Toy shop: but what date?

Huncamunca

Huncamunca

The Knowledgeable One
I am trying to narrow down the date of this photograph of the interior of Cadel's toy shop in the Market Place, Witney. Can anyone give an approximate date based on the toys on display?

Cadel's toy shop.jpg
(click for enlarged version)

The two women were I think both daughters of the original Mr Cadel, and each married a Mr Ford.
 
If 'wiki' is to believed Spirotot was introduced in 1968, and they are on display in the bottom LH corner.
 
I think I see some Tri-ang Hornby model railway packaging behind the lady on the left. Apparently this firm was only in existence from May 1965 to 1972 so that narrows it down a bit.(Trust a man to spot that ;) ).

http://www.
trianghornby.net/
 
English toys are so totally different than ours.....at that time (daughter born in 1963) Barbie dolls were all the rage!!! Along with copies of Barbie dolls.

BUT.....in front of the left-hand lady is a box that says in part "Tomte soft vinyl". I think I found it on Google, so here is a brief bit...

The Tomte-Laerdal company from Stavanger, Norway produced soft plastic ( vinyl and PVC ), furniture friendly toy vehicles from 1963 to 1978 in 1:43 scale.

Hope this helps. None of the toys are the least bit familiar to this Canadian. I liked six guns anyway!! :D
 
Thank you all, that's been a great help in dating the photo. :)

I have just found a photo of a Popsy Posey doll, like the one in the box on the top right-hand shelf:

http://
img96.xooimage.com/files/1/9/3/popsy-tenue-origine-1de397c-3f47cc7.jpg

This is from a French forum about doll collecting. A date of 1970 is given there. It may not be exact but the bright floral outfit must be of that sort of era.
 
Figgs said:
English toys are so totally different than ours.....at that time (daughter born in 1963) Barbie dolls were all the rage!!! Along with copies of Barbie dolls.
Click to expand...

Barbie and Sindy dolls were the rage here too in the 1960's, Figgs. As I don't see either in the photo I at first thought the picture was taken in the 1950's but Flook and Molly May appear to have narrowed it down to 1965-1972.

Odd, there's no Barbies' on display, maybe they were on shelving not photographed, or the Cadels' didn't like Barbie or Sindy (wouldn't blame them, I disliked them myself, but my dau's loved them)
 
Mealymoo said:
Odd, there's no Barbies' on display, maybe they were on shelving not photographed, or the Cadels' didn't like Barbie or Sindy (wouldn't blame them, I disliked them myself, but my dau's loved them)
Click to expand...

There may well be much more of the shop that can't be seen in the photo, Mealymoo, so plenty of room for Barbie, Sindy et al. I didn't have either: I don't remember liking dolls much at all. (Lego was my all-time favourite and I now that I have small nieces and nephew I still play with it.)

What I might try is looking in the local newspaper in the run-up to Christmas in 1965-1972 to see what was 'in' in Witney. It may have been a little behind the national trends. :)
 
Huncamunca said:
I am trying to narrow down the date of this photograph of the interior of Cadel's toy shop in the Market Place, Witney. Can anyone give an approximate date based on the toys on display?
Click to expand...

The photograph must have been taken around 1968, as the model railway equipment that can be seen in the background is Tri-ang, rather than Hornby Dublo.
 
Cadels' had sold Hornby Dublo for many years, whereas Tri-ang models were available along the road in the nearby Co-Op. The two systems were compatible, although they used different coupling systems, which meant that Tri-ang owners wishing to run Hornby Dublo rolling stock had to drill out the old "buck-eye" couplings and replace them with the Tri-ang "tension lock" version (or vice-versa).

The photograph is too small to show much detail, but I suspect that some of the "plain" boxes that can be seen in the top left of the picture may still contain Horby Dublo model railway equipment, which suggests that the picture may date from shortly after the demise of that brand.

On balance, I would think the photograph is from the mid to late 1960s.
 
Huncamunca said:
(Lego was my all-time favourite and I now that I have small nieces and nephew I still play with it.)
Click to expand...

Being older than you, Jane ;), the favourite building toy in my day was Bayko and I spent hours building houses; I still have a Bayko set which was a present from my daughter bought on E*ay. I remember the first Lego it was made of rubber and all the bricks were a terracotta colour - not brightly coloured plastic.
 
I have the benefit of a slightly higher resolution version. I have just spotted, to the right of the left-hand lady's head, a box labelled Sizzlers Power Pak and some other darker boxes also labelled Sizzlers. Google tells me these were battery-powered cars that ran on an orange race-track. This blog suggests a date of 1968-1971:

http://
hotwheelsracetracks.wordpress.com/category/entertainment/page/2/
 
Thank you all for your help! We will now be able to put a more informative label on the photo at the museum. (I should have said in post #1 that the photograph is courtesy of Witney & District Museum.)

I enjoyed reminiscing about the toys, too. :)
 
Ahhh, over here the cars were called Hot Wheels and yes they ran on an orange track!! Elayne had a set of those. As you two are the same age, those dates are spot on!
 
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