouble to register their trademark and label their products to differentiate them from their competitors both domestic and foreign, so most early items should display a paper label or show some evidence that a label was once glued in place. Of course, items like rush-seat chairs and sewing stands didn't really have an appropriate place to affix a label, so there's nothing to look for there. A paper label on furniture usually means an item was produced before 1925. In the collection I acquired that was documented from 1922, all the furniture displayed paper labels, but the turned wooden candlesticks actually had navy blue ink-stamped trademarks underneath, so the ink stamp was used quite early on. The paper labels were printed on a cheap acidic paper that darkened with time; they should be almost the color of a paper grocery bag. I would be suspicious of a bright white paper label on anything.

The Tynietoy paper label features a small "o" suspended above the baseline for the other letters. It is not spelled with an "s" at the end. The paper labels are often very brittle and some loss in not uncommon.

The ink stamp, which predominates for furniture between roughly 1925 and 1930, is spelled the same way as the paper labels. The stamp was also used for many years on the backs of mirrors and paintings. Usually black ink was used, but I have seen examples where dark blue ink was used and, on some very dark pieces, white, yellow and orange ink appears.

In 1930, an employee named C.I. Hayes created a die for an incised stamp that was used on larger pieces. Now the trademark was spelled with an "s" on the end, and the "o" is the same size as the other letters. More delicate items such as mirrors and pictures continued to be marked with the old ink stamp.

After the company underwent restructuring in the late 1930's, another die was created to indicate that the trademark had been patented and registered in Providence RI. They also returned to the original spelling of the company, without the "s" at the end. This is the stamp that was used through the war years until the demise of the company around 1952.

Another paper label that is occasionally encountered is for the Toy Furniture Shop, Tynietoy's retail outlet in Providence. This example, partially obscured by green paint, is from the underside of a garden bench. I have seen dubious examples of this label on some questionable items - beware!

One of the few pieces of furniture made from mahogany was the tilt-top table, which should have this paper label affixed under the top. This table is from the Mt. Vernon collection, inspired by the widely celebrated bicentennial of the first President's birth in 1932. Finishes on the furniture can also help to date it. Tynietoy's artistic consultant, Sidney Burleigh, was reputed to have re-designed the furniture line around 1923 and at that time, we may suppose the finishes were improved from the matte look of the early years. These later 1920's - early 1930's pieces with ink stamps have the nice warm patina that appeals to many Tynietoy collectors. There may have been some difficulties procuring quality finishing products during the Depression, and these problems worsened with the onset of WWII, when the military effort took priority in acquiring materials and chemical products. Furniture from the war years suffered from shortages of things such as quality lacquers. Also, zinc and brass were reserved for military use so the andirons and candlesticks made of copper probably date to that period. Toward the last years of production, a deep mahogany stain with an almost purple cast was sometimes used, notably on the Victorian pieces and the card table. Larger pieces appear to have been painted with the aid of a mechanical sprayer for the base coat, or even dipped in paint, but the decoration was always hand-painted. Stencils were used for painting the lattice patterns on the walls of the gardens and may have been used for some other things. Painted finishes remained fairly standard through the years. (11.21.08)

