THE Dandy’s barrel-chested, be-stubbled, cowpie-guzzling Cactusville cowboy Desperate Dan was easily my favourite, but I was horrified to learn that he celebrates his 70th birthday this month. Yikes that makes me feel ancient.
    Yup, it’s true. Still entertaining young (and old) readers all over the world, The Dandy is the world’s longest-running comic.
    The first issue featured the five foot tall feline, Korky the Cat, on the front cover and inside were strips staring such memorable characters as Keyhole Kate, Hungry Horace, and the great Desperate Dan.

See a slideshow © DC Thomson & Co. Ltd. 2007

    Tucked inside it was a free gift, an "Express Whistler", and it hit the newsstands on Friday December 4, 1937.
    It cost 2d (0.83 of a penny). In an auction in October 2004 that sent comic collectors crazy, a copy of Issue 1, complete with its free gift, sold for a staggering £20,350.
    Was it an investment? Probably. This remains the highest price ever paid for a single comic in Britain.

There are rumoured to be only 10 remaining copies in existence.
    Had I the money, would I have bought it? Probably not, but to the comic cognoscenti, the first issue of any great title is always something of a holy grail … and they don’t come holier than The Dandy.
    Inspired by early children’s magazines like Comic Cuts as well as the popularity of their newspaper, The Sunday Post’s own Our Wullie and The Broons, publishers DC Thomson envisaged a brand new, fun cartoon title.
    The Dandy itself was in instant success, paving the way for other fun titles like the Beano, Beezer, Topper, Cracker and Sparky.
    The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 was a significant time for The Dandy, as it was involved in propaganda for the Allied war effort, boosting morale among the millions of children whose families had been enlisted into the armed forces.
    Desperate Dan was a hero of the hour. He would regularly sink German u-boats, or disable enemy planes with a peashooter.
    Created by Dandy editor Albert Barnes and acclaimed artist Dudley Dexter Watkins, Dan was conceived as a rough, tough, no-holds-barred desperado from Cactusville, Arizona.
    His feats of superhuman strength could be funny, imaginative and sometimes dangerous. Dan would brush his teeth with a power drill, and shave using a blowtorch.
    He quickly became the most popular character, synonymous with the comic itself. Legend has it that Watkins based the burly outlaw’s trademark facial fuzz on Barnes’s chin.
    The post-war years brought what has since been regarded as the title’s golden age, and the issue dated April 22, 1950 sold a staggering 2,035,010 copies, making it the most popular edition ever.

• In its 70-year history, The Dandy has had just four editors: Albert Barnes (1937-1982); David Torrie (1982-1985); Morris Heggie (1985-2006) and Craig Graham (2006-).
• To date, silly superhero Bananaman is the only Dandy character to appear on television – starring in his own cartoon series in 1983, and featuring the voices of popular comedy group, The Goodies.
• July 10 1999 brought issue 3007, which proudly proclaimed itself a record-breaker – for publishing the most consecutive editions of a UK comic ever.
• In July 2001, a specially commissioned, eight foot tall, bronze statue of Desperate Dan (and faithful pet pooch, Dawg) was unveiled in Dundee High Street; proving that Cactusville’s favourite son has his spiritual home in the North East of Scotland.

    By now the comic was firing on all cylinders, with some great slapstick material inside its inky pages.
    The comic has maintained its popularity with children ever since, and still had huge circulation figures right up until the 1980s and beyond.
    It went full colour in 1993, giving the still surviving title a brighter look. However, sales were starting to dip as they did for comics in general, as the likes of video and then latterly DVD, and computer games offered other forms of interactive activities for kids.
    As the new millennium dawned, it was clear that traditional comics would have to move with the times in order to survive.
    The Dandy got a slick, glossy look in October 2004, and a further revamp came in August this year, with the now fortnightly comic rebranded as Dandy Xtreme.
    It has features on computer games, movies, sports and all other stuff that modern kids adore, as well as free gifts and a pullout "comix" section.
    Current editor Craig Graham said: "When we looked at making such a radical change, we were really concerned that our regular readers – and their parents and grandparents who had read the Dandy before them – shouldn’t feel that their comic had forgotten them.
    "So we sat down and made a list of all the things that had made it such an icon over nearly 70 years, and we made sure those values were still going to be right at the forefront of the new comic: Dandy readers are irreverent, mischievous, fun-loving and they like to get away with it!"
    Today The Dandy is on sale every fortnight, priced at a somewhat unfunny £1.99 but go and price a bar of chocolate – 35 pence is seven shillings!
    Will today’s issues become collectors’ items? Well, with the passage of time, I guess they will. Who knows what The Dandy will look like in another 70 years.
    In the meantime, perhaps we should start searching out old back issues and obviously the older the better. Condition needs to be absolutely mint and copies with the free gifts still intact attract a premium.
    One good source (and also where to sell them) is Scarcecomics.co.uk, an online auction business launched by collector Ashley Robinson, whom I have written about here before.
    He said: "Snowy titles are much more collectable, Christmas issues, New Year issues and those that mark other festivities such as Easter."
    So, perfect timing then.

THERE’LL be no Wiis in my house this Christmas thank you very much. We watched them being demonstrated at the launch by Nintendo PR girls thrusting, parrying and gesticulating in front of a widescreen TV.

See a pop-up slideshow

It immediately made us wonder how long it would be before one of them let the thing slip, sending it crashing through the screen. Wiis don’t have a wrist strap for nothing, but if I was the parent of a youngster expecting one from Santa this Christmas, I be taking out extra insurance.

Oh for the days when children were content with a stocking containing an orange, the latest Dandy or Beano annual, a handful of assorted nuts (still in their shells, of course) and a few simple and inexpensive toys. Ah yes, I remember it well.

