A little more on the Peter-Austin Building Set Mystery

Left: Set# 502 (purchased 2021) | Right: Set# 500 (purchased 2025)

If you're a long time reader here you may recall that back in the fall of 2021 I did a few posts on a building construction toy manufactured in the early 1960s by Toronto's Peter-Austin company. It's a toy that seems almost identical to the famous Girder and Panel toy manufactured by Kenner in that era.

What got me started on those posts was a paragraph in a book called Architecture on the Carpet: The Curious Tale of Construction Toys and the Genesis of Modern Buildings by Brenda and Robert Vale. The authors assert the Kenner toy "appears to be a commercial rip-off" of the one by Peter-Austin. Here's the complete paragraph so you can see for yourself^*:

"It was not until 1956 that a toy appeared that imitated the construction of modern tall buildings, with a frame cladding. The manufacturer was the Peter-Austin Manufacturing Co. of Toronto, Canada. They made two different sets, the No. 500 Trans-Canada Highway Bridge set and the No. 510 Building Set. These sets comprised columns and girders made of rigid red polystyrene.¹¹ The columns were pushed into a baseboard of Masonite (hardboard) with holes to receive them, and they were then connected with the horizontal girders to form a building frame of any desired height, which could then be clad with lightweight panels of thin, vacuum-formed plastic, the simplicity of the system allows for a variety of building forms. A year later, in 1957, Kenner Products of Cincinnati, Ohio produced a more or less exact copy of the Canadian sets under the names 'Girder and Panel' and 'Bridge and Turnpike' in what appears to be a commercial rip-off. Certainly pictures of both systems show remarkable similarities. As might be expected, the Wikipedia entry for Girder and Panel does not have the full story.¹² It describes how it was invented by the president of Kenner, Albert Steiner, after he saw a new building being constructed in Cincinnati, but this appears to be contradicted by the pictures of the Canadian sets, which predate the Kenner product.^13"

As a child I owned a Kenner Girder and Panel set and loved that toy. So, being born and raised in Toronto, I was quite surprised by the authors’ assertion that the toy was actually something invented and manufactured in my home town and possibly 'misappropriated' by Kenner. That seemed a surprising thing to say so I did a little digging to see if I could confirm or deny their assertion, the result being the posts. If you're interested in my 'investigation' from a few years back all the posts in the series, including this one, are tagged with 'Peter Austin Mfg Co'.

Investigations hit a dead end around late November 2021 with the mystery unresolved and no definitive answer in sight. However, after Vince stumbled across a Kenner set at a Toronto thrift shop earlier this summer the investigation was briefly rekindled. 

Here's the side of Set# 500: Was the original selling price $1.98CDN?

Back in 2021 I was able to buy a beat-up Trans Canada Highway Bridge Set (Set# 502 as it turns out). It had only a few parts inside, no instructions or associated advertising material, and the box was in very rough condition. This summer another bridge set for sale on eBay was brought to my attention. It looked to be in very good condition so I went ahead and bought it. I was pleased to find it was in nearly pristine condition with a near perfect box, a complete set of parts, and instructions. 

But that wasn't the most surprising thing.

I didn't expect the box to be much smaller than the one I had and have a different, and smaller, product number: 500 on this new one and 502 on the one I first bought. So, it appears there were at least two boxings of this toy. I'll assume 500 was released before 502, so given 502 is in a bigger box, did 502 contain more parts? Was the bigger box just a ploy to make it seem like there was more inside? When did 500 and 502 appear on store shelves? 

You might think the questions end there, but no, there're more.

Instruction sheet found in Set# 500. Reverse side is French version.

Above is the instruction sheet included with 500. It looks good.

Cover page of project booklet from Set# 500. Arrows I've added to point out Kenner-ness.

However, things start to look a little odd once we have a look at 500's project booklet that shows a few of the bridges you can build. Its cover page tells the tale: it looks like the components used to build the bridges shown in the booklet are made from Kenner components! Inside is no different. All the projects appear to have been built from Kenner parts. 

The giveaway is the crown-like connector used on the vertical pieces (I've noted them with red arrows in the above photo of the cover page). Those crowns are what Kenner used for its connection technology. Peter-Austin used a lug and loop system. You can see the difference in this comparison photo of the two products that I showed in this post.

So what's up with this? It appears that drawings of Peter-Austin parts are used to illustrate the instruction sheet, and photos of completed bridge projects built with Kenner-looking parts are used to illustrate the project booklet.

