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| Pretty Village buildings used on J. N. Swartzell's layout, Aug '29 | Shorpy |
I was browsing around Pinterest and came across this photo from Shorpy. It's the layout of Mr. John N. Swartzell of Washington, D. C., dated 5 August 1929. Over at Shorpy there are 4 photos of Mr. Swartzell's layout: 2 from 11 December 1925, and 2 from 5 August 1929. The 1925 photos look like they were taken to document construction.
One thing that caught my eye were the Pretty Village buildings in the background. I've noted them in the photo: item 1 is House No. 15; item 2 I can't identify from my reference material although it has the characteristics of a Pretty Village model; item 3 is Hotel No. 5.
I speculate that Mr. Swartzell's layout is in O scale, and if that's the case he's been quite strategic in placing the Pretty Village models in the background as they're somewhat smaller than O; probably closer to S or HO. If you look at the other 1929 layout photo you'll also see what look like Pretty Village models deeper in the background, in the mountain's foothills. This is a rather sophisticated use of these buildings.
My suspicions were that these Pretty Village toys were likely used on many early model train layouts as they were relatively inexpensive and sized just about right for O or HO layouts if carefully placed, as we saw with Hugh Boutell's layouts* (here and here). To me it's interesting to trace the use of these kid's toys that were first released in the late 1890s to early 20th century model railroads.
*I wonder if Boutell and Swartzell knew each other as they both lived in Washington, D. C. in the mid and late 1920s?
In my reprint version it implies that there were more than one box, indeed I have found parts of one (or more) (without the one in image) currently on Ebay no. 383831628462. An intensive search may reveal more images.
ReplyDeleteYou're right I should look for more examples online. I get the impression there were a lot of sets, and the Dover reprint (is that the one you have?) collected together one of largest sets, which itself was collection of several smaller ones. However, I think there were many sets that didn't make it to the Dover book. I've also read that when Milton Bradley bought the McLoughlin Bros. they continued to reprint the buildings for quite a long time after, well into the 1920s. Although a few stylistic changes were made, so further variations are possible.
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