Tynietoy Banjo Clocks

One of theTynietoy products that evidenced distinct design changes over time was the Simon Willard banjo clock. The earliest version I have seen comes from the collection I purchased this past summer which has been documented to 1922, when it was priced at $1.50. The design was presumably based on an authentic antique but is somewhat crudely rendered.
			This earliest clock features a deep case of solid wood painted black with hand-painted panels on both the bottom pendulum case and on the sides. The paper clock face reads seven minutes past eight o'clock. Both the finial and the scrolls on each side are made of gilded wood and there is no bottom finial. The pastoral scenes on the painted panels are executed in a rather indistinct manner.
			Another early clock, this example features a differently turned finial and now the side scrollwork is executed in a lightweight cast gilded metal. The clock is stained a warm mahogany color and there is no additional decorative paint on the sides, but the painting on the front is done more nicely. The basic shape is the same as the 1922 example, with the same clock face.
			This is a shop drawing from a collection of Tynietoy archival material I purchased in 2008, showing the redesign of the clock probably executed around 1923. It is based not on an authentic antique, but apparently copied from a reproduction full-size clock offered in a commercial catalogue included in these archives - I'm trying to get a decent photograph of this catalogue listing. The design of the newer version is more refined and accurately scaled.
			Three examples of later clocks. The first one features a hand-painted representation of Mt. Vernon, the second is a fairly common example with a hand-painted eagle. The last example with its slightly modified shape features a hand-painted marine scene and dates from the end of production - the wood is stained a sort of purplish mahogany. The scrolls are all made from stamped brass while the eagles, which have replaced the turned wooden finials, are cast metal with a gilt finish. Now the clock reads the typical 10:15.
			The Chestnut Hill clock has a very similar shape, but the clock face is smaller, the neck is wider and the hand-painted scene is executed on a piece of paper glued to the wooden body. Also, the clock is constructed in two pieces, rather than one, the clock face is covered with a bezel and brass trim, and the ornamental scroll-work is noticeably different and was improvised from cast metal jewelry findings.
I have seen some clocks where an owner has drilled a small hole in the back of the clockface to mount it on a nail, but the usual method of hanging is a twisted loop of wire attached to the back of the clock with brown paper. The wire is frequently missing on the clocks today and one often finds clocks with enormous wads of tacky wax on the back, or evidence that the clock was glued directly to a painted or papered surface. When I find this, I scrape off what I can to get down to the bare wood and then I make a paper hanger for the back, similar to a gummed reinforcement you can buy at the stationer's for reinforcing papers that have been 3-hole punched. A tiny amount of wax toward the bottom of the clock case can help keep the clock from shifting out of alignment once it has been hung on the wall. (11/8/08)

A Gambrel - Roof Colonial Furnished with Tynietoy


This is the vintage dollhouse my husband bought for me at a local auction house a couple of years ago. I was attracted to it at the preview because I do have a thing about gambrel-roofed houses and this one was roomy enough to furnish with some of the Tynietoy furniture I had been accumulating in storage boxes. I felt it would be a nice companion to the Tynietoy houses that are displayed in the mural room and I did some alterations to help it look the part. The roof had been covered with over-scaled shingles made from old wooden Venetian blinds and I removed those to leave the roof with a flat surface like the Tynietoy houses. The shutters were nailed to the house but were stained the same brown as the shingles, so I removed them and painted them green. All the curtains are original to the house but I did launder them as they were almost black with dirt!

The front entry is comprised of a rather narrow hallway and an elaborately constructed staircase that runs all the way up to the attic level. The parlor is through the door to the right, the dining room is to the left and the kitchen is behind the dining room with doorways to both the dining room and the hallway. When I got the house, the doorway trim was made from old mahogany cigar box wood and stained quite dark, so I decided to lighten the dark, unlit interiors a bit by painting the trim. I also added baseboards, cornices, and in the parlor, a chair rail, all made from classic, slightly over-scaled lumberyard moldings rather than modern day dollhouse moldings which I felt would be too perfectly scaled for this homemade house. I left the hallways and parlor with their original painted surfaces.

The parlor is furnished with Tynietoy Victorian furniture including a settee, armchair and several side chairs. The "upholstery" is painted black, which is the most commonly found color for this set but it can also be found painted dark green. The table in the center of the room has a tabletop painted with a faux marble effect, and the grand piano is painted with a faux rosewood finish. The banjo clock on the rear wall is an early version, and the blue painted firescreen came from Herb Hosmer's Tynietoy Mansion after his death.

Sorry for the poor focus in this room - it is quite deep and my camera tends to auto-focus toward the front and I'm still too lazy to focus it myself! But I did want to point out a detail on the early demil-lune table in the front of the room. Later tables were made from a single piece of wood turned on a lathe and then cut in half. This early table is constructed with a separate top and small curved pieces are attached underneath forming the apron. I prefer the earlier tables because the later ones tend to warp and draw the legs inward. The fireplace in this house is a vintage homemade one found in a Quakertown, PA antiques shop and features nicely tapered Doric columns in the front.