Now, as they say on tv: "But wait, there's more!"

Page 1 from project booklet, Set# 500.

Ok, so let's look at the pages in the project booklet. It's just a folded sheet of paper, so this won't take long as 'booklet' is an exaggeration on my part.

Page 2 from project booklet, Set #500.

We're already at page 2 with just one more to go.

Page 3 from project booklet, Set# 500.

At the top of each page you can see a set number called out. The implication being that there are 3 bridge sets, each with more parts allowing the construction of more complex structures. Or maybe they are just expansion sets that build on previous ones? I can't say for certain.

Questions, questions, questions. They seem never ending in this dig.

Is Set# 500 the same as Set No. 1 referred to in the project booklet? Is Set# 502 the same as the project booklet's Set No. 2, or maybe Set No. 3 (implying that 502 had a bigger box because it had more parts as I alluded to earlier?)? Were any of the sets implied by the project booklet ever produced? Again, I have no answers, just more questions for the greater mystery.

It seems the story behind this toy is more complicated than I thought. If anything more turns up you'll be the first to know, so stay tuned :-)

---

Digressions

*The Vales include 3 notes in this paragraph: marked with the superscripts 11, 12, and 13. 

11 says: "All information from http://www.girderpanel.com (viewed 18 November 2011)", and 13 says: "1956 Trans Canada Bridge and Pam 'n' Andy Structural Building Sets manufactured by Peter-Austin Manufacturing Co., Toronto Ontario Canada described at http://www.girderpanel.com."

girderpanel.com no longer seems to be active, but a search of the Wayback Machine turns up snapshots for the site from 2011. The Wayback link to the Peter-Austin building sets is here, but below is a small snapshot of what I believe is the page in question:

Yes, it's basically unreadable so go to the link instead.

Yes, the site does state the Peter-Austin kits were released in 1956, but frankly, I can't find documentation to support that date. So far I'm thinking that the Peter-Austin sets appeared later, maybe 1961 or 1962, but I don't have a solid document trail for those dates either.

The same page in the Wayback Machine shows entries for the Kenner sets and the entries state an initial release date of 1957; hence, the Vale's assertion.

I had a look at entries for later years and they don't appear to have changed up until the site disappeared.

Note 12 says to refer to the wikipedia entry for the Kenner sets. Here's the link. You can see there's still no mention of the Peter-Austin product.

It might be needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, there're a lot of contradictory factoids circulating about these products, and they don't stitch into a coherent story. Given the dates associated with these products the true story may never arise; however, I'm glad I stumbled across that paragraph in the Vale's book as I probably would have never heard of the Peter-Austin building toy and I'm glad they introduced me to it.

Another Peter-Austin Mystery: Etch A Sketch

Back in November when I was investigating the Peter-Austin / Kenner Girder & Panel Set mystery I came across a Peter-Austin manufactured Etch A Sketch on eBay. My sister and I had one of these when we were kids. I clearly remember that distinctive box. This particular one is in excellent condition: still works, no damage, and the box is in good shape. I plopped down $40 and bought it. No shipping on this one as luckily enough it was being sold by Toy Heaven in nearby Smiths Falls - ok, to be picky, there was gasoline consumption involved :-)

What's the mystery? First, the Etch A Sketch Wikipedia entry makes no mention of Peter-Austin manufacturing this toy, only Ohio Art. The Wikipedia Talk section for the Etch A Sketch entry notes that this statement was removed:

Though, Austin R. Kelk - fmr. Chairman of the Kelton Corporation - also claims to be the creater of the Etch-a-Sketch.

because:

Google shows no non-Wikipedia-derived hits for "Austin R. Kelk"; Kelk etch-a sketch; Kelk Kelton corporation. There's also no mention of any claim from Kelk on any of the linked resources. Kelton Corporation appear to have marketed etch-a-sketch in Canada, but that's all.

Here's where things get a bit mysterious. On the back of my box it says,

ETCH-A-SKETCH
Patented Canada 1960
Great Britain
Patent No. 915,371
Trade Mark Canada
and Great Britain

There's no mention of a US patent, and all it says about licensing is this:

Mfd. in Canada under License by Kelton Corporation
For Peter Austin Mfg. Co. Toronto 

On the back of the Etch A Sketch though the story gets a little more complicated, and has this to add:

No. 505 "Etch-A-Sketch" R Magic Screen

Made under license French Patent

U.S. Patent Pending

Canadian Patent Pending

Trademark Reg. Canada and U.S.A.