Time was when the must-have Christmas present for children and adults alike was a magical

book like the ones illustrated here. In their own way, they were the Victorian equivalent of the Game Boy — and they didn’t need batteries. They are mechanical or metamorphic books, designed to be interactive, their pages changing as the story develops, all at the whim of the reader.

Today’s collectors call them "pop-up books", a catch-all term that covers a multitude of elaborate and innovative three-dimensional and other designs that remain as captivating today as they were a hundred years ago.

Actually, mechanical books have a long history. One of the earliest examples was published in the 13th century by an unlikely sounding character named Ramon Llull (c.1235-1316), who wrote poetry and practiced mysticism on the island of Majorca.

His hand-written complex philosophical texts were illustrated with revolving desks called volvelles which could be rotated around a central pivot to point to words or symbols on the page or predict the future.

In the 14th century, other mechanisms were being used for example in books on anatomy, where flaps could be turned or lifted to show different sections of the body and its organs.

Books specifically intended for juveniles did not appear in any form until the latter half of the 18th century when publisher John Newbery responded to the need to improve children’s education.

Thereafter, it was only a short time before publishers began to experiment with creative and innovative ways to capitalise on the market.

London printer and bookseller Robert Sayer took the lead in about 1765 with the production of "Harlequinades", books named after the pantomime figure, which consisted of pages with two engraved scenes.

  Each scene was split in the centre by a number of flaps, layered one on top of another and attached at the top and bottom of the page, so that each flap could be lifted from the centre.

Each half of a scene was interchangeable with the others so that turning the various flaps created sufficient variations in scenes to keep children amused for hours.

Using a similar technique, the first Paper Doll Books were produced by London publisher S. & J. Fuller from 1810 and in the1820s, miniature portrait painter William Grimaldi developed another type of "lift-the-flap" book referred to as a toilet book.

He devised the idea as a party game, sketching articles from his daughter’s dressing table as  representations of specific virtues. For example, rouge equalled modesty, powder, innocence and the looking glass, humility.

The articles were illustrated on flaps, which, when lifted, revealed scenes illustrating each virtue.

His son Stacy published the first book in 1821 entitled The Toilet, which enjoyed great popularity and inspired a rash of imitations.

Two years later, Stacy published a boy’s book, A Suit of Armour for Youth, also written and illustrated by his father, in which illustrations of moral themes were hidden beneath pieces of armour.

Thomas Dean was the first publisher to produce truly movable books on a large scale. The firm was already in existence at the start of the 19th century but they were among the first to adopt the new lithographic printing process that had been invented in Germany in 1798.

Dean’s "toy books" dominated the market from the 1840s being noted for their beautiful chromolithographic images.

His son George joined the company in 1847 and they opened studios in London where teams of artists devised ever more complex movable books.

In 1856, for example, they released a series of fairy tales adventure stories in "peepshow" style titled New Scenic Books.

Each scene was depicted on three or more cut-out sections placed one behind the other and attached by a ribbon running through them.

The scenes lay flat, face down when the book was closed but when it was opened, the ribbon caused the scenes to pop up giving a three-dimensional view.

In the 1860s, Dean also invented a mechanism to animate a scene by pulling a tab. Advertised as "living pictures", among the best known was the "Royal Punch and Judy as Played before the Queen"

In it, the reader controls the action in a three-dimensional miniature theatre, moving the characters by pulling tabs located at the bottom of each page.

"Home Pantomime Toy Books" was another Dean’s innovation in which the entire subject matter of an image changes as the pages are turned.

Dean dominated the industry for much of the 19th century but in the 1880s, a number of German publishers capitalised on their country’s expertise as specialist lithographic printers and crashed into the European children’s book market.

Leading the attack was Raphael Tuck who moved to England as a young man, working first as a furniture maker. He subsequently began framing and selling pictures and chromolithographs printed in Germany from a wheelbarrow in the streets of London.

In 1866, he opened a small shop and four years later, his sons joined him to open a publishing business in the capital.

The business was a huge success and Tuck later became official Publisher to Queen Victoria.

Father Tuck’s Mechanical Series was a popular series featuring multi-layered three-dimensional scenes, while Fun at the Circus featured pages with three-dimensional overlays designed to be raised out of the book and laid on to the tabletop like a diorama.

They were also printed in both colour and black and white, the latter enabling children (and their parents) to colour them by hand.

Another German publisher who specialised in colourful movable books was Ernest Nister. His company was founded in Nuremberg in 1877 in a city which had been a centre for toy making throughout the 19th century and had the most advanced colour printing in the world.

His speciality was illustrations that stood up automatically. His figures and scenes were die-cut and mounted in a three-dimensional framework connected by paper guides. As the pages are turned, the figures stand to attention in a setting which has its own perspective.

His other forte was movable books with pages made up of dissolving and a revolving slats which cause the images to transform using complex geometric cuts which revolve as tabs are pulled by the reader.

However, the most complex and original movable picture books of the 19th century were produced by a Munich artist called Lothar Meggendorfer.

His illustrations often had five parts which move simultaneously and in different directions using intricate levers hidden between pages. When activated they give the characters and scenes an almost endless range of movement.

Dozens of interlocking parts and intricate rivets make the carpenters chop the wood, the musicians play their horns, and the nurse rock the baby but because of their complexity, the books were the preserve of the wealthy.

Nevertheless, from the 1880s to the 1900s, Meggendorfer’s works enjoyed brisk sales and many reprintings.

Needless to say, the outbreak of the First World War crippled output from both German and British publishers alike. The Second World War dealt the industry another blow and in this day and age of electronic gadgetry, pop-up books are enjoyed and appreciated by a relatively small select few.