The cozy dining room is a bit small and square, so the Tynietoy Victorian table has been positioned with the long leaves down. The kitchen is visible through the doorway in the rear and retains its original wallpaper. The original paper in the dining room was stained and unattractive so I replaced it with this vintage English full-size wallpaper I bought at a car boot sale in Worcestershire nine years ago. Some of my ebay customers may recognize the paper as that used as a backdrop in my earlier sales. I love it and I wish I had bought the other roll that was offered too, but I never thought I'd use so much of it that I'd need two rolls. I like how this room is decorated in muted shades of gold, tan and brown. The chandelier is a vintage homemade one that uses old costume jewelry for the globes.

The kitchen is a small room located directly behind the dining room and is accessed by removing a panel from he side of the house. When I first acquired the house, this entire side and the front came off, leaving the corner of the house awkwardly exposed, so I cut the side panel in half and attached one half permanently, leaving the removable half for access to the kitchen and bathroom above it. This room retains its original vintage wallpaper which I found very appropriate. Since I seldom open this side of the house, it is furnished with only one piece of Tynietoy (the chair), and the other pieces are a mixture of vintage German and American pieces.

The upstairs hallway is long and narrow like the entry, and is furnished with a colorful orange Windsor armchair with a Mt. Vernon settee against the back wall. There are no windows in the back of the house and the exterior of the back was left unfinished. I sometime think of adding windows in the back to help lighten the spaces, particularly since the layout of the rooms is more realistic than most Tynietoy houses. I sometimes wonder how many homemade dollhouses are out there with staircases made of old mahogany cigar box wood - I know I've seen lots of them!

The pale green wallpaper is a discontinued Laura Ashley pattern I bought in a sale bin in Worcester, yet it has a New England feeling to me. The canopy bed is another piece from Herb Hosmer's Tynietoy Mansion and the Tynietoy crib has an unusual stained finish rather than a typical painted one. The needlepoint carpet in this room was made from an old pillow cover found for $5 at a street fair and trimmed with green satin ribbon to fit this room. It is a little bulky but suits the character of this home-made house.

I'm quite fond of this small guest room which was originally a little bigger, but I brought the rear wall forward two inches because it bisected a side window. The pretty wallpaper is actually a recent scrap-booking paper sourced from a local craft shop. I often look for dollhouse restoration and decorating materials when I shop for other things. The mirror over the cottage dresser is not Tynietoy, but marked by another New England maker and the framed print over the bed is very similar to a Wallace Nutting print and is the same vintage. The bathroom is configured like the kitchen below, with access from this room as well as the hallway.

The bathroom's original wallpaper was also unattractive and since I moved the wall on the right (and forgot to paint the ceiling afterwards), I papered this room with another small scale Laura Ashley paper, left over from decorating my real guestroom's bath. You can see all the way through the doorway to the master bedroom. The German painted cupboard on the right holds linens.

The attic is divided into two rooms which I have reserved for the children. The carpet is another needlepoint pillow cover, and a long-coveted Tynietoy blanket chest is placed up here. I have used some other vintage non-Tynietoy furniture, including the German table for the vintage miniature German kitchen roombox. The reclining kitten on the rocker was in my grandmother's house when I was a little girl.

This close-up shows the amount of detail in this vintage toy kitchen which measures about 2" across! The wallpaper in this room is full-scale paper from the 1970's I've had for ages.

