Cardboard Christmas

A trip to Crawfordsville, Indiana, included a run to Goodwill to get rid of a lot of clutter. But you can't, morally, just drop things off - you have to go in, too. Found a pile of mini putz houses. I have to assume that they're post-mini-lights, because of the very tiny holes in the back. The set that was most unusual had little hooks for hanging from a Christmas tree. My guess is that someone had all three sets in a tree. They are TINY!

The set that was most interesting to me is the set in the foreground. How often do you see a castle and a stockade in the same set? The castle was obviously missing at least one spire, and the paper "windows" were punched in a couple places, but other than that, it is in fairly good condition.

Sides and backs:

Bottoms. Only one mark, a "1" on the bottom of the castle.

Tried to take a photo of them backlit from the window so you could see how the light comes through the paper windows. Failed. But the photos are still interesting.

On the last photo, the bottlebrush to the left has got some fake snow fabric tangled up in it. The house on the right has a bottlebrush glued sideways to represent a hedge. The shiny stuff is mica. The standing trees seem to be glued into little translucent bases of some kind, but they're so tiny I can't really be sure they're not molded onto the things.

The smaller "ornament houses" with the little castle are part of a ten piece set. These sets can be from either Italy or Japan. The original sets had a light string in it made in their respective countries and indeed they were miniature strings.

Thanks, Tom. Do you have the original set or know anyone who does?

Paul, There's an Italian set out on eBay right now. Here's the eBay item number:

161577337900

Here's another Italian set on eBay. eBay item number:

291366245375