Dolly Toy or Colmor?

[Colleen]

Hi all, just wondering if anyone can tell me about the houses on Ted's WW2 page, just below the Dolly Toy Obit? There's a group of 8 houses, printies with icicles along the roofline and also a church with a clock. I'm leaning towards Dolly due to the cardboard tree. Thanks a lot..Colleen

[paulrace]

Colleen,

Do you mean these?



I think Ted classified these as COLMOR. Dolly's usually had a box-style base, not a flat base. But even Ted wondered if the COLMOR were somehow affiliated with Dolly.

[paulrace]

Here's the one with the cardboard tree. Even though it has a box-style base, it's not exactly the way Dolly usually did it.

[Colleen]

Thanks Paul, this church is listed on ebay, no vestibule or tree and another group of 4 of the icicle houses. I almost bought them but just wasn't sure what they were. Very similar to Dolly especially the tree.

[paulrace]

If I had ONLY seen the church, I would have guessed Dolly. The stone pattern looks like some of theirs. But they usually use a rose window instead of a clock, the red "windows" don't look like anything I've ever seen from Dolly, and the base is made differently from most of theirs. Ted seemed to think that it was closer to ColMor, and I see no reason to disagree.

[Lynn]

I love these little houses. I found these 2 very similar houses except for the bases. Could these be Dolly houses? I would love to try my hand at making the red house. Can anyone tell me what is on the red house it almost looks like coconut to me but the greenhouse is foil according to the description on eBay? What type of paper was used for the windows and if you had to guess what do you think the measurements of this house is? Thanks for any help!

[paulrace]

They are definitely Dolly. The one with the box base shows the fence posts actually punched out of the yard part. I don't know anyone besides Dolly that ever did that. Dolly's main business was cardboard cutouts, and they had punch presses like NOBODY ELSE.

Plus the windows are a givaway. They show up on other Dolly Toy houses. \\

Brian, do you have both these color variations for the windows?

Thanks for sharing,

Paul

[Tom Hull]

Their are two for sure Colmor's in this lot. The printed log cabin and two green shinglesides. The other "icicle" houses are likely not Colmor as they are always marked. Also there is some sort of "white glue" always painted around the bottom which likely was clear when they were new. Colmor did not attach their houses in this manner. The windows are much different from Colmor's. I believe the maker of the Icicle houses are unknown as is the church.

[BrianB]

Sorry, Just saw this, thanks to Tom for bringing it to the top of the list.

You are in luck, so far this is the only Dolly Toy Co window I have reproduced the art for. I can do both color variations. The windows on these houses were not put in separate. They were all printed on one sheet, and when I get a chance I'll give it to Paul so he can make it downloadable.

The house I have sitting on my desk with this window combination is all white with little red flakes. My guess is that they are a plastic or glass glitter, but they are fairly large in size. Another thing to note, they put the windows in first, then glittered over the whole house including the windows with clear glitter.

As for the foil, at Michaels in the scrapbooking section you can buy foil cardstock that is almost and exact match. I have some magenta foil cardstock that is crazily dead on for another dolly I have sitting here on my desk.

-Brian

[BrianB]

Heres a sample of what the Dolly windows look like taken out of the houses. Below is the one I recreated. I will save a version that will print nice in a larger format and give it to Paul.
I color matched the background to match the aged paper, but I can also make it on a white background to resemble a new house window too.

Thanks
-Brian