The other attic bedroom is papered with old drawer liner paper (helps this dollhouse smell nice when the front comes off) and contains a German four-poster bed with rope stringing and a related ladderback chair. This type of painted furniture often appears in old Tynietoy collections and was probably available for purchase in the Toy Furniture Shop, but it is not Tynietoy. The German crystal radio set is also a popular item in Tynietoy houses. All the yellow painted furniture came from the eighty-year-old woman whose Tynietoy collection was shown on the Antiques Roadshow two years ago in Providence, while the fuzzy bear on wheels is a not very old Hallmark Christmas ornament! The boys, like the other dolls in the house, are from Dorothy Dixon's collection. Since Tynietoy houses are rare and not always affordable, I was happy to find a homemade dollhouse with a lot of character to provide a showcase for furniture that might otherwise remain unseen in a storage box. And since it is not exactly a museum piece, I felt comfortable doing some remodeling and more aggressive redecorating than I would in an authentic Tynietoy house. I had a great deal of fun and satisfaction fixing up this house and building on the character that was already so apparent to me in a dimly lit auction hall. 10/9/08
The Rising Sun Chair When the Constitutional Convention met at Philadelphia during the summer of 1787, George Washington sat in an unusual mahogany chair during the three months her presided over the Federal Convention's continuous sessions. James Madison kept meticulous notes of the proceedings and they have been preserved. On Monday, September 17th, Madison wrote: Whilst the last members were signing [the Constitution] Doctr. FRANKLIN looking towards the Presidents Chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that Painters had found it difficult to distinguish in their art a rising from a setting sun. I have said he, often and often in the course of the Session, and the vicisitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: But now at length I have the happiness to know that it is a rising and not a setting Sun. The original chair was made by John Folwell in 1779 and has been revered by generations of Americans for its historical importance and its unusual design. A miniature replica of the chair and the desk with which it was paired were made in limited numbers by Tynietoy in a scale somewhat larger than 1:12, and similar in scale to the Sophia Smith chair. Ann Meehan recalls that perhaps ten years ago a number of them were offered for sale at Freeman's auction house in Philadelphia, but not identified as Tynietoy. I encountered the chair and desk offered on ebay about five years ago but the reserve was never met, and at the time, I did not know Tynietoy had made them and the seller apparently was equally ignorant. The replica is made of mahogany and upholstered in fine red leather with small nails, very similar to the original. A cartoonish rising sun is painted on the crest. I recently purchased this very rare chair when I attended an auction in Canada. The entire collection of the Mildred Mahoney Dolls' House Museum was offered with the furniture still inside all the dollhouses and roomboxes. This chair was in a large contemporary roombox and was identified as a Rising Sun chair, but not identified as Tynietoy. Another American bidder gave me some competition for it, but I still managed to attain it for what I consider a reasonable sum, particularly since the roombox also contained a fine Gerald Crawford library step-chair and other items of interest. The sale was not conducted with internet bidding, so few Tynietoy collectors even knew it was available. Tynietoy archival measured drawings, beautifully executed, capture all the details that appear on the original chair. The drawings indicate the scale was 1.5 inches to the foot. In at least one catalogue (probably from later production years), the chair was illustrated with the desk. At the time, the chair sold for $8.50 and the desk for $6.50. By comparison, a canopied bed was $4.75 and oil paintings were $4.50. The same waves of patriotic sentiment that fueled the Colonial Revival movement also inspired the designs that Tynietoy produced during the 1920's and 1930's. Tynietoy created a special lampshade to commemorate the sesquicentennial of Betsy Ross designing the American flag in 1776 (as was believed by most if not all Americans in 1926) and they similarly honored the bicentennial of George Washington's birth in 1932 by producing framed pictures of our first President and mailing them to some of their customers as a gift. The Mt. Vernon collection probably dates to this same period and it seems highly possible that the firm marked the sesquicentennial of the Constitution in 1937 by creating these pieces. In any case, this rare chair, highly sought after by Tynietoy collectors, makes a fine companion to my set of three Sophia Smith chairs, although for the moment, I have it paired with a mahogany table in the library of my Mystery House! (8.25.10)
NOT Tynietoy!

