Vintage zoos, zoo cages and enclosures

DaveScriv wrote:

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This rather nice cage, made in the 1930s, does have a name underneath: 'Cetandco'
Not necessarily the actual maker though, as Cetandco was one of the brand names used by C.E. Turnbull & Co, who was mainly a packager and wholesaler. He sold boxed sets under his name of figures he bought in from Britains, JoHillCo, Pixyland/Kew and others, so I'm guessing he bought this zoo cage in from a manufacturer in London somewhere, likely a small scale back streets operation who will forever remain 'unknown'.

I have one of these cages too with the 'Cetandco' trademark stamp on the bottom and I think it was made by Taylor and Barrett. I know they made an entire 'Zoo series' but I am having trouble finding more information on this company.

zootoylover1645 wrote:

DaveScriv wrote:

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This rather nice cage, made in the 1930s, does have a name underneath: 'Cetandco'
Not necessarily the actual maker though, as Cetandco was one of the brand names used by C.E. Turnbull & Co, who was mainly a packager and wholesaler. He sold boxed sets under his name of figures he bought in from Britains, JoHillCo, Pixyland/Kew and others, so I'm guessing he bought this zoo cage in from a manufacturer in London somewhere, likely a small scale back streets operation who will forever remain 'unknown'.

I have one of these cages too with the 'Cetandco' trademark stamp on the bottom and I think it was made by Taylor and Barrett. I know they made an entire 'Zoo series' but I am having trouble finding more information on this company.

Welcome here  

zootoylover1645 wrote:

I have one of these cages too with the 'Cetandco' trademark stamp on the bottom and I think it was made by Taylor and Barrett. I know they made an entire 'Zoo series' but I am having trouble finding more information on this company.

Hi, and welcome to the forum   

Nice to have another collector of vintage stuff here.

I've been intending to do a thread about Taylor & Barrett, so now you've asked, I'll get on with it.

T&B certainly made a large zoo range, and it was probably their biggest selling range by a long way - most being sold at zoo souvenir shops at London, Whipsnade, Bristol, Manchester, Edinburgh, Chessington and all the many other zoos in the UK, plus they exported to zoo souvenir shops in the US and other countries. Within the zoo range, their big sellers were the small boxed sets of Chimps tea party, Elephant ride, Llama cart ride, and others, which Britains either didn't do at all, or (in the case of Britains elephant ride) was way too expensive for most people, who just wanted a cheap toy for their kids on a day out.

T&B didn't make anything in wood, because apart from other reasons, they didn't have space for a carpentry department in their cramped London factory.

The T&B factory was bombed during WW2, and the salvaged their moulds, and set up as two separate companies post-war (I'll write more on this in a T&B thread), and the nearest one half of the former partnership, The Barrett family, got to wooden zoo buildings, is that they later rented space in Barton & Co's factory, where the Addington Zoo range of buildings were made.

There was another packaging/wholesaling (like Cetandco/Turnbull) company in the Hendon district of London called 'Kay Packaging', who operated 1935-58 who also sold zoo buildings, and other wooden toys among lots of other very mixed stuff. They were owned by the Kempner family, who were Polish immigrants (Jewish refugees?). I don't know the extent to which this company actually made anything, but they certainly sold their own brand boxed sets of various T&B lead figures (& the Charbens made circus range), so there was a definite link between T&B, Kay, and toy zoo cages, although it remains uncertain/unknown who actually made them.

Thank you Susanne, that was sweet!
Yes Dave, prices were going sky-high in certain times, specially for the real old stuff, i saw zoo-enclosures going up to 20.000 euro a piece!
I only have the Britains rockpit in the lighter colour, mint and boxed, the complete Britains Zoo with box to by the way, only missing the broken of flagpoles on the edge of the zoo, but i do have the un-used flags although.
And the zoo-railings box with everything in it, you know what i mean, the double cage-set.
Then one Hausser Elastolin rock enclosure and 2 Zoo cages made by Jean Höffler, also know under BIG in the 1970's, but were sold to me as Starlux zoo-cages, but when i had them in my hand, i knew i had them in my youth also, and i didn't knew Starlux back then...

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I forgot this 1030 Britains Mini cocodile-set, my only one sadly enough.

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4370 Britains Zoo-Cage Set

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4381 Britains Rock Pit light colouration

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4712 Britains Zoo

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Here in the box.

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6592 Hausser Elastolin Raubtierhaus 1

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Jean Höffler Zoo-Cage blue

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And in red

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Reisler enclosure

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6569 Hausser Elastolin Rock enclosure

Thank you again! I can see there was so much nicer stuff before! Those are fantastic!  

Thanks Jonesee!

Wow its totally amazing   

Kikimalou wrote:

I don't know for Germany, but France was more rural in the 1960's and 1970's than UK. It was a political choice and I guess it is still true today. Nevertheless it didn't explain why there is more animal toy makers in small France than in the USA.
Even on the first Marx sets, half of the animals were Clairet copies. Miller made also Elastolin copies.
Maybe the answer is there was a wider range of toys in the US than in Europa so the "animal toys" market was less profitable ?
IMHO it will stay a mystery   

I would suggest that it is a cultural thing, and a geographical thing!

