As you wade through the maze of dating your Lundby dollhouses, we hope that Marion Osborne, UK, will help with some clues from her Lundby dollhouse research. The excerpts below, published in the September 2006 issue of The Lundby Letter, are from her 18-page booklet, entitled "Dollshouse Items Sold by Lundby from circa 1970-1986 in Numerical Order."

In addition to contributing articles to several dollhouse magazines in the UK, Marion has also written three texts on dollhouses, all of which contain copies of actual catalogues, advertisements, and other documents.

Although Marion has a copy of the French version of the 1966-67 Franz Carl Weber toy catalog, in which the Lundby dollhouse appears, she acknowledges that it is not known for certain when the Lundby dollhouse that was later named the Gothenburg initially came on the market. She believes it was first sold in the UK about 1969.

Gothenburg Variations
Both Delight and Confuse

Second in a Series

Excerpts from "Dollshouse Items Sold by Lundby
from circa 1970 - 1986 in Numerical Order"
By Marion Osborne

1966: Trim appears to be painted; wooden strips from ceiling to floor instead of banisters; chimney with hole under cap; plain brown wooden doors with white surround; brick paper on outside.

1970: Wooden house; tan painted frontal trim; wooden stairs; brick paper on sides; nondescript wallpapers and all blue floors.

1971: Paneled plastic doors.

1972: Trim is plain wood, room extension #6050 added.

1973: Brick paper on sides of house changes to white.

1975: Trim is tan plastic with plastic stairs and banisters; solid chimney; white brick paper outside; garage extension #6051 with two opening doors added.

1979: Trim is white plastic; black shutters printed on outside walls, printing on windows, two rooms in garage extension.

1980: Up and over garage door in extension #6052.

1981: White plastic doors.

1984: Doors change to white with black surrounds.

1985: Rainbow house introduced.

During previous years noted above the wallpapers changed constantly.

A late-1960s to early-1970s "plain" or "economy" Lundby dollhouse without stairs, doors, or electrics. The standing legs were purchased from Elisabeth Lantz, who says the legs were sold from the late-1950s until 1973. Elisabeth adds that a shorter version of the legs was also produced in the late-1950s. From the Morse Collection.

To add to the search for information on Dating Lundby dollhouses, Jennifer McKendry, Ontario, Canada, has written another article entitled "The Lundby Gothenburg Dollhouse: Its Evolution and Survival from 'Modern to Traditional'." You can read Jennifer's article, along with another one of interest, "Collector's Fever: Coveting Dollhouse Furnishings" on her website, www.mckendry.net. Click on "Antiques, Collectibles, & Vintage." She has just posted the section on 1890 to 1930 of an ongoing history of dollhouses 1890 to 1990.

Join Jennifer's Quest for Dated Early Photo of a Lundby Dollhouse
Third in a Series
By Jennifer McKendry

While a number of actual Lundby dollhouses have been attributed to the 1950s or early '60s, it is difficult to date them precisely without comparing them to dated printed material in the form of catalogues or sales receipts. Unfortunately, there is little printed visual evidence that has survived from the 1950s of Lundby products. (The reader is referred to http://dollhouse.mine.nu/ for scans of later Lundby catalogues and flyers.) Until such material is discovered, it will continue to be a guessing game about such important questions as -- when did Lundby introduce the asymmetrical roof of the Gothenburg house?

The earliest surviving catalogue of AB Lundby Leksaksfabrik -- once thought to be from the company's founding year of 1947, but now re-assessed as dating from the late 1950s -- shows a house with a traditional gable roof over two-storey box-like form. By the next surviving catalogue in 1966, the ancestor of the Gothenburg House is easily recognized.

I have, however, discovered a relevant illustration from the 1961-62 catalogue of Franz Carl Weber, a toy seller with a chain of stores in Switzerland, which is reproduced in Dian Zillner's Dollhouse & Furniture Advertising, 1880s-1980s (page 115, under "Weber"). Although Zillner identifies it as a German dollhouse, its form is that of a Lundby product, indirectly confirmed by Weber's caption, which begins, "Modernes schwedisches Puppenhaus…" (Modern Swedish dollhouse).

The caption goes on to note that it was completely papered and painted, held many charming pieces of furniture and was safely wired for electricity. The dollhouse was 71 cm wide, 26 cm deep and 45 cm high. These measurements are about the same as a Gothenburg House from the mid 1970s, except the latter is a little lower because, by then, it no longer incorporated the television antenna that topped the 1961 house behind the chimney. It is worth noting that the chimney cap has a lower open part in the top centre, characteristic of Lundby houses in the 1960s and first half of the 1970s.

Aside from the confirmation, via the antenna, that a television was part of the 1961 furnishings, other pieces appear to be in a simple "modern" style. The independent fireplace with its white slanted upper part is familiar because it was carried in the Lundby line until 1975 (catalogue number 5773).

The interior plan of 1961 is familiar including the balustrade protecting the stair-well in the large upstairs room (furnished as a sitting room with fireplace) with its open modern form that includes a lower portion (sort of an extensive stair landing) accessed by a single long step. The staircase descending into the centre main-floor room (furnished as a dining room) is distinguished by floor-to-ceiling wood rectangular spindles, seen in real houses of this period and surviving in Lundby houses to at least 1972. Shortly after, they were replaced by less "dated" white, turned uprights under a hand-railing.

The 1961 bedroom, kitchen and bathroom were in their familiar locations. The bathroom with its "built-in" tub and pedestal sink had a wide opening off the dining room -- probably the same arrangement seen in the 1966 catalogue. This seems odd design concerning privacy but it was likely that the area at the front of the bathroom was meant to represent a hall with an imaginary wall and door separating the bathroom proper.

One day, someone may find a dated snapshot of some lucky little girl playing proudly with her new Lundby dollhouse. If it is a photograph taken sometime between 1947 and 1961, it will be deeply appreciated as an aid to reconstructing the history of the earliest Lundby houses.

Is this the first known dated photograph
of a Lundby Gothenburg house?

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