I know which camp I’m in.

About the size of an old sixpence, the badge was decorated with blue enamel, picked out of which were the initials W. L. O. G.

The only other decoration was what we later learned was a pair of oversized ears — an image that was once the trademark of a cartoon rabbit, and no, I don’t mean Bugs Bunny.

The rabbit’s name was Wilfred — his co-conspirators were Pip and Squeak — and W. L. O. G. stands for the Wilfredian League of Gugnuncs. Today, it seems, the tricksy trio have become something of a cult with collectors and anything connected to them sells for a premium.

Confused? Readers of a certain age will remember them. Those who are not should read on and then they won’t be.

Pip, Squeak and Wilfred were the invention of Bertram J. Lamb, editor of the Daily Mirror’s children’s column. His idea was a strip cartoon in the newspaper which first appeared on May 11, 1919.

The characters were supposedly named by Payne after his wartime batman who went by the nickname “Pip-Squeak”.

Pip, the dog, Squeak his penguin companion and a baby rabbit called Wilfred came from Payne’s imagination and continued to delight both children and their parents until its run ended in 1958.

Oddly, Pip and Squeak were portrayed as being Wilfred’s parents – the apparently found him in a turnip field – while an elderly penguin was known as Auntie and a Russian spy was the villain with his dog “Popski”.

Austin Bowen Payne (1876-1959) was born in Cardiff, South Wales, but lived for a great part of his life in Herne Bay. He retired in 1953 and died there a year after the strip finally ended.

During its run, Pip, Squeak and Wilfred were a part of the British Establishment and the phrase passed into common parlance.

The Wilfredian League of Gugnuncs was founded in 1927 and is a mark of how popular Pip Squeak and Wilfred became (the Queen Mother was said to be a huge fan).

The name “Gugnunc” came about because unlike Pip and Squeak, Wilfred spoke only in baby-talk and “gug” and “nunc” were his favourite words. The Gugnuncs held parties and meetings and an annual rally at the Royal Albert Hall, raising funds for children’s hospitals and charities.

The cartoon also inspired a wide range of spin-off merchandise including children’s tea-sets, board games, toys, handkerchiefs and annuals. There was also a series of silent films in the early 1920s featuring the capers of the cartoon trio directed by Lancelot Speed.

The Daily Mirror Gugnunc Sing-Song was popular at this time and more money was raised from sales of printed songsheets and a now rare 78 rpm record produced by His Mater’s Voice. They change hands for £10-15, while a Wilfred car mascot can fetch £200-300.

Royal Doulton jumped on the Gugnunc bandwagon when they introduced the figure of Wilfred blowing a trumpet HN922 in 1927, while he also appears with Pip and Squeak on a ceramic ashtray, HN935.

Fund-raising was one of the prime motives of the cartoon – an important factor in its popularity, particularly at a time of the First World War.

Another money-spinner was a series of postcards by Raphael tuck from the Mirror Grange series, each of which showed views of a house of the same name which was built for the comic characters.

Artist F. Kenwood Giles was commissioned to produce the pictures used as illustrations and they showed the house from various angles, together with scenes from the interior. So the nursery showed Wilfred pulling a toy train, while Squeak was seen in his bedroom and so on.

They sold for a few pennies in the 1920s, while today a full set changes hands for £20 to 30 if in good condition.

Another delightful collectable is the Pip, Squeak and Wilfred Gugnunc board game. Made in England and also dating from the Great War, the game is based on war medals (see panel) and is similar to snakes and ladders with dice and counters. In good condition, the game is worth £30-40 today.

The first Pip, Squeak and Wilfred Annual for children was published in 1923 by Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co. It contained four colour plates by Ruth Cobb, Charles Folkard, Joyce Brisley & A E Jackson respectively and other colour-tinted illustrations of the amusing adventures our heroes.

The Pip and Squeak Annual ran from 1923 to 1939; “Wilfred’s Annual” from 1924 to 1938, while a second more cartoon-based “Pip, Squeak and Wilfred Annual” ran from 1953 to 1955. Expect to pay £35-45 for an example in good condition.

A pip-squeak is still a term used to describe something or someone small and such was the case when, in the history of motorcycles, the Budget of 1931 introduced a reduced rate of road tax rate of 15/- (75p) for machines with engine capacities under 150cc.

The aim of this concession was to stimulate British manufacturers to produce machines similar to the autocycle, which were popular on the continent.

At first, manufacturers took advantage of this new taxation class by producing small capacity motorcycles which were immediately nicknamed “pip-squeaks”.

When autocycles did appear, it was inevitable they were given the derisory name of “Wilfreds”!

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

Medals by any other name

Pip, Squeak and Wilfred appeared in the Daily Mirror at around the same time that George V decided that our gallant lads should be awarded medals for their service to their country (pictured right).

However, the medals were not for gallantry, since they were given to everyone who saw service in any theatre of war, whether under fire or not, which somewhat demeaned their significance. As a result, it was not long before the trio of awards were christened Pips, Squeaks and Wilfreds!

The Pip was either the 1914 Star or the 1914-15 Star, each of which were identical three-pointed bronze stars with a central scroll bearing the appropriate dates.

The 1914 Star was issued to members of the British Expeditionary Force who had served in France and Belgium during the period August 5,1914 and November 22,1914.

Most went to the Regular and Territorial Army but some naval personnel serving ashore were eligible as were a very small number of Australians and Canadians. The medal became known as the “Mons Star” of which 78,000 were issued.

In 1919, a bar stamped with the qualifying dates was issued to those who had actually been under fire.

The 1914 – 15 Star, which differs only in its scroll, was issued to the 2,350,000 British and Empire Forces and to civilians attached to the forces who served in a theatre of war between August 5, 1914 and December 31, 1915.