That Wikipedia article says that Etch A Sketch was invented in France by André Cassagnes in the 1950s, and was first publicly shown at the Nuremberg Toy Fair in 1959. Ohio Arts was said to have taken a pass on the toy at that show, but when they "saw it a second time", they went for it. I don't know what happened between 1959 and 1960, but from what's printed on the box it makes it seem like this is a purely Canadian product, but looking at the back of the toy, one can see that there's probably more to the story. 

Hieroglyphics adorn the box

I looked up Canadian patent 915,371, and apparently it's for a Feather Plucking Device ! A search of UK patents yields nothing for that number. I tried doing various general searches for Canadian, UK, and French patents, but couldn't find one. Maybe it has been bought and sold over the years? No doubt, answering these questions are what keeps patent lawyers employed, and I don't plan on trying to find the patents :-)

To finish, according to our friends at Wikipedia, these days Etch A Sketch is owned by another Canadian company, Spin Master, who's also headquartered in Toronto. I suspect there's an interesting story of Etch A Sketch's journey from France in 1959, to Peter-Austin in 1960, through Ohio Art, to Spin Master in 2021. The question is: Is there anybody still around who knows what it is?

[28 December 2021 afternoon update: Vince did what I should have done and found this post that lists the various Etch A Sketch patents. Much thanks Vince !]

Of Christmas shopping and time travel

The Peter-Austin Trans Canada Highway Bridge Set I bought doesn't include instructions or a planning guide, so I have no idea how complete it is, or what the manufacturer suggested one could build. However, I figure they must have included enough parts to build the bridge on the box top, so I decided to see if I had enough components for that project. 

I sort of did. There are enough girders, beams, and stubs to build the bridge, but not enough unbroken ones for the approach structures. Also, there're enough road insert panels for the bridge's elevated roadway, but, once that's in place, there aren't near enough for the approaches.

As well, even though I have plenty of diagonal members, they are quite brittle, and it turns out most of their holes are just a little bit too small to connect to the girders. If I radius the holes just a little with an X-Acto knife, they fit quite well. I didn't want to go and fix them all, so I just installed a handful and left it at that. I should note though that as you install the diagonals you can feel the entire structure stiffen up. Without them the bridge isn't bad rigidity-wise, but some flex and sag are noticeable.

Although the box top says it's a set for building highway bridges, it appears to be able to support HO scale trains. The Kenner planning books noted their's could, so I thought the Peter-Austin sets probably could too. For this application I'd say all of the diagonals need to be installed if the box top bridge is going to support HO trains. Also, I think the set's approaches are likely too steep for trains, so the owner would have to take care to provide their own.

As for O scale trains, I don't think this particular bridge is big enough. It would probably need to be double the size, and I suspect you'd need at least two sets for such a project.

I should have done this first, but after I built the bridge I had a look in the Kenner planning guide to see if they had the same bridge. They did. They called it the Double Diamond Cantilever. Mine doesn't look like a diamond because I left off all the diagonals. The planning book's photo gives a good idea of what the approaches should look like.

Obviously, I then went and built one from the Kenner parts I had bought. I found the Kenner diagonals had the same problem as the Peter-Austins: brittle, and the holes were a bit undersize. Again, I left off the diagonals as I didn't want to damage them. One difference though is the Kenner horizontal and vertical girders seem to have lost a lot of their elasticity over the last 60 or so years. The Peter-Austins still seem quite spry. When I was building the Kenner bridge it seemed the components kept falling part when the bridge was in various partially completed states, and didn't hold together until near the very end when everything was locked in place. No doubt if I had added diagonals along the way this wouldn't have happened. It seemed the Peter-Austin parts were still pliant enough for the joints to hold together regardless of how complete the structure was.

I don't have any Kenner road panels, so I just laid a piece of track over the horizontals to see how the bridge held up with an old HO train. It was fine, but it would have been much better with diagonals. 

A couple things my Kenner parts included that the Peter-Austin set didn't were flag poles and signs. The Kenner signs included one that announced: Kenner Bridge MCMLVIII. Or, 1958 for us. So, I'm assuming the parts date from 1958.

