Good-Win Paint Your Own Walt Disney Figures in Pottery

Good-Win (Strome & Co Ltd) of London, England was a manufacturer of games and puzzles in the early to mid-twentieth century.  While I have been unable to find much information on this company, they appear to have primarily made dominoes, jigsaw puzzles, and a few other games as well.  The parent company of Strome & Co. does appear in the catalog for the British Industries Fair from 1947 as a maker of a variety of toys and games.

To date only one Disney series has been identified from Good-Win, a series of three Paint Your Own Figures sets featuring ceramic pieces manufactured by Weetman.  These date from 1952 or earlier based on the characters available:  Mickey & Donald, Tweedle Dee & the Mad Hatter, and Flower & Thumper.  It is possible that other items exist since the box for this item pictures additional Disney characters from Cinderella, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Pluto, and the Three Little Pigs.

All items by Good-Win carry their logo of a boy crossing the finish line of a track race with the words Good-Win Reg Trade Mark.

The Paint Your Own Walt Disney Figures in Pottery set for Alice appears to have been made at the time of the film’s release in the UK, 1951 or 1952 at the latest.  A hand-written price on the label of 6/3 equates to about $0.88 in 1951, and $14.14 in today’s dollars.

The set for Alice contains figures for the Mad hatter and Tweedle Dee, as identified by the label on the bottom of the box.  The contents consist of one each of the small white ware figures manufactured by Weetman, with a paint brush, tray, and four tubes of paint.  An instruction sheet is also included, with some advice on how to glaze the figures with some sort of varnish when you are happy with your results - varnish not included of course.

Argentinian Coloring Book from 1959 - ¡Ven a Pintar! #4

From their series of Disney coloring books “¡Ven a Pintar!” this is the fourth in the series, featuring Alice.  Consisting of 16 large pages to color or paint, the line art is quite good and appears to be either copies of or redrawn from the Whitman Paint Book.

I've seen Alice depicted with the pink pinafore and stockings a few time from South American countries, but have never been able to figure out why.

Alice in Wonderland Comic Adaptation in Margriet Magazine from the Netherlands

Previously we've seen serialized adaptations of the Alice film in comic strips and magazine from the US, the UK, Turkey, and Belgium.  It turns out there is another, also based on the Belgian Mickey Magazine adaptation, that appeared in a weekly women's magazine in the Netherlands.

Published from 1938 through the current day, Margriet ran a serialized adaptation in Dutch from December 22, 1951 to April 19, 1952.  While almost exactly the same as their Belgian counterparts, the individual installments do have one unique feature: color scheme.  Each issue (at this time anyway) is two-tone, but the non-black color varies from issue to issue, being one of green, red, or yellow.

Little Nipper Junior Series Alice in Wonderland from 1953

Y-485 Alice in Wonderland

Likely issued in 1953, this 78 RPM entry in RCA Victor’s Little Nipper Junior series features a vivid yellow cover with new art of Alice and the dancing Tweedles.  Featuring Kathryn Beaumont and Ed Wynn from the original cast, this is an abridged single disc version of the standard Little Nipper storyteller.

EYA-46 Alice in Wonderland

The 45 RPM EP of the Junior series record above is actually the B side of a similar Peter Pan record, hence the 1953 release date.  Surprisingly the cardboard sleeve prints the Alice art on the back which makes this particular record much easier to identify.

Columbia Record Featuring Rosemary Clooney

Rosemary Clooney recorded this record of four songs with the Percy Faith Orchestra for release on the Columbia label in both 78 RPM (MJV-112) and 45 RPM (MJV 4-112) formats.  The cover art is unique to this release, and is more reminiscent of Tenniel than Disney.  Although even that is a stretch.  Best to say it is unique.

I do like the fact that the 45 RPM sleeve has a hole in the middle just like a plain sleeve.

Mayfair Record Featuring June Winters "The Lady in Blue"

The Lady in Blue, a character popularized by singer June Winters, released a number of children’s records beginning in 1947, with the Alice in Wonderland title Songs from Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland being released in 1951.

Issue in both 78 RPM (K-128) and 45 RPM (K-128-45) formats, the record includes the songs Alice in Wonderland, I’m Late, All in a Golden Afternoon, and The Unbirthday Song.  The paper sleeve features art inspired by the original John Tenniel illustrations; the art on the 78 RPM label  features Alice, but not based on Tenniel.  The 45 RPM label is just a standard 45 RPM label with no art at all.  Based on this one might assume that the 78 was more targeted at the children's market whereas the newer 45 format more at the adult market.  But who can say for sure.

