The attached picture is of a friend's putz--a church whose steeple has tabs on the base onto which the top of the steeple can slide. I've never seen this type of steeple attachment on these pages. The church needs some repairing, which I hope she or I will get to.

That is a very unusual putz; thanks for posting.

I love the printed stone fence. It has a "Dolly Toy" quality, though I don't think this is a Dolly Toy house. Also, the celophane looks funny - is it actual celophane or something else, like varnish-saturated paper?

Thanks for posting. - Paul

The church is stamped Dolley Toy Co. on the bottom. The church itself has a sort of stucco-like finish, coarser than I've seen before, and appears to be simply painted, not "sparkled" in any way. It actually appears to have two coats of paint, a flat stucco-like base coat and, on the steeple, an overcoat of shiny paint that, if I look closely, may have some fine sparkles in it. The base has a sandy white-and-green mixed finish with a bit of fine sparkle to it, and the red-and-white path is similar. The stone fence is printed on both sides, and behind the fence on each side is the remains of a luffah shrub. The central medallion over the door is a bit larger than usual, 1-1/8" in diameter. I'm going to search the internet for something similar, download it, adjust it to fit, and print it on vellum. I could add new coconut to the church, except that it doesn't appear to have ever had it, so I hesitate.

Dolly Toy was in Tipp City Ohio, not Japan. They excelled in printing and in stamping (cutting) thick layers of cardboard. In their putz houses, they often relied on their printing capacity to add detail - such as the printed "stone fence." When we were at war with Japan, and just after, Dolly Toy was about the only manufacturer for putz houses (Colmor being the other). Ted has a nice article on them at:
http://www.papatedsplace.com/WWII.html

You're right in thinking that the church never had coconut. It is definitely pre-war, though. Hope this helps - Paul

Thanks, Paul. I especially appreciate the information that the church never had coconut--that clarifies one of the restoration questions. I've practically memorized Papa Ted's web site, and yet every time I look at it, I find something I had missed before, there's such a wealth of information there.

Yep this is a Dolly toy co building. The steeple tower is somewhat unusual. The windows are a form of printed tissue or thin paper. Usually the paper was colored (often red) and the design printed in (usually) yellow. I had one once that was blue paper with a purple overprinted in purple. I would guess this was from the early part of WWII. Prewar the buildings were often printed with pretty designs and later around 43 or 44 for a while the windows were some of the prettiest ever and printed in red and green designs. This building was far from the prettiest but it filled a demand at the time. Tom

You're right Tom; what the dollies didn't have in "architecture", they more than made up for in the printed windows and doors department. I have three or four of them. Here's one--the purple in the middle. They also used "foil" covered paper quite a bit.

Maria, thanks for the photos of the foil-covered Dollies. I had never seen those.

Thanks for the information, Tom and Maria. It's wonderful to know more about these. Two of my old houses are foil-covered, one red and one green. And four of the neighbors that I worked on look like they were metallic paint rather than foil.