Well, if you're planning on cranking up your time machine today for a little late '50s or early '60s Christmas shopping, that's my review of these two fine building sets :-)

Interconnectable

P-A | K | P-A | K

I was curious to see if the parts from the Peter-Austin set were in any way connectable with those from Kenner. The answer: to a certain extent, yes.

In the photo the base frame is made from Peter-Austin (P-A) parts, the second floor is Kenner (K), then P-A, then topped off with K. It looks like you can stack layers made from one manufacturer on layers made from the other, but you can't mix manufacturers on a layer, because the horizontal girders use different connection technologies. 

I tried snapping a K panel onto a P-A frame and it fit just fine. I need to try mixing and matching the diagonal braces. 

So, P-A  was smart in that if you bought their product you weren't completely locked into the vendor motel, and could do some interconnection with K's parts.

Here's the problem. Those pins on the P-A horizontal girders are weak. I found that if I wasn't careful disassembling a structure it wouldn't take much twisting to snap the pins off the horizontals. You've got to make sure you push the pin parallel to the vertical girder to prevent the piece of molded plastic that connects the pin to the horizontal girder from bending and snapping. The set has 7 broken horizontals and 1 broken vertical. The bag of K parts I bought had no broken girders. Ok, I admit this isn't a statistical sampling, and the parts are 60 years old, but it appears the P-A lug-and-pin connection method isn't as durable as K's. For a child's toy, I can imagine some disappointing breakage while attempting to take apart a structure. 

Maybe the Peter-Austin case file is almost closed?

Peter-Austin Mfg Co,'s Trans Canada Highway Bridge Set

The story so far: In the book, Architecture on the Carpet, the authors Brenda and Robert Vale put forward the idea that Kenner's Girder & Panel toy was invented and first sold by a Toronto firm called Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company in 1956, and the version that Kenner first released in 1957 was more-or-less an exact copy. The Vales speculate the Kenner product was “what appears to be a commercial rip-off”, not something sold under license. Being Toronto born and raised, and the proud owner of a Kenner Girder and Panel set as a child, I was intrigued and have spent some time over the last few weeks investigating whether or not the Vale's assertion was true. I won't keep you in suspense: I don't think it is.

I was quite lucky to find a Peter-Austin Trans Canada Highway Bridge Set on eBay. It's roughly the equivalent  of a Kenner Turnpike girder and panel set. It looks fairly complete, but there're no instructions or planning book, so I'm not quite sure how complete it actually is. And, there're no dates anywhere on either the box or parts to suggest when this toy was released. 

Diagram from the U.S. patent

However, while searching the internet I came across U.S. patent # 3,168,793, Construction Toy Means For Locking A Horizontal I-Beam Between Two Detachably Joined Vertical Column Members. It was filed on 20 Nov 1961, and issued on 9 Feb 1965. The inventor was Henry Gibson, and it was assigned to the Kelton Corporation, the parent company of Peter-Austin Manufacturing. 

There was also a Canadian patent, #693194, Constructional Toys, that was filed on 18 Nov 1961, and issued on 25 Aug 1964. Here too the inventor was listed as Henry Gibson, and the owner was the Kelton Corporation. So, patents were filed for the Peter-Austin version of the toy in 1961 in both the U.S. and Canada. 

That scan over on the right is the diagram from the U.S. patent, and you can see that the components are pretty close to Kenner's girder and panel parts. Except in this case the horizontal and vertical girders are joined by a pin-and-lug system, whereas the Kenner toy used a notch-and-insert system. Interestingly, in the patent's References Cited section it notes the patent for Kenner's Girder and Panel set, U. S. patent # 3,002,315.

There seems to be a little weirdness in Kenner's U.S. patents. There appears to be a second patent for the same toy, U.S. patent # 3,132,443. I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know exactly what's up with this, but both were filed on 13 Aug 1957, although one was issued on 3 Oct 1961, and the other on 12 May 1964. The key point is that the patents were filed in 1957, which was the year the Kenner toy first hit the market.

Top: Kenner; Bottom: Peter-Austin

Comparing the Kenner and Peter-Austin parts I can see the ones from the Peter-Austin set use the joining technology specified in their patent. Which I know should be obvious, but it's good to recognize that each company used the joining method they had a patent for, suggesting that wholesale appropriation likely didn't occur because I can't imagine either company wanted to become embroiled with blatant patent violations.

Now, back to that Trans Canada Highway Bridge