The British War Medal of 1914 – 1920 was known as Squeak. A solid silver medal, it was decorated with an image of St George whose horse is trampling the shield of the central powers. The reverse has the head of George V.

Around six million were awarded to the three armed services and to those who served in any Commonwealth or Imperial unit or certain voluntary organisations.

The Victory Medal 1914 – 1918 was a Wilfred, issued after the Allies agreed between them that each country would produce a medal to commemorate the Victory. The common theme among them all was the rainbow-coloured ribbon.

The British medal – 5,750,000 were awarded – shows the winged Victory on the front holding a palm branch with the words “The Great War for Civilisation” on the reverse.

The bronze medal was awarded to those who had received the 1914 or 1914-15 Star and to most of those who received the War Medal, but it could not be awarded alone.

It was awarded to anyone who had any service in a theatre of war, including civilians in recognised voluntary organisations.

Brave souls whose deeds of courage were mentioned in dispatches were also awarded a bronze oak leaf to fasten on to the ribbon.

Individually, the medals can be picked up for a few pounds apiece. A set attracts a premium and provenance, particularly if it is interesting – each medal is marked with the name of the recipient – boosts value accordingly.

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

But stop and take another look. Those baubles, knickknacks and trinkets that you remember when you were a child might actually be highly desirable collectors’ items.

And that means hard cash to pay the credit card bill which arrives when Christmas is but a distant memory.

The thought occurred watching Coronation Street the other night. Ken Barlow probably didn’t realise what the Bakelite crib ornament was worth as he hung it on his tree, but it was not lost on me.

Fact is, almost any Christmas tree decorations dating from the 1930s, 40s and even Sixties has a value as a collectable, while some rarities could fund the entire festive season.

Particularly sought after are the hand-blown glass ornaments that I remember used to come in brown cardboard boxes divided into compartments and each wrapped in tissue paper.

That was probably how so many survived the journey from Czechoslovakia, where they were made.

Favourites are the clip-on birds with their fragile spun glass tails and the gaudy baubles, hand-painted with glitter to make them look like they are covered in frost.

To a collector, each has a value of £10 to £15. Rarer examples, particularly those with an unusual shapes or modelled with the heads of cherubs, clowns or animals can easily be double that.

The same can be said for early plastic and even decorations made from cardboard, providing of course they’re in perfect condition.

I remember the Christmas tree from my childhood was hung with little Japanese paper lanterns, each one with a tiny metal candleholder (I was never allowed to put candles in them for fear of burning the house down) that today would be worth £15 to £20 apiece.

I was told they came home in the rucksack of a relative who saw action in that part of the world during the war. Whether that was true, I’ll never know, but I wish I still had them.

Old electric fairylights can also be worth serious money, particularly when they remain in their original cardboard boxes. Own a set today and you’d be best advised to speak to an electrician before putting them to use.

Of course, collectors of such things would ever dream of actually switching the things on!

Picture shows an unusual seasonal survivor – a 1930s artificial Christmas tree complete with its original decorations which was in a sale at Brightwells auctioneers in Leominster. It had been purchased from Binns department store in Sunderland to celebrate the first Christmas of a baby boy and had been kept carefully by the family ever since. It sold for £350.

All are on sale this Christmas and so it was –admittedly with a different cast of characters – since the 1820s, which means there’s a rich collecting vein for lovers of children’s annuals.

When I was a lad, Christmas wasn’t Christmas without a Rupert, Dandy or Beano annual in my stocking.

Why I didn’t keep them I’ll never understand. Today they fetch good prices.

A quick search on eBay confirmed the point. A 1954 Beano annual (I was a toddler then) was up to £150 with 11 bids and four days’ bidding to go.

Another, the owner of which thought was from 1951, was being sold along with the first ever Eagle annual (you remember Dan Dare) from 1950 “both “owned by Dad from new” had reached £72 with 25 minutes to go.

The prices of Rupert annuals were scarier still. One from 1942 had received seven bids and was at £200 with seven days to go.

The amazing thing is that these things still turn up at car boot sales and in charity shops and flea markets and change hands for a fraction of what a collector is prepared to pay, while auction sales are often the source of job lots of dozens of the things that have been slung into cardboard boxes and are sold without reserve.

No one really knows when the first child’s annual was published in this country, although contenders for the earliest include Child Companion Annual, which appeared in 1824, and Children’s Prize (later known only as Prize), published in 1863.

Among my personal early favourites is Chatterbox, which also first appeared in 1863. A mere £30 buys a good, clean example today.

It was followed in 1879 by Boys’ Own Paper and its companion Girls’ Own Paper; Young England in 1880 and Chums in 1893.

The earliest children’s annuals started life as weekly or monthly paper-wrappered pamplets the content of which was largely evangelical.

Each Christmas, a special edition was given a richly printed pictorial title page bearing the date of the issue and the volume number.

The idea was that the year’s issues were bundled together and bound into a single volume.

One of the earliest of these was The Juvenile Magazine, edited by one Lucy Peacock, which didn’t last long. Just 12 monthly issues were published, the last dated December 1788.

Interestingly, the impetus for children’s Christmas annuals was probably the appearance of adult versions.

Forget Me Not, published for adults in 1823, was followed by dozens of others – for all ages. The most enduring was The Children’s Friend, which started life as a monthly penny magazine in 1824 and continued without interruption until 1860.

Until 1850, it was edited by the Rev. William Carus Wilson, who founded the Clergy Daughters’ School at Kirkby Lonsdale which the Bronte sisters were forced to attend.

Charlotte got her own back later, though. She modelled the character Mr Brocklehurst in Jane Eyre on her schooolmaster, a hard taskmaster who was generally disliked by his pupils.

