Grecon Brooches - Part II

Regular readers might remember a blog I posted in October last year about Grecon brooches. (The blog can be found here.)

Grecon brooches from my own collection.

In it I featured these little badges which I believed to be Grecon, despite the obvious differences to Miss Cohn's better-known dolls' house dolls.

Well I'm very pleased to report that I now know for certain that they are Grecon!

I mentioned in my last post (A Day to Remember!) that there were a few post-WWII documents in with Miss Cohn's largely Pre-WWII archive and to my absolute delight, the design registration documents for these little figures were amongst them.

Whether or not they were being produced before the start of WWII I don't know, but certainly Miss Cohn was quick to register their design once the war had begun, because the registrations were dated 9th of October, 1939 - so just over a month later.

There were three registrations, each referring to a black and white photo of a single figure (unlike the doubles and triple shown above): an airman, a soldier and a grenadier guard, all exactly like those in my photo - although I can't, of course, be 100% sure of the uniform colours. 

The photos in the registrations were front- and back-views of the figures and the back-view did not include a safety pin. 

However, there were a further two items relating to these little characters in the archive.  One was a cutting from a 1939 edition of Woman's Weekly with an advert on it for a "little woolly hand-made brooch", available from Peter Robinson's in Oxford Street, London and including a drawing of a brooch featuring a pair of soldiers.

The second item was a Dickins & Jones catalogue from Christmas 1941 which included an entry for: "Service Favours. Wear a Mascot Brooch to show your preference for airmen, soldiers, jack tars, or naval officers." and featured a drawing of a pair each of soldiers, sailors and naval officers.

I found it very interesting to see Miss Cohn, who I have always thought of as quite proprietorial with her Grecon brand, allowing her brooches to be sold unbranded by these two companies. 

It was also interesting to note that the figures shown in the registrations did not have the side-ways looking eyes seen on the grenadier guard shown above, which I guessed to be slightly later brooch, so that theory is looking good (or at least it's yet to be disproved!)

So, another piece of the giant Grecon jigsaw is slotted into place - fab!

Until next time,

Zoe

Grecon Brooches - Part I

Some time last year I repatriated these two lovely Grecons who had been living in Canada:

They are typical dolls' house size Grecons and, judging by their feet, they date to the mid 1940s/early 1950s.

And look - they both have safety pins in the back! Presumably they were intended to be worn as brooches.

The question is, were they sold like this or did the person who bought them add the safety pins?

Unfortunately, unless new information such as old adverts or catalogue entries come to light, we might never know the answer.

If I absolutely had to stake my money somewhere, I think I'd say that the owner added the safety pins.  Both of these dolls came to me from Canada and they came together but their pins are different so I'm thinking that someone just added what safety pins she had in her sewing box to convert them into brooches. But, that's just my guess.

What is more certain, however, is that these little fellows were made to be worn as brooches.

They don't have labels but as far as I'm concerned, they have unmistakable Grecon features.

I think that all three brooches probably date to the 1930s/40s, however, I think that this one featuring Beefeater guards is the earliest.

My guess is that it was made pre-war (1936-1939) as a souvenir of London. That's because you can clearly see and feel that, in common with the earliest Grecon dolls, these little fellows have heads made from a small half-round wooden button/bead (padded at the back) with a hole through the middle.  This probably dates them to the late 1930s.

These chaps clearly represent the British Airforce, Army and Navy and it's likely that they were made and sold during WWII (1939-1945) to raise money for 'the war effort'. 

They have completely padded, soft heads - no wooden bead/button in there. The pin on the back is the same as on the Beefeater brooch, but I think that the soft heads indicate that they are probably slightly later in date and that would fit with the WWII dates too.

Added 16.12.2024

I later found that I wasn't far out with my dating:

Photo © Zoe Handy

This newspaper clipping shows a similar brooch available from Peter Robinson's in London - the annotation dating this to 1939 was made by Miss Cohn herself.

And that just leaves these little Grenadier Guards in their bearskin hats which are made from a lovely soft velvet.  Again, the heads are entirely soft and don't contain a wooden bead/button.

I am certainly no expert on safety pins but the one on the back of this brooch looks to be of a later design to the others since the pin point is completely enclosed in a safety guard in much the same way they are on modern safety pins. 

Being Grenadiers in dress uniform, as seen parading around Buckingham Palace, it's possible that they were made for sale to tourists returning to London again after the war.

Another reason for thinking that these Grenadiers are the latest in date of the three brooches is that they have distinctly sideways-looking eyes. That sideways glance seems to be a feature of Grecon dolls with later, slightly smaller Melon feet which I believe date to the end of the WWII and the mid 1940s (when lead for feet was harder to come by). Grecondale's Captain Richard Clutch, seen above, is a prime example of the sideways-glancing smaller melon foot Grecon.

So there we have it - my musings on Grecon brooches. And that is all they are, musings. My blog helps me to get my thoughts and ideas together on these matters but what I write is by no means intended to be authoritative and I always welcome feedback as to the accuracy of my assumptions and guesswork - it's the only way to learn!

Until next time,
Zoe

[P.S. For anyone who is interested, a full account of my thoughts on dating Grecons by means of their feet and features can be found on my 'About Grecon Dolls' blog page here.]