I'm often saddened to see many items listed for sale on ebay, or offered at shows, that are represented as Tynietoy when in fact they are not. Sometimes the seller is merely uninformed, but the sad fact is that some people just think they can get more money for an item by calling it Tynietoy. I think perhaps the most egregious example I've seen on ebay was someone identifying a plastic Chrysnbon Windsor chair as a rare Tynietoy chair, and some bidders took the bait, pushing the price upwards to triple digits. In another case, I emailed a seller when I saw that the andirons he was offering on ebay were similar but not authentic, and he replied that he had been assured by the "highly reputable" dealer he bought them from, that they were indeed Tynietoy and he had paid something like $65 for them, so they had to be authentic! Over the years I've seen misattributions and outright frauds, and I feel bad for new collectors coming into this field and being victimized. So I'm compiling some examples of things that are commonly misidentified and will share them from time to time. Perhaps the most common mistaken attributions are when people buy Chestnut Hill or Lynnfield pieces thinking they are Tynietoy. When I submitted my article about Chestnut Hill furniture to Miniature Collector Magazine, I included several photos with lengthy captions comparing the similarities and differences between Chestnut Hill and Tynietoy, only to see the article published with my photos reduced to the size of postage stamps and the captions omitted entirely in the interest of conserving space. I was so disappointed as I had hoped those photos would do a real service to collectors. Another issue is the German furniture that was reputed to have been sold by The Toy Furniture Shop, Tynietoy's retail outlet. Certainly this furniture mingled happily with authentic Tynietoy furniture in dollhouses of that period, but I feel it should be identified as a distinctly different product from Tynietoy. It didn't help any when Miniature Collector published an article about a Tynietoy collection that included a prominent photo of a Lynnfield painted trestle table and benches erroneously identified as Tynietoy. Magazine articles are not necessarily a reliable source of instruction, nor are some books often cited as references. It often seems that as soon as a book about antique or vintage dollhouses is off the presses, new discoveries render some of the text obsolete and erroneous, and the price guidelines are virtually meaningless for reasons well known to experienced collectors. The best education probably comes from seeing things in person, preferably in the helpful company of more experienced collectors - that's how I learned!

The Tynietoy andirons on the left should be easy to identify by the small round finial on top, the slender tapered shape and the overall crispness of the turnings. The andirons on the right are frequently offered on ebay and at shows identified as Tynietoy. Both are made of turned brass, are heavy to hold in the hand, but the Tynietoy andirons are obviously more refined.

Authentic Tynietoy candlesticks on the left include silver-plated examples from my New England Townhouse, the commonly found brass example and a painted wooden example which was available in many colors. I own several black ones, and over the years have owned them in white, yellow, apple green and red, as well as stained ones. The pink is one of a pair from the 1922 collection I acquired last summer and is actually ink-stamped with a portion of the Tynietoy logo under the base. The non-Tynietoy examples on the right include a diminutive product of Clare-Bell Brassworks (who also make candlesticks with square bases and used to offer silver-plated examples as well), two over-scaled and mass-produced brass candlesticks with hollow bases dating from the 1950-70's which I have seen offered more than once on ebay as Tynietoy, and a heavy cast brass one I found in England. The silver-plated candlesticks were black with tarnish when I found them and required multiple applications of silver polish to clean them up.

The brass fenders shown above are all Tynietoy, and may be found bent into different widths and depths. One distinctive attribute of all three is the rolled base on each one. The brass accessories such as the andirons, candlesticks and fenders were made specifically for Tynietoy following their own specifications, presumably in the Providence RI area. According to former Tynietoy employee Joseph Venable (when interviewed by researcher Letty Schwartz), an employee or contractor named Bruno Wasberg made the andirons. Virtually all the gray metal accessories listed in the Tynietoy catalogues (such as coffee urns, dinner gongs, chafing dishes, etc.) were imported from Germany's F.W. Gerlach and sold by many other retail outlets besides Tynietoy. Some collectors do not class them as Tynietoy accessories, even though Tynietoy packaged many of them in their distinctive little green boxes. I would suggest that it is important to make the distinction between the very high quality accessories that were exclusive to Tynietoy and the mass-produced German items, many of which may never have passed through Providence.

The Nantucket map on the the left is an authentic Tynietoy accessory while the very derivative example on the right is from Chestnut Hill. Sorry about the glare in the photo - the map is varnished to protect the delicate hand-painted watercolors enhancing the Tynietoy map, and gives it an enviable antique look. The Tynietoy version is mounted between two square-edged pieces of painted wood while the Chestnut Hill example uses stained dowels for the edging. This is just one of several Chestnut Hill items very closely copied from Tynietoy. Other copied items were mantel and banjo clocks, pictures, demi-lune tables and fireplaces.