The Boy’s Own Book, published in 1827 and 1828, was among the first real annuals for children. According to its title page, it was “A complete encyclopedia of all the diversions, athletic, scientific, and recreative, of boyhood and youth”.

The Christmas Box; an Annual Present for Children was more like an adult annual and was probably too well produced for its own good. It lasted for only two issues – in 1828 and 1829.

The first colour illustrations ever to appear in a children’s book were published in the 1836 edition of The New Year’s Token; or Christmas Present, a delightful annual that first appeared the previous year.

The illustrations showed George IV’s fishing temple in a delicate view of Virginia Water, in Surrey, which appeared on the frontispiece, while a vignette of a small boy examining a bird’s nest appeared on the title page.

They were printed from woodblocks by the great George Baxter who invented the process of printing with oil colours. The vignette of the boy is one of the rarest of all so-called Baxter prints.

The first real children’s annual in the modern sense was The Excitement, which first appeared in 1830. Contained within its pictorial covers were romantic adventure stories such as “A Lion Hunt in Africa” “Whale Ship Destroyed by a Whale” and “Sufferings Endured in the Black-Hole of Calcutta”.

The fact that The Excitement contained no religious tracts caused consternation in some quarters to the point where the editor, one Adam Keys, an Edinburgh schoolmaster, was forced to resign.

Undaunted, he set up a new annual, which he named, aptly enough, The New Excitement, first published in 1838.

The Boy’s Own Paper was among the longest running early monthly magazines which survived from 1879 until its final appearance in 1967.

A spin-off, The Boy’s Own Annual, published in a pictorial cloth binding, was issued regularly until the outbreak of the Second World War but was then dormant for 26 years until it reappeared at Christmas, 1964.

The Girl’s Own Paper was without doubt the most famous equivalent for girls which ran from 1880 to 1948. It appeared each year-end as The Girl’s Own Annual.

By about 1900, publishers began to move away from the practice of offering annuals that were simply bound versions of what had been printed in weekly or monthly installments throughout the year.

Pioneers were Blackie’s Children’s Annual, published first in 1904, and, in 1909, Empire Book For Boys (and Girls).

However, the massive growth in children’s annuals began in earnest after the first war. Amalgamated Press, which was enjoying huge sales of its weekly comics, saw annuals as a way of enhancing profits even further.

Titles included Puck (1921); Tiger Tim (1922); Rainbow; and Bubbles (both 1924) followed in the next decade by Funny Wonder (1935); Jester Annual (1938) and Chips Annual (1939).

D.C.Thomson, the Scottish rival to Amalgamated Press issued Adventureland in 1924; Rover (1926); Skipper (1932) Hotspur (1935) and Wizard (1936).

Newspapers too were quick to get in on the act. They had been printing cartoon strips since the early 1920s in order to attract a younger readership and it quickly dawned on executives that here was material for an annual.

The Daily Mirror started the ball rolling with its Pip, Squeak and Wilfred Annual in 1920, followed by the Daily Herald’s Bobby Bear in 1922.

In the same year the Daily Sketch produced Uncle Oojah and in 1934 the Daily Mail weighed in with Teddy Tail.

Not to be outdone, in 1937 the Daily Express harnessed the pulling power of its Rupert the Bear strip and introduced annuals which continue to this day.

Somehow, I don’t think builder Bob will last the course!

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

Pictures show:

This 1954 Beano annual was up to £150 on eBay with 11 bids and four days’ bidding to go.
Boys Illustrated Annual, published in time for Christmas 1894. It marked the end of an era, Boys magazine being taken over by Boy’s Own Paper

Leading Strings “The Baby’s Annual” published in 1925 and worth only a few pounds
Annual3

Rupert Stories, written by Mary Tourtell, creator of the comic strip character, and published in 1947

The stallholder handed the woman her purchases, having shoved them somewhat haphazardly into a plastic shopping bag. One Teddy was up, the other one was down with his head somewhere at the feet of his companion. Clearly for them it was going to be an uncomfortable journey home.

Not a bit of it. Here was a collector who cherished Teddy bears and their lives under her care were obviously about to improve. She walked a discreet distance away from the stall and then had her partner hold the bag so that she could rearrange its contents. When she had finished, both Teddies were the right way up and with their heads sticking out of the bag, their new owner having ensured they could see where they were going!

But then Teddy bear collectors are like that. When they buy an addition to their collection, it becomes a new member of the family. They give it a name and like the woman with the shopping bag, they ensure that its comfort and well-being are not compromised. I know one collector who gives each of her Teddies its own individual little chair.

The best known, and arguably the most important maker of collectable Teddy bears was the German company Steiff, founded in 1880 by Margarete Steiff, followed by next best known: Gebruder (brothers) Bing. British firms Chad Valley, Merrythought and Dean’s came to the market later but their products are no less charming and often valuable.

The name Schuco is not among the first Teddy bear makers that comes to mind. The company was founded in Nuremberg in 1912 by Heinrich Muller, a former employee of Gebruder Bing, and Heinrich Schreyer, and ex-furniture salesman. Instead of Teddies, the company is probably best known for a selection of novelty tinplate mechanical toys.

The First World War proved to be an early setback to Schuco when, in 1914, both partners were conscripted and the factory closed. Another setback came shortly after resumption in 1918 when Schreyer left a company because he saw no future in toy making!

He was replaced by new partner, Adolf Khan, a wholesaler who understood the toy market and how to achieve the best results. Muller was the mechanical brains behind the business and it was he who both invented the toys and developed the tooling that would produce them.