Founded in 1946 by June Winters and her husband Hugo Peretti, Mayfair Records specialized in children’s records featuring “The Lady in Blue,” June Winter’s character made famous throughout the late 1940s and 1950s.  By 1949 The Lady in Blue's popularity had increased dramatically, with her own fan club, comic strip, and numerous appearance on radio and television.  By 1951 The Lady in Blue radio show was airing nationwide on NBC Radio.

Mayfair was acquired by Roulette Records in 1957, with Hugo Peretti staying on as head of the children’s record division.  The Lady in Blue continued to release records on the Roulette label until June Winters retired in the 1960s.

Whitman Punchout Book

The Punchout Book is a sort of combination book and toy, with eight large heavy board pages filled with figures and objects to punchout ('natch).  

Each page also contains a drawing of the completed scene.  A total of five scenes can be made with the punchouts, although some of the characters appear in multiple scenes.

Surprisingly it is uncommon to find partial books.  Presumably if someone started punching out the figures, they just kept going.  Individual figures and sets are sometimes found and it is fun to put them together.

This copy is a Western file copy.

Whitman Sticker Fun

As mentioned on the cover, the Sticker Fun is a stencil and coloring book - with a twist.  The interior of the book is designed as a coloring book, with lots of line drawings of scenes from the film to color.  But interspersed with the coloring pages are full pages of gummed stickers to cut out and apply to some of the scenes.  At the front and back of the book are full pages of bright orange stencils to punch out and use to make your own pages to color.

Given that the purpose of the book was to cut out and use both the stickers and the stencils, finding complete copies is very difficult.  Add to that the tendency of complete sticker pages to adhere to the coloring page behind it makes it doubly difficult to find.  If a copy is found with intact and uncut stickers, it is advised to place a sheet of wax paper between the sticker page and the coloring page to prevent them from sticking together.

This copy is a Western file copy.

Whitman Paint Book

Stock #2167-25, this copy is a Western file copy.  While this is called a paint book, today we would call this a coloring book.  I guess children in the 1950s used watercolors more than crayons.  

When I began collecting, this book was pretty much ever-present; you would find these at nearly every show and it seemed copies were quite plentiful.  The reason for this became clear when I found a complete copy of the 1974 campaign book offering these as part of the merchandise for the 1974 release.  

Western must have printed a boatload of these in 1951 to have them still available 23 years later.

Oak Rubber Company Oak-Hytex Balloons

Below is an except from the forthcoming book.

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The Oak Rubber Company was one of the largest manufacturers of balloons for nearly 80 years, and a Disney licensee for 33 of those years.

Oak Rubber Company was founded by Paul Colette and John Shira in Akron, OH in 1916, but moved to Ravenna, OH the following year, which was already a rubber manufacturing center in Ohio.  The company started out, as most companies do, with a handful of employees, but grew quickly; this forced the company to expand into new and larger buildings in Ravenna.  But, on March 15, 1920, a fire completely destroyed their factory  as well as several other properties and many feared the company was finished.

Happily, the company reopened in November 1920 with a full complement of 125 workers, and immediately began to produce up to 150,000 balloons per day.  By 1921 company sales were over $1 million dollars, and by 1923 was the second-largest producer of rubber balloons in the country.

Initially producing only pure rubber balloons, in the 1930s they launched the “Oak-Hytex” line, which employed a new process using liquid latex (rubber tree “milk”) for making balloons.  The Hytex line became the predominant brand for all but the most specialized balloons.  Incidentally, Oak-Hytex was also the sole supplier of balloon “bubbles” for Sally Rand’s infamous “Bubble Dance” made famous at the 1934 season of the Chicago World’s Fair.  

The company continued to make balloons and other rubber products until the company closed in 1993.

The Oak Rubber Company received their Disney license in 1934 and held it for 34 years with a small break during WWII.  The company made a wide range of “toy balloons” featuring many Disney characters from the shorts and feature films.  Perhaps their most iconic creation was the Mickey Mouse “head” balloon which they introduced in the mid-to-late 1930s, a balloon that, while no longer produced by Oak Rubber, is still sold in the Disney theme parks today.

The balloons were sold in a variety of styles and packages including counter-top boxes and illustrated card sets.  All the various types of packaging were imprinted with their distinctive yellow and black logo.

The Alice in Wonderland line of toy balloons was released at the time of the film’s original run in 1951 (along with those sold by the Eagle Rubber Company oddly enough).  Prices for individual balloons ranged from $0.05 to $0.25 each, corresponding to $0.52 to $2.61 in today’s dollars.