These painted chairs with turned components are German and were available in a number of colors including pink, mustard yellow (as shown), apple green, aqua blue, white, black and a dark wood stain. I've also seen a two-seater settee in this style. They mix easily with Tynietoy furnishings and may even have been sold by the Toy Furniture Shop, but were not offered in the catalogues. The same may be said of the bed, cheval mirror and variety of chests that often accompany these pieces.

The chair in the center of this photo is Tynietoy with a faux painted maple finish. It is from the collection previously owned by Dorothy Dixon and I have encountered only one other Tynietoy chair like it. The chair on the left is made of walnut, is slightly larger than 1" scale, and seems to be from the same manufacturer as the Windsor chair discussed below. The chair on the right is a frequently encountered mass-produced souvenir "Facsimile of the chair brought over on the Mayflower by John Carver, first Governor of the Plymouth Colony" as stated on the paper label affixed to the bottom of the seat, which is made of textured paper as opposed to the woven seats of the other two chairs. Flora Gill Jacobs referred to this last chair as an "Exposition" chair, presumably offered as a souvenir at the Columbian Exposition of 1893. I believe it was probably sold at several venues over a number of years.

Which one is Tynietoy? When I found the chair on the left, it was the first thing I unwrapped in a box tucked away under a table in Flora Gill Jacobs' basement. Yes, at first I thought it might be a rare Tynietoy Windsor chair, but it is made of walnut, feels heavier than the authentic chair on the right, and then I noticed the thickness of the identically shaped plank seat. There are subtle differences among authentic chairs, and many Tynietoy chairs have legs carved like the one on the left (see the chairs in the Mansion's kitchen, in the archive). Had I not found this chair packed with other pieces that were clearly NOT Tynietoy but obviously from the same manufacturer, I might not have figured it out until I put it next to the real McCoy. Who made all this walnut furniture, some of it so similar to Tynietoy? I've discussed it with other collectors who have encountered it and we think it might have been American-made souvenir furniture for an historical site or museum gift shop. It is not marked Germany, and one can't help but wonder if Tynietoy's craftsmen knew about these virtual copies back in the day...

Could anyone confuse the crudely constructed 1970's Shackman chair on the right with an authentic Tynietoy chair, shown left? I don't mean to offend my readers' intelligence by showing these two chairs side by side for comparison, but I was shocked and saddened to see a set of four Shackman chairs and a Shackman drop-leaf table offered for sale as Tynietoy at the Allentown antique toy show a few years ago. I'd seen the dealer buy them in a box lot at a Rhoads auction a year earlier, and when they re-appeared in Allentown, they'd been painted red and green, and brand new Toy Furniture Shop paper labels had been glued to their bottoms (printed off a computer or photocopied, I don't know - it felt sickening simply holding them in my hand). The same dealer also offered several pictures that had been newly framed with cornice moldings manufactured today by Northeastern Scale Models, also with new labels on the backs. I think that sort of blatant fraud is indeed offensive to one's intelligence, and it's pathetic that anyone would try to take advantage of inexperienced collectors that way. I'll be posting more photos and welcome additional photos from anyone else who'd like to share stories of mis-identified Tynietoy, intentional and otherwise.

A Tynietoy New England Townhouse

This is the first Tynietoy house in my collection. It came to me at a troubled time and provided a welcome escape as I restored and decorated it. In the autumn of 2001, the Dollhouse Factory in Lebanon, NJ was preparing to close after being in business for over 25 years. In addition to liquidating the contents of the shop, the owners brought down from the attic a collection of antique and vintage dollhouses that had been stored there, awaiting the day when they might be part of a museum related to the shop. Many things were damaged by dampness, covered with dust and bore evidence of rodent habitation. Among the dollhouses that I discovered during a routine visit, was this Tynietoy house and there was no price tag on it. I spoke to one of the owners who said she had to speak to her husband to determine the price and she'd let me know. Aware that someone else could swoop in and offer a ridiculously high price for it, I obtained a promise from her that I would be first in line for the house once they decided the price. I made a total pest of myself calling the shop daily for over a week until she was able to offer it to me for just under $2000. Her husband wanted more for it but because I was a long-time customer, she persuaded him to let me have it for what I considered a very reasonable price. I later learned there were other interested parties and she'd had to deflect other offers while keeping it safe for me. I was so grateful for this preferential treatment, I offered to work in the shop gratis for the last two weeks of operation to help her price the other dollhouses and some antique and vintage furniture that had also been in storage. She was overwhelmed with all that had to be done in those last days and was grateful for the assistance. As readers of my first article in Miniature Collector may recall, I also purchased my large Gottschalk house at the same time, with some prodding from husband.