They included a clockwork Charlie Chaplin figure wearing his famous Little Tramp outfit and carrying his trademark walking stick. Wind him up and he would walk with the familiar wobble, twirling his cane just like Charlie did.

Charlie’s signature gait was caused by an ingenious asymmetrical governor in the clockwork mechanism and similar devices featured in a boxer with a punchball; soldiers and sailors drinking out of beer steins and other figures playing violins or drums, juggling or climbing ladders. Interestingly, some of these were wound by turning an arm rather than a key.

In the 1920s and 30s, the firm also made a dancing mouse, a trotting dog which for some reason wore a cape, a so-called “Turn Back” car which could detect the edge of the table and therefore never fall off and a “Steerable Driving School Car” which had rack and pinion steering and its own miniature toolkit.

Another amusement which appeared in the mid-1930s was a “Father and Son” toy based on a famous German strip cartoon of the day. The figures had celluloid rather than tinplate heads and could be made to hold hands and dance together.

The first Schuco Teddy bear appeared at the Leipzig toy fair in 1921. Christened the Yes/No Bear, the creature’s head could be moved up and down and left to right by pushing and pulling a lever in its tail.

It was produced in six sizes and different mohair fabric, the smaller ones containing squeakers, while the larger ones were fitted with growlers. A similar toy was reintroduced in 1950 and called the “Tricky Yes/No Bear”, some of which were fitted with Swiss musical mechanisms.

Another charmer was the so-called Bellhop Bear which dates from 1921. Very rare today, it is a very lucky collector indeed who finds an example like the one illustrated wearing the livery of a hotel bellhop: red tunic, black pants, pillbox hat and a leather bag for carrying his messages.

The bear is fully jointed, while his tail can be moved to operate his head. He was also fitted with a squeaker inside his chest and along with policemen, clowns and performing circus bears, examples are sometimes found with roller skate on their feet, which were delight for the children who played with them.

Interestingly, Schuco also made a roller skating bear toy that was probably inspired by Alice Teddy, a real-life bear whose skating party trick wowed audiences in the United States before the First World War.

Another favourite was the Janus bear, made in 1954, which has two faces — one ugly and sticking out his tongue, the other smiling and genial. A small brass knob at the base of its body moves the toy’s head when it is turned from side to side.

By necessity, collectors of Schuco toys are a rare breed. The Charlie Chaplin figure is itself worth £1,000, while the Bellhop Bear could make two or three times that, particularly for an example in mint and boxed condition. However, because only the finest materials were used in the manufacture of the toys, a surprisingly large number have survived. So keep a look-out for the unmistakable trademark name and written in script.

Main picture shows: Schuco’s Bellhop Bear. This one is in excellent original condition and worth £1,500-2,000. Note the trademark label on his chest. The mark shows a chubby faced boy, but this later changed to the name in script

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

Clutching at a fortune

Ladies’ fashion in the Roaring Forties dictated that handbags should be tiny, small enough to be clutched in the hand, hence the name clutchbag.

The problem then was where to keep all the stuff that women carry around with them.

Schuco had the perfect answer when, in 1942, they produced the novel little Teddy bears and monkeys like the ones pictured here.

Concealed within their tiny bodies, which hinge open somewhat disconcertingly, are a powder compact, a mirror, and a lipstick which pops out of what would have been the creature’s neck!

Others open to reveal a perfume atomiser, or even a minute bottle of whisky — another essential, specially when there is a nip in the air!

These amusing little creatures — they measure about 3 1/2 inches in height — were made in brightly-coloured short, bristly mohair around a metal body and were retailed by Schuco in a line called “Piccolo” bears. Today, they’re each worth £300-500. Photo: Byrne’s Chester

antiques@chris-proudlove.co.uk

Like most of the bargains I buy on impulse, I knew it would come in useful eventually. We were browsing in a shop selling remaindered books and on the basis that one day I felt sure I would need to write about collecting Barbie dolls, the big, glossy pink encyclopaedic guide to the subject at half the recommended retail price was a must-have. That was five years ago. Since then “The Collectible Barbie Doll” by Janine Fennick has sat on my bookshelf gathering dust.

The news that top auctioneers Christie’s are to sell “one of the most significant and complete collections of Barbie dolls ever to come onto the market” meant my bookshop investment was about to pay dividends. My only regret, judging by the estimates in the Christie’s sale, was not investing in a stash of the dolls themselves. But believe me, buying the book was embarrassing enough.

Fact is, the September 26 auction will offer some 4,000 dolls representing what is thought to be the largest privately-owned collection in the world. It spans the entire history of Barbie, her family, friends and fashion during the second half of the 20th-century. The collection is expected to realise more than £100,000.

Until I delved into the pages of “Collectible Barbie”, I had no idea just how complex Barbie’s world was. In a generation, the 11 and a half-inch vinyl child’s doll became an international icon. But although she was originally advertised as A Teenage Fashion Model, Barbie was inspired by something about as far away from a child’s toy that it’s possible to get.

Americans toy manufacturers Ruth Handler and her husband Elliot were on holiday in Europe with their children Barbara and Ken, when they saw in a shop in Switzerland a provocative novelty doll intended for men. The doll was called Bild Lili and was based on the sexy character of the same name in a cartoon strip in the German newspaper Bild.

In 1945, Elliott and his business partner, Harold “Matt” Matson had formed a small company, calling it “Mattel” by combining their names. At first they made picture frames but soon realised that toys were more lucrative. Ruth Handler was later to become president of the company. She saw Bild Lili’s commercial potential and purchased several examples, each in a different outfit, to take home.

The inspiration came to her as she watched her daughter play with paper dolls. Rather than pretending they were babies, little Barbara was imagining them in grown-up roles. As a result, Ruth decided to make a doll based on a young woman that little girls could dream about becoming. Barbie, named after Barbara, was unveiled by Mattel at New York’s annual Toy Fair in February 1959.

Initial skepticism resulted in poor orders from toy and department store buyers but during the first year of production, 351,000 dolls were sold. There was also criticism. Detractors said Barbie’s voluptuous figure was based on male fantasy. Ruth stuck to her guns but over the years, Barbie underwent a gradual change to reflect changes in standard and current fashion.

The first-ever Barbie had V -shaped eyebrows and vivid red lips and nails. Wearing a black and white striped knitted swimsuit, she looks distinctly similar to Bild Lili. However, the late 1950s saw the beginning of the trend that still strongly influences today’s designers and Barbie and her wardrobe encapsulated this perfectly.

She started following fashion and teenage lifestyle trends, eventually becoming known for blazing her own fashion trail. The Christie’s sale charts her progress. A Barbie Number 1 is estimated at £800-1,200 but later on in 1959, she wore designer outfits such as “Gay Parisienne” which featured the famous “balloon-line skirt” conceived by Hubert de Givenchy (estimate: £400-600), while in 1960, “Sweater Girl” featured a knitted twin-set reminiscent of Lana Turner’s skirt and sweater appeal, (estimate: £80-100).

Barbie Trivia

• Ruth Handler was born Ruth Mosko on November 4 1916 in Denver, Colorado the daughter of Polish immigrant parents. She died on 27th April 2002 in Los Angeles, California.

• Barbie’s boyfriend Ken is named after Ruth Handler’s son

• Barbie has had more than 95 careers – from rock star to palaeontologist and Presidential candidate

• The first Barbie doll sold for $3

• Barbie is sold in more than 150 countries.

• Three Barbie Dolls are sold somewhere in the world every second

• Barbie has represented 45 different nationalities

• Barbie has had over 43 pets including 21 dogs, 14 horses, three ponies, six cats, a parrot, a chimpanzee, a panda, a lion cub, a giraffe and a zebra

• Barbie’s full name is Barbie Millicent Roberts

• Over one billion outfits and pairs of shoes have been produced since 1959 for Barbie and her friends, using 105 million yards of fabric

Coco Chanel’s influence can clearly be seen in “Fashion Luncheon” (c. 1966) featuring a Jackie Kennedy-style suit (estimate: £80-100), and “Solo in the Spotlight” featuring a Balenciaga-inspired gown from a design in 1951 (estimate: £70-100).
Other highlights from this important era include “Enchanted Evening” inspired by Grace Kelly’s sumptious evening gown which she was photographed wearing in Life Magazine, January 1956, (estimate: £60- 80).

The late 1960s and early 1970s saw Barbie following the trends of London’s pop culture and taking inspiration from the “Flower Power” movement. Mattel even produced a “Twiggy” Barbie inspired by the waif-like style icon in 1967 (estimate:£80-100). Barbie fashions included “palazzo pajama” pant suits, the zany glitz of the “disco” era, hot pants, mini-skirts and flares.

By the 1980s, Barbie’s original fans had reached their twenties and thirties, and Barbie collecting began to attract adults as well as little girls and in the 1990s, some of the world’s most famous designers such as Bob Mackie, Givenchy, Versace, Vera Wang, Dolce & Gabbana and Christian Dior began creating fashions specially for the toy, setting a new standard with over-the-top glamour for Barbie featuring stunning gowns of sequins and beads.

The Christie’s collection is being sold by Ietje Raebel, herself a part time fashion designer who was born in Utrecht in 1921. She started buying the dolls in the early 1960s, originally as playthings for her daughter Marina, but her love of clothes and fashion took over and she began to collect Barbie herself.

Once Marina was a teenager, she joined her mother in collecting virtually every Barbie in existence, both vintage and current examples on the market at the time. Between them, they amassed the largest Barbie collection in private hands.

It was Ietje Raebel’s dream to turn their collection into a private museum, but she succumbed to Alzheimer’s disease in 2002 and the dream has never been realised.

The sale is at Christie’s South Kensington and is one of a series being marketed as 20th Century Week (Click here for the online catalogue). Other sales include: 20th Century British and European Decorative Arts (Tuesday September 26); Vintage Film Posters; Modern Decorative Prints and 20th Century Fashion and Accessories (Wednesday September 27) and Modern Design (Thursday September 28).

Picture shows: The first ever Barbie, dating from 1959. She’s estimated at £800-1,200 in the Christie’s sale

© 2006 All Rights Reserved.

Rare Steiff Teddy bear is star of Christmas collectors’ sale

The little boys looked forward to family trips from their home in Vienna to visit their three aunts in Düsseldorf, but not necessarily to see the matronly trio with their smothering hugs and embarrassing kisses.

Instead, the visits meant the three nephews got the chance to play with Smuggers, a magnificent and expensive Teddy bear – christened so because of the smug look on his face – which was purchased specially to amuse the boys when they grew bored.

But the visits were few and far between and so in the intervening years Smuggers sat in a cupboard which explains his as-new condition – all the more remarkable considering he was born in 1903.

Now Smuggers is about to start a new life. Passed though the family to the present Canterbury owner, he is one of the stars among a gleeful group of toys and dolls in the annual Christmas auction of antiques and collectors’ items at The Canterbury Auction Galleries. The sale is on Tuesday December 6.

A product of the German soft toy company founded in 1847 by Margete Steiff, Smuggers stands just short of 12 inches and has a plush mohair coat, eyes made from black shoe buttons and the characteristic brass ear tag Steiff trademark. He’s yours for £1,500-2,000.

More information from The Canterbury Auction Galleries on 01227 763337.

It’s almost time … but not yet. According to the countdown clock on the BBC website, the invasion begins in . . . well, click on the link and see for yourself. Doctor Who is back – almost … and with Billie Piper as his sidekick. Coo!

The news was enough to send a nanostream of nostalgia coursing through my neurones.

I felt suddenly compelled to vector in to the loft and teleport my collection of tinplate space toys from the bottom of the tea chest.

They’ve been lurking up there for as long as the Doctor has been off our screens and experience tells me they have suddenly surged as hot property on the collectors’ circuit.

I just wish I owned a Dalek like the one pictured here, at the same time one of the most popular – and most feared – robot villains in the history of British television.

It was made in the 1960s by the British toy firm Cowan-de-Groot and marketed under their trademark “Codeg”.

Today the clockwork contraption, in unplayed condition and with original box, would be worth £200-300.

Fact is, I was a teenage sci-fi junkie. It started with Saturday matinees at the local picture house … Buck Rogers and Captain Marvel and all that.

Come secondary school and a constant diet of Dan Dare’s Eagle comics exploits and rainy lunchtimes spent devouring science fiction books in the school library sealed my fate.

Sadly today it’s all become too much like a Hollywood blockbuster as special effects departments and make-up specialists try to outdo each other.

Give me Blake’s Seven, Lost in Space and Star Trek in the days of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy any day. I’m just horrified when I realise that’s 35 years ago!

Which probably goes some way to explaining why I started to collect the tinplate toys connected to the programmes.

So did a legion of others, and the toy manufacturers responded accordingly. Among the diehards, interest never waned.

Already, top people’s auction houses Sotheby’s and Christie’s have staged specialist sales devoted to nothing but tinplate space toys and Saturday collectors’ fairs usually have something to tempt cash from wallets.

The strike force chez nous currently stands at four tinplate and plastic robots (easily my favourite space toy).

Each is battery-operated and cost very little from car booters clearing out their unwanted toys.

Two are particularly clever little fellows who recite manic messages of goodwill to mankind each time buttons on their heads are pressed.

A third does very little, basically because the battery compartment is missing one set of connection terminals, so he remains inert.

My favourite, though, is the one whose torso lights up with a clever moving panorama of space ships, shooting stars and planets as he trundles towards you in menacing fashion.

Sadly, none is worth much more than what I paid for it. All bear the ubiquitous Made in Hong Kong mark and are not really in the frame when it comes to the Investments For My Retirement stakes.

But as the ardent robotiana freak I’ve become, they’re great fun and very much part of the family.

My ambition is to find a robot made by either of the two best Japanese toy manufacturers in the business, Taiyo and Horikawa.

When new in the 1950s, such a gem cost about £8-£10. Today they can fetch four-figure sums, and they show no sign of going down in value.

Shortly after the end of the second war, and after years of imitating others, Japanese manufacturers gave full rein to the creative talents of their designers and that, combined with the rapid advance of technology, saw the country attain dominance in the production, among many other things, of tin toys.

The appearance of the robot coincides with the advent of Space travel which began in earnest in 1958 with the first Sputnik orbiting the earth.

With typical oriental panache, innumerable Japanese toy makers flooded the market with brash but brilliant robots, as well as space rockets, ray guns, spacecraft and moon landing vehicles, spurred on by the American and Russian exploration race.

The result was a rapidly changing array of toys that were obsolescent almost as soon as they hit the toy shop shelves.

Fortunately, some farsighted adults had the sense to rescue examples and prevent their offspring from ruining what today are worth anything up to £1,500 apiece for the more rare examples that remain in mint condition and complete with their original boxes.

The joy of collecting robots is the naivety of some of the once futuristic designs and the wonderfully inventive names they were given.

Robbie the Mechanical Robot is probably the most famous of all. He starred in the film Forbidden Planet, and his pals include Sparky; Mr Machine; Laughing Robot; the tongue-twisting Silver Ray Secret Weapon Space Scout; Television Spaceman; Mego Man, Mr Mercury and many more.

There’s still time for collectors to join the Space race. With some careful shopping around, you’d be surprised at what turns up.

The key is having the knowledge to spot the earlier, more rare examples from the stuff being turned out today.

Research styles and makers and, as always with toys, buy the best you can afford and preferably those with original boxes.

Watch out for rust and metal fatigue, always the twin problems with tinplate, and don’t forget to take along a selection of different batteries to try out potential purchases … they’re never included you know!

Names and their respective trademarks to watch for in addition to the two aforementioned include: Nomura (TN in a diamond); Yonezawa (Y on a leafshaped reserve); Yoshiya (KO on a diamond); Ichida (bunch of grapes design on roundel); Bull Mark (running bull with the name); Sconosciuto (N in triangle with diamond at apex); Yoshiya (SY in diamaond); Shudo (name); Ohta (K in circle); Masudaya (TM monogram in diamond); Aoshin (ASC in diamond); Toplay (three fingers in salute Girl Guide style and TPS on ‘bangle’); Bandai (old English ‘B’ in box); Daiya (name in diamond); Alps (name in mountain line drawing); Daishin (DSK in diamond); Linemar (Line Mar Toys in circle); Mastutoku (MT); Asahi (Father Christmas with ATC on sack); Mansei (‘HAJI’ in oval); Usagiya (rabbit head).

Pictures show

Top: The Dalek made under licence from the BBC in the 1960s by Cowan-de-Groot. Condition and the original box boost values considerably

Above, left to right: One of the earliest Japanese wind-up walking robots. His eyes flash with sparks as he walks

A 1960s Space Tank by the Japanese company Nomura. Power is from batteries carried in the compartment between the spring-loaded rear bumpers

This tinplate wind-up Walking Space Man robot was made in China. As he walks, the doors in his chest open to reveal his electronic works