Parties will be taking place across the world today to mark Barbie’s 50th birthday  the occasion, and the world’s first store dedicated to the doll has been opened in Shanghai.

Her dolls are now collectors’ items, a 1959 model was sold for $27,450 at an auction in 2006.

More than one billion dolls have been sold since her inception, and according to makers, Mattel, 90% of American girls aged between three and 10 own at least one.

Read how Barbie came into being here.

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

by Christopher Proudlove

I was never really that interested in jigsaw puzzles as a lad. They were the kind of thing you were reduced to tackling when chicken pox or some other childhood ailment meant you were confined to quarters and couldn’t cope with anything more strenuous.

Now I’m a father myself, I find I’m fascinated by the things, but not as a pastime, more as intriguing collectors’ items, many of which have real wall-power when framed and hung together.

My interest was fuelled by the discovery of the amusing jigsaw illustrated here. It cost all of £5 and came complete with a box.

However, there was no illustration to help with its assembly, so imagine my surprise when it turned out to be a 1930s advertisement for bird seed and pet food! Since then, no fleamarket stone has been left unturned in the search for more.

John Spilsbury, the owner of a print shop in Russell Court, London, is generally regarded as the inventor of the modern-day jigsaw, in about 1760.

Spilsbury glued engraved hand-coloured maps on to thin mahogany boards, which were cut with a saw along the boundaries of countries and counties.

He called them “dissected puzzles” and they were used to teach children geography in an entertaining manner.

In 1787, another Englishman, William Darton, produced a puzzle showing portraits of the kings of England from William the Conqueror to George III.

History lessons were never so much fun, so long as you your kings in the correct order.

Images on the dissected puzzles were generally taken from contemporary engravings that were coloured by hand to make them more appealing.

Puzzles dating from the 1800s onwards were made from lithographic prints, which allowed much improved, four-colour designs.

Just as printing became mechanised, so too did the cutting on the puzzles. Earlier jigsaws had to be hand-cut with a coping saw, which forced makers to use simple repeating patterns.

Later examples were cut using a treadle-powered saw, but the process was still laborious and time-consuming.

Around 1840, makers began cutting their puzzles with the interlocking snap-in patterns familiar today.

They also cut their costs, replacing expensive hardwood veneers with backing of pine, softwood, plywood, and pasteboard. At last low-priced puzzles were affordable to everyone from rich to poor.

From around 1900, machine cutting was adopted, allowing more complex patterns and manufacturers also started making complex puzzles that would appeal to adults, rather than children.

The Golden Age of jigsaw puzzles came in the 1920s and 1930s with companies like Chad Valley and Victory producing a wide range of puzzles reflecting both the desire for sentimental scenes and the enthusiasm for the new technologies in rail and shipping.

Puzzle designs also became more intricate and difficult and they were sold as much to adults for challenging pleasure, as to children.

Companies like Cunard and The Great Western Railway also used them for advertising purposes.

In the 1930s, the need to cut costs in both materials and labour led to the development of the mass-produced cardboard puzzles that could be stamped out on giant industrial presses, and the decline of the jigsaw puzzle began.

By the end of the Second World War, the wooden jigsaw puzzle had all but disappeared.

Today’s collectors generally prefer wooden examples, but cardboard puzzles with interesting illustrations such as ocean liners or steam trains are also popular. Prizes range from £5 to £50, but be sure to buy only those that are absolutely complete. A single missing piece can render even the best jigsaw almost worthless.

Pictures show: left, my £5 fleamarket find and an image from the Superior Jigsaws range of replica Victorian puzzles: The Lover’s Letter