When I first got the house, it was missing most of its shutters and one chimney, but retained all its windows, doors and the front stoop with original bootscraper. I made replacement shutters from old cigar box wood and computer-matched the color using one of the surviving shutters. I elected to do nothing to the worn areas of the plywood facade as they represent honest wear.

This house is what some call a "deluxe" Townhouse, and what I refer to as an "A" model with applied wooden moldings around the doors and windows, electrification, and dimensional wooden shutters. The "B" model typically has painted moldings which may have broken arch pediments indicated over the ground floor doorways, and still has dimensional shutters, while the "C" model has the least amount of detail with painted moldings and shutters simply painted onto the exterior. All of the house I have seen with fireplaces placed on the back wall have been "C" model houses. There are variations between these three versions (one can never categorically use the words "always" or "never" when describing Tynietoy products!). Sometimes the kitchen door is located toward the back of the left hand wall rather than toward the front as in this example. And the back door seems to float around between different models. Mine is almost directly under the stairs while others are located more centrally on the back wall. This same variation also occurs with the Mansion.

The entrance hall was in fine condition when I got the house, but I did add baseboard and cornice moldings to some of the rooms as the door molding looked odd to me without accompanying baseboards. I believe townhouses are plentiful enough that I don't need to treat mine like a museum treasure and preserve it as found. The interior of the house had been aggressively redecorated at some point in the past, so I felt comfortable removing what had been done by others and customizing it to my taste while attempting to stay true to the Colonial Revival style I remembered so well from my grandmother's Connecticut home built in 1938. The needlepoint bell pull on the left was in the house when I purchased it, so I've kept it. The unusual Chippendale chair in the background has the same cabriole legs and construction techniques as Tynietoy chairs, but is probably an unsigned piece by George LeClerc.

Some of my favorite pieces found their way into the parlor, including a handsome needlepoint carpet from John and Ellen Krucker Blauer's Maynard Manor, original Tynietoy artwork and a rare Hepplewhite mirror on the left wall. The cloisonne vase on the Mt. Vernon drop-leaf table is one I've owned since I was a teenager. My mother found it for me at a yard sale held at the Westport, CT home of Bud Sagendorf, a famous comic book artist and father of noted collector Kit Sagendorf. She also bought me a small grocery store and some vintage furniture at this sale, and I have treasured this pretty vase with its delicately crackled glaze through all my years as a collector. The paper flowers in that vase are antiques similar to those found in antique treenware vases and other vintage bouquets appear throughout this house.

I made the pleated draperies from green silk I bought at Liberty's flagship store in London, and painted the Meissen figurines which were cast metal blanks purchased in person at Phoenix Miniatures in Northamptonshire when it was still owned by the original craftsman - what a wonderful visit that was! The painting over the mantel is a Tynietoy oil portrait in the style of Copley, while the colorful hunting scene over the Astor piano is a print enhanced with hand-painted details. The sheet music on the piano is antique, while the violin resting in the green wing chair is a modern accessory. My brother, a skilled model-maker, painted the grazing sheep figurine on the mantel.

You get a slightly better view of the lovely Hepplewhite mirror over the settee in this photo, which is flanked by tables with Tynietoy lamps. The rare mirror was an exciting discovery at an auction, where I noticed it glued to the wall of an awkwardly displayed Keystone Tudor dollhouse along with a wag-on-wall clock. I suppose no one else noticed it there, because I bought the dollhouse and contents for a mere $50 later in the day. The parlor contains three desirable tables: the Mt. Vernon drop-leaf table, a mahogany tripod table in the background, and a small flip-top table in the foreground. I'm also pleased to have the two Tynietoy table lamps with hand-painted shades in this room. I didn't care for lamps in this dollhouse originally, but I came to appreciate the artistry in the delicate lampshades.