Balloons

While the balloons themselves are unlikely to exist in anything other than very poor shape, a wide variety of styles, sizes, and sets were sold.  Notice the advertising photos featuring several characters in the ‘head’ style like the famous Mickey balloon.

Display Packaging

Even though most, if not all, of the balloons have not survived, any display cards, boxes, or other packaging may still exist, but I have as yet been unable to locate any.

Luton Girls Choir Medley from Alice in Wonderland (with a friend)

As many of you know, I'm deep into the writing of the book, and part of that involves a LOT of scanning.  The past few weeks have been consumed with the scanning of seemingly endless records of various sizes, speeds, and countries.  Perhaps the most interesting re-discovery is this recording of the Luton Girls Choir singing a medley of songs from Alice, with I'm Late sung by "a friend," who has so far not been identified.  Give it a listen and if you know the singer let me know in the comments!

Mettoy Mad Hatter's Race Game

Here is a preview of the section on the Mettoy Mad Hatter's Race game from the forthcoming book.  Enjoy!

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Founded in 1933 by Jewish emigrants fleeing the Nazis, Mettoy (a contraction of METal TOY) made a metal, tin, and plastic toys over a span of fifty years.

Arthur Katz was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1908.  When his father died in 1920 he moved to Nuremberg with his mother since she was originally German.  After completing school he entered the toy business as an apprentice for a toy export company.  Once his apprenticeship was complete he began working for a tin toy company, Tipp & Co, which was owned by a cousin Philip Ullmann.

With the rise of the Nazis in 1933, he emigrated to England on his South African British passport.  Ullmann joined him shortly thereafter, and the two formed a new toy company, Mettoy, in a workshop owned by a model train maker, Basset-Lowke.  But within five years they has to switch from tin toys to war production as England entered World War II.  Interestingly their landlord Basset-Lowke had a vested interest in many Jewish-German suppliers for their business, and that company spent a large portion of their profits helping Jewish refugees escape Germany.  

The war and accompanying defense contracts were good to Mettoy, so much so that the company needed to expand into a larger manufacturing space, which was arranged by the British government.  The new factory was in Swansea, Wales in the town of Fforestfach.  When the war ended in 1945, toy production resumed.  By this time Mettoy had expanded into plastics given that rationing of metal was still in force, but by 1956 rationing had been lifted and they began making their most well known toy line of all:  Corgi die cast vehicles.  

Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s Mettoy continued to grow with Corgi sales increasing in their standard car line but especially so with their licensed cars for Batman, James Bond, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  However, the arrival of Mattel's Hot Wheels in the late 1960s, coupled with a devastating fire in at the factory in 1969, Mettoy's fortunes began to turn.  The 1970s and 1980s were a difficult time for Mettoy, and despite many efforts to turn the company around, including the creation of their very own personal computer product "The Dragon", the company went into receivership in 1983.  

The following years saw the company spin-off the Corgi brand, which eventually was purchased by Mattel.  The brand was sold several more times through the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s, until it was purchased by Hornby in 2008 where the brand continues to be sold to this day.

The number of Disney toys made by Mettoy is not known to me, but I am aware of a few tin toys from the 1950s including a zoetrope called the Disneyland Moviedrome, a toy called the Disneyland Skating, and the Alice game below; as well as the plastic film viewer toy from the 1970s called the Walt Disney Movie Viewer.

The one known Alice toy, The Mad Hatter's Race, was likely released at the time of the original film's release in 1951 or perhaps 1952.  No historical pricing has been discovered.

This is one of the coolest toys ever made for Alice in Wonderland.  It is a game played on a tin race track, with the game piece being a windup toy of Alice on the Drink Me bottle from the Sea of Tears.  I have only ever seen one complete example with box - this one.  I've seen the tin board and the windup toy once or twice before.  Needless to say this is an exceptionally rare toy.

Book Section Complete!

Fortunately the rest of the book section was WAY quicker than the Whitman section, 'cause you know, there are way fewer books outside of Whitman.  Onward.  If I can keep up this pace of one section (or more) per week, I should be able to finish in time for the 75th anniversary, which would be perfect.  Fingers crossed!

Whitman Book Section First Draft Finished!

 Damn.  That took WAY longer than I wanted.  But it is done.  Here are some stats:

• 13 titles
• 16 countries
• 56 editions

Not looking forward to revisions on this section.  Now on to the rest books.