Monday, February 16, 2009

Modern Miniatures on Monday: and then there were sixteen

Whoops.

It's all Taph's fault. Really!

You see, she called me the weekend before last to say she'd seen a dolls house I might like at Gorman House Markets. It had Triang written on the back and she knew that was a brand I had. She'd taken a photo. She'd send it to me when she got the chance.

For three days I was on tenterhooks. Three days! And then the photo arrived last Tuesday night:
And I went into conniptions of panic, delight and amazement as I realised it was a rather rare Triang S house and contemplated the possibility that it wouldn't be there last week. Or be way out of my (non existent) budget.

Saturday morning, as soon as I'd finished at the Salvos opening, I was in the car and heading for Civic. Trying to stay calm and tell myself that it was probably sold. I arrived. I headed to the spot where Taph said she'd seen the stall. There was nothing there! I scuttled round the other stalls in the hope that I'd spot the house. Then, finally, I stopped at a likely looking stall and asked the owner if, just possibly, he'd had a dolls' house for sale last week?


And bingo! He had. And it was safely tucked away back at his place. We talked. We did a deal. And I picked it up that evening:I believe it's a Triang S, produced between 1958 and 1961, based on some basic internet trawling. It's missing the chimneys and two of the windows, so the hunt for replacements is on (can you help at all?)

Inside it has 4 rooms and a garagewith built ins glued into the bathroomand kitchen(no idea if these are original or added later. I don't recognise them which doesn't help much. Maybe it's time to finally buy a copy of Marion Osborne's book on Lines and Triang dolls' houses...)

The house is featured on the cover of this undated Triang catalogue, with different colouring:and here's a version which was listed on eBay recently (with the more recognisable yellow door and no built ins...):also from eBay, a larger version (the "R"? The "T"?) which has been remuddled (those look like Hobby's doors and windows)
If you know anything at all about the Triang S house, I'd love to hear from you!

7 comments :

Janet McKinney said...

Some things just cannot be resisted...

Pennie said...

Gollygosh I'm so excited for you and I don't even know you. I love dolls houses, don't have any but every time I go to the UK I need a Queen Mary dolls house fix. Wonderful stuff.
I collect Matryouska's which are a bit smaller :-)

Sarah said...

Well this is superbe ! Well done on tracking it down. I can give you my knowledge with a little bit from Marion's book too ! First up the house appears to very similar to the one on the Spot-On catalogue that you show which is believed to date from 1961. Secondly - there is a smaller Tri-ang house to yours with a verandah space above the garage and that is the Tri-ang R, making yours an S (well identified) and presumably the larger one with the Romside (?) replacement windows would be the T. And finally the built in kitchen & bathrooms came with the Tri-ang CEX introduced in 1958. So maybe they continued it for your house or somebody added it ? Great house and will keep a look out for those windows for you. Kind regards, sarah.x

Sarah said...

Just looked again and the T does have Hobbies windows, suggesting that they may be the short solution whilst you search for originals. Sarah.x

AMCSviatko said...

Thanks, Sarah for your comments and identifucation of the Triang CEX bathroom and kitchen and suggestion for using Hobbies windows in the short term (damned shame they won't ship outside of the UK!)

Thanks also to Rebecca who emailed me a scan of a Dolls House World article from September 2002 (by Marion Osborne, of course!) covering the R, S, T, U, and V houses.

AMCSviatko said...

Sarah also pointed me to a photobucket page showing a Triang R:

http://s32.photobucket.com/albums/d18/short_paws/Dolls%20House%20Pics/Triang%20R/

AMCSviatko said...
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