The dining room draperies are also made from Liberty fabric, a fine printed cotton lawn which pleats easily. The needlepoint Persian rug was at the bottom of a box lot purchased for only $35 but I had to wait four hours for it to come under the hammer. The rolling tea cart was a lucky buy on ebay, and the painted tin box on the side chair is filled with old silverware.

Desirable accessories in the dining room include a pair of knife boxes on the large sideboard and two pairs of silver-plated Tynietoy candlesticks. One pair has the familar scalloped square base while the others have unusual round bases. Also rare is the finely detailed bowl of fruit on the table, and the stained highchair in the background - the only one I have ever seen that was not painted. Several pieces of treenware are placed throughout the room, including a pair of plates on the right wall. The white painted corner cupboard has been borrowed from the furnishings I received with the Colonial Mansion because its red interior is so harmonious with the colors in this room.

The kitchen is dominated by the large painted wooden range with attached boiler. It is unmarked and possibly German, and I am pleased I could just fit it into this kitchen. The Tynietoy towel bar was in the house when I got it and the embroidered dish towels were bonus items from Merriam Hibbard. The red treenware tea set on the table is German and probably dates from the 1930's. Under the sink is a miniature crate of oranges, a popular souvenir for tourists who discovered Florida after WWI. The yellow chairs are German imports, very possibly made by Gottschalk and sold by the Toy Furniture Shop, Tynietoy's retail outlet, but not offered in the catalogues. I don't really consider them Tynietoy, but used them here to further the cheerful yellow and red color theme.

This bedroom was over-painted an unattractive turquoise color when I bought it, so I didn't pause too long before deciding to paper it. At that time, I also added a chimney breast to cover the exposed electrical wiring. The canopy bed was purchased at auction with the Sheraton chair upholstered in the same fabric. The tiny silhouettes hung over the dresser came with the house, and I painted the hatbox on top of the highboy.

All the fireplaces in this house have Tynietoy andirons and decorative brass fenders. The tilt-top table under the window has a little German tray holding an assortment of five Vienna bronze potted plants.

The black Windsor chair was the first one I ever bought and came in a very affordable box lot I purchased at auction. Until I purchased my furnished Mansion, I never thought I would own so many of these coveted chairs. The floor lamp's handpainted shade features a colorful parrot. I made pillows from an embroidered handkerchief to soften the outline of the Mt. Vernon settee on the right.


This second bedroom was covered with a dark green printed chintz fabric to which had been glued a crude wainscot made of painted popsicle sticks. A white painted Tynietoy corner cupboard had been wedged into the right hand corner between the wainscot panels. Fortunately, the fabric was removed with a little effort, taking the wainscot with it and freeing the corner cupboard. The floor of that room had been painted over as well, but that came off easily with a minimal application of paint stripper. Sorry about the shadow....

After removing the fabric on the walls, I found the painted surfaces somewhat damaged. Rather than repaint, I chose to wallpaper the walls and cover the electrical wire runnning into the nursery. The wallpaper is a miniature version of the same paper that hung on the walls of a New England inn where my wedding party stayed and we took pictures, so it is a sentimental favorite. The fireplace is the smaller version that is a little harder to find. More painted hatboxes are stored behind the delicately painted wing chair. The Godey print and the silhouette of George Washington on the rear wall are Tynietoy.

I left the striped wallpaper in the nursery as I found it. I believe the dotted swiss ruffled curtains are Tynietoy curtains, as are those in the kitchen. The little toddler dolls are Hertwigs I bought as part of a large lot of dollhouse dolls at a Noel Barrett auction. The German aquarium has a soft metal stand and the "glass" is celluloid. I put fish from a Shackman aquarium in it. The Erzgebirge doghouse was purchased from the Sagendorf yard sale mentioned previously - I've had it for ages!

I have sold this house (8.31.10)