Our father, and other relatives were servicemen, so we (semi-urbanised southerners!) played with 'toy soldiers' of all sizes from little Airfix 23mm's up to Action Man (GI Joe/Gyperman), but our cousins were farmers 'Up North', and they had farm and zoo toys from little Airfix up to Triang and Tonka lawn-toys. Not that we didn't have a bit of farm and zoo, or that our cousins didn't have a few Cowboys and Indians.

AND; this was the time when War-toys were being phased out of the public conciousness anyway, across Europe at least.

In America, they tended to have huge farms, thousands of acres (or hectares!) per farm to the UK's hundreds, the French dozens or the German couple-of-strips-shared-with-three-siblings (yes I'm measuring in generalities!  ), therefore while lots of German, French or British kids would have an affinity with the animals around them, the proportion of American kids with the same driving force was few, to a city-based civilization. In addition, American kids had more room, my cousins might have had a few Tonka toys in the sandpit, but a Dakota farmer's kid had miles to fill with toys (if he wasn't off 'exploring') that were not only cheaper over there, but were being sold to adults who earned more. So a little tin of farm animals wasn't going to get a look-in.

To which you can probably add the fact that while War-toys were frowned upon in Europe and were slowly phasing out in the UK, America in the 50's and 60's was quite gung-ho about 'the military', only stumbling on that point after Vietnam (which coincided with the advent of the modern Star-Wars/electronic toys phenomenons).

So I'm suggesting - without meaning to upsets anyone    - that the popularity of non-war toys in Europe was as a result of the aftermath of WWII; you only have to look at the output of Jean, Manurba or even Elastolin compared to Britains' or Airfix's catalogues to see that we had more War-toys, yours were all Wild West, cavalry and Knights. Coupled to the more rural nature of the customer base as a proportion of the toy buying public, and the low spending-power of a lot of those customers, compared to the situation across the Atlantic.

Starlux, being the exception, as they saw themselves on the 'winning' side (no one wins in war), they had a military range bigger than Britians!

Also, the fact that those - proportionally - few rural kids across the pond had vast areas to range, they tended toward larger toys, bicycles and fishing rods! While the urban kids in the states with their bigger rooms, had play-sets, and a D-day play-set is more fun than a zoo if WWIII is the background radiation (pun intended  ) of the conversation of the adults, and in America is was a more vocalised subject than this side of the pond.

Again to prove 'the rule' Soviet Russian kids seem to have been kept knee-deep in War-toys, but the kids of the occupied countries tended toward Cowboys, Indians and Knights?

All conjecture, but I think it goes some-way to explaining the difference? 

Hugh, I agree with a lot of what you said there, especially regarding European reaction against 'war toys' being more significant than in America. Indeed, this wasn't just a 1950s thing, but started in 1919. This is said to be the main reason Britains started their farm range in 1922 - it took them a while to realise what was happening, and then a while longer to plan and make enough new moulds to start the series. As we know, the American general public was not directly affected in either world war as much as European people on both sides were - no American cities were bombed to bits.

While agreeing with all you said about US v European kids' lives, there were US made farm toys, including Marx & other farm playsets, and earlier Barclay/Manoil/Grey Iron Dimestore farm sets, but very few zoo sets/figures.

There may well be cultural reason why there was less interest in zoo/wild animal toys in America compared to Europe, but there were some sales to be had. I still don't understand why US toy companies seem just to have let Britains, JoHillCo and Taylor & Barrett a free run at the souvenir shop trade at American zoos from 1930 right through to 1970 (minus WW2 years).

Three more vintage zoo buildings just arrived (photos are by the seller):

Half round ARCO monkey/ape cage (also posted in ARCO thread), front view:

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Rear view, showing hinged flap door for play access (apes/monkeys were not included in the purchase):

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ARCO house and enclosure, which I think, bearing in mind it's a toy, was intended for medium sized animals, perhaps an antelope, deer, llama or zebra:

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Unknown maker zoo enclosure with Britains sitting tiger included in the purchase:

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Also included in this purchase were two farm haystacks, which I'll post photos of when I post the other farm items I already had by the same unknown company. I know they were all made by the same people because they all have a distinctive 'Made in England' stamp underneath.

It is likely that the ARCO half round ape/monkey cage was based on the front part of the real old Gorilla House at London Zoo, designed by architect Berthold Lubetkin in the early 1930s. He also designed London Zoo's penguin pool, and several other buildings for other zoos. I wonder if ARCO reproduced any of his others in toy form?

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It is still there, it is a historic 'listed building', but they don't use for gorillas now (small apes or monkeys instead now?).

