Unsolved Mystery: The Case of the Peter-Austin Mfg. Co. Girder and Panel Set

Etch A Sketch* / Sourced from the National Museums Scotland

After reading that the Girder and Panel construction toy was invented by the Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company of Toronto I had to try and find some more information about the company, and hopefully about the toy. I’ll let you in on this post’s ending if you want to bail out early: there isn’t much online other than some fragments of company history, and nothing about the toy. In this post I thought I'd try to piece those fragments together before continuing investigations.

Company origins

CrayonCollecting.com tells me the company was founded by two brothers, Peter and Austin Kelk, hence the name Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company.

On the Sta-Lox can, the company is listed as: Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company, Division of Kelton Corporation Limited Toronto, Canada. From the look of the can, I’d say that instance of the product dates from the early to mid 1960s. Also, I speculate the ‘Kel’ in Kelton derives from Kelk, the brothers' last name. I don’t know how the companies were structured, but CAN1 Business tells me Kelton Corp was registered in Canada on 9 December 1948, made its last annual corporate filing in 1984, and held its last Annual General Meeting on 23 May 1984. Was Peter-Austin ever a stand alone company? Was it always a division of Kelton? Were there re-organizations where one became a division of the other? I don’t know. I think all I can speculate at this time is that the company, in some form or the other, existed from the late 1940s to the mid 1980s.

Where was the company located? CAN1 Business and Vince tell me Kelton Corporation was at 240 Madison Avenue in Toronto. I don't know if that was just the location of the head office, or the entire operation. According to Google Street View Toronto's Madison Avenue is now the site of a lot of tony residential real estate.

Vince also alerted me to an entry in the 1965 issue of Might's Greater Toronto City Directory that lists Peter Austin Mfg. Co. as being located at 314 - 326 Davenport Rd. Maybe the factory was on Davenport Road, and the headquarters, which might have been the Kelk residence, was on Madison Avenue?

A little Kelk family history

The online book, Kerrimuir Road on Lake of Bays, published by the Lake of Bays Heritage Foundation, has a little bit of Austin Kelk’s family history regarding their farm at 1071 Kerrimuir Road, which was originally built and owned by a John Edwin Brown in 1929:

In 1960, the farm was sold to the Kelk family. Norman Kelk purchased the property to enjoy lakeside living as opposed to farming and so the pastures have, over time, reverted to forest. The Kelk family enjoyed other pursuits, like boating and area residents remember the 1933 model, 21-foot Sachau Marine launch, Glida, with its distinctive wide beam and riveted hull. 

The Kelks were on Lake of Bays prior to purchasing their current property. In the early 1940’s, it was reported in the newspaper that Norman Kelk’s son Austin, when he was a lad, designed and built the S. S. Victory along with Donald Dyment. They used the remains of an old punt and the sides of packing cases to build this cruise ship. It had a tall, stove pipe boiler 9 and a cow bell signal system. While it looked like a steamer, the boys paddled the vessel and gave rides to paying customers. In doing so, they raised $25 in the Baysville area, for the British Victims Fund during World War 2. 

Later, Austin Kelk left lingering memories the children of Baysville during the 1970’s. On Christmas Eve, many would await his anticipated arrival in his station wagon full of toys. Mr. Kelk would delight them with a choice of one toy from his magnificent collection. He was the “Austin" in Peter Austin Toys, who manufactured the Etch-a-Sketch, the Bake-O-Matic and other well-remembered toys. His big-heartedness made Christmas magical for area kids. 

Austin Kelk passed away in 2003. The property remains in the Kelk family today with Cathy Kelk now enjoying the beautiful views and breezes from the lake.

What about toy museums?

There’s not a lot of information about Peter-Austin in the toy museums I’ve checked; in fact, there’s almost nothing. I would have expected the Canadian Museum of History to have something as they have what is probably the largest historical collection in Canada of children’s toys made by Canadian manufacturers. They have a couple of items in their collection as well as this rather grim death notice:

The advances in toy manufacturing made over the previous quarter century were wiped out in the late 1950s and early 1960s when the Canadian toy industry virtually collapsed under the pressure of increased competition from American and Japanese companies.

Peter-Austin / Kelton seemed to have been hitting its stride in that era, and apparently were able to avoid the reaper for another two decades.

Hopefully, I’m just looking in the wrong museums and something will turn up elsewhere.

Toys

Peter-Austin appears to have manufactured a lot of different toys; however, it's not clear to me which ones they made under licence and which were of their own invention. Here's a partial list of the toys they were said to have manufactured: Etch A Sketch, Magnajector, Little Miss Korking Set, Play Doh, Sta-Lox Bricks, Kiddie Color and Hobby Crayons, Bake-O-Matic, Sister Susie Sewing Kit, Bat 'n Button Tennis. No doubt there were many more.

What about their 1956 Girder and Panel Set? So far I can't find anything more about it. No pictures; no information other than some stray acknowledgments that Peter-Austin made it; no nothing. I'm still looking. Frankly, until I can find photos of the Peter-Austin version of the toy, I'll have to take the Vale's origin story with a grain-of-salt. The Girder and Panel Wikipedia article makes no mention of the Kelks, and presents quite a different origin story. Not that I believe Wikipedia is the supreme source of all knowledge, just that I need something substantial to support the Vale's version.

Scale

The Vale's note,

The original Girder and Panel sets, both Canadian and American, were of a scale that fitted with the O gauge model trains that were the American norm; these were made by firms including Lionel (still making trains in 2012), American Flyer, and, for the poorer boys, Marx.

From various online sites, the Vale's pictures in the book, and my recollection, I think the sets were closer to HO than O. It's true that the 1950s were a big time for O gauge toy trains, but HO, even though it was invented in the 1920s, was coming into its own in the late 1950s and was well on its way to dominating the model railroading marketplace. This doesn't mean the girder and panel sets couldn't be used with O gauge trains, just that I think the sets were sized smaller so they were somewhat compatible with both O and HO, not too mention keeping costs down. Much like the Pretty Village play sets of an earlier era, the girder and panel sets likely appeared on many model railroads regardless of gauge. Although I had a girder and panel set as a boy, it was long gone by the time I started with model railroading, so it unfortunately never appeared on my layout. If I ever buy another one of those sets I'll have to run my own scale tests and see for myself :-)

So endeth my case notes.....

*You might be asking, what's with the Etch A Sketch picture in a post about the Girder and Panel set? Well, when I came across that photo I had a flashback as I clearly recall that box it came in. Memories, can't control 'em :-)

[4 Nov 2021, morning update: It looks like the Wayback Machine has a copy of the website the Vale's reference in their book, www.girderpanel.com, and it contains pictures of the Peter-Austin 1956 sets: https://web.archive.org/web/20110711094053/http://www.girderpanel.com/ . The Vale's note they referenced the site on 18 Nov 2011. The last 2011 site copy the Wayback Machine has is for 11 July 2011, so hopefully that one will have the information I'm looking for. Stay tuned]