Thanks Dave for pointing me back to this thread. Very interesting discussions, great additions and very interesting to know the inspiration for gorilla house.

smallscaleworld wrote:

Kikimalou wrote:

I don't know for Germany, but France was more rural in the 1960's and 1970's than UK. It was a political choice and I guess it is still true today. Nevertheless it didn't explain why there is more animal toy makers in small France than in the USA.
Even on the first Marx sets, half of the animals were Clairet copies. Miller made also Elastolin copies.
Maybe the answer is there was a wider range of toys in the US than in Europa so the "animal toys" market was less profitable ?
IMHO it will stay a mystery   

I would suggest that it is a cultural thing, and a geographical thing!

Our father, and other relatives were servicemen, so we (semi-urbanised southerners!) played with 'toy soldiers' of all sizes from little Airfix 23mm's up to Action Man (GI Joe/Gyperman), but our cousins were farmers 'Up North', and they had farm and zoo toys from little Airfix up to Triang and Tonka lawn-toys. Not that we didn't have a bit of farm and zoo, or that our cousins didn't have a few Cowboys and Indians.

AND; this was the time when War-toys were being phased out of the public conciousness anyway, across Europe at least.

In America, they tended to have huge farms, thousands of acres (or hectares!) per farm to the UK's hundreds, the French dozens or the German couple-of-strips-shared-with-three-siblings (yes I'm measuring in generalities!  ), therefore while lots of German, French or British kids would have an affinity with the animals around them, the proportion of American kids with the same driving force was few, to a city-based civilization. In addition, American kids had more room, my cousins might have had a few Tonka toys in the sandpit, but a Dakota farmer's kid had miles to fill with toys (if he wasn't off 'exploring') that were not only cheaper over there, but were being sold to adults who earned more. So a little tin of farm animals wasn't going to get a look-in.

To which you can probably add the fact that while War-toys were frowned upon in Europe and were slowly phasing out in the UK, America in the 50's and 60's was quite gung-ho about 'the military', only stumbling on that point after Vietnam (which coincided with the advent of the modern Star-Wars/electronic toys phenomenons).

So I'm suggesting - without meaning to upsets anyone    - that the popularity of non-war toys in Europe was as a result of the aftermath of WWII; you only have to look at the output of Jean, Manurba or even Elastolin compared to Britains' or Airfix's catalogues to see that we had more War-toys, yours were all Wild West, cavalry and Knights. Coupled to the more rural nature of the customer base as a proportion of the toy buying public, and the low spending-power of a lot of those customers, compared to the situation across the Atlantic.

Starlux, being the exception, as they saw themselves on the 'winning' side (no one wins in war), they had a military range bigger than Britians!

Also, the fact that those - proportionally - few rural kids across the pond had vast areas to range, they tended toward larger toys, bicycles and fishing rods! While the urban kids in the states with their bigger rooms, had play-sets, and a D-day play-set is more fun than a zoo if WWIII is the background radiation (pun intended  ) of the conversation of the adults, and in America is was a more vocalised subject than this side of the pond.

Again to prove 'the rule' Soviet Russian kids seem to have been kept knee-deep in War-toys, but the kids of the occupied countries tended toward Cowboys, Indians and Knights?

All conjecture, but I think it goes some-way to explaining the difference? 

Of course there are always manufacturers that “buck” a national trend! Roco, made in Austria, had a military vehicle range in HO scale second to none! When Matchbox and Dinky Toys neglected to have military models in their ranges during the mid 1960’s up popped Roco! I obtained quite a few Roco models from hardware stores during this period. Corgi Toys gave us some re-vamped castings circa 1965 painted in US livery which even included an ice cream van! These are now HTF as they only lasted a year due to their unpopularity! Then in the 1970’s it was OK to make model tanks and military hardware. This became one of the popular ranges in a reduced Dinky Toys range which lasted until 1979. In this period Dinky Toys even issued an Army Bomb Disposal Land-Rover complete with robot bomb disposal device - highly topical at the time! Matchbox brought out their Battle Kings range also in the 1970’s. So suddenly war toys were all the rage again! Solido, a French company, provided Starlux with tanks, guns and trucks to go with their soldiers. In turn Starlux provided Solido with figures to accompany their vehicles. Briefly Italian die-cast vehicle companies, Polistol and Mebetoys, issued tanks in the early 1970’s.

Here is a Dinky Toys 1:42nd scale Foden Army truck made from 1976 to 1979:

Going back to zoo enclosures:


From Britains short lived 1:42nd scale Mini-Set series. Set 1033 included an African elephant, a boy figure feeding the elephant buns, low fences and bushes. The box also could be used as a diorama backdrop.

Great to be back.  

Wonderful topic, and I missed several of the last entries   

Congrats Chris!!

widukind wrote:

Congrats Chris!!

Thank you Andreas   

I love the look of the boy, it is very vintage... Like me   

Kikimalou wrote:

I love the look of the boy, it is very vintage... Like me   

And just like me also Christophe!   

I love vintage collectors!
What is being shown in this topic looks gold to me!

...

    Not as vintage   

When we are showing vintage zoo-items, i can add my only Britains mini-set(sadly enough)...
The nice thing about this set is, that those crocodiles were the later baby-crocs in the later zoo-series.
I would love to have all of the mini-sets with animals!

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Sadly enough i can't see any of the pictures, but here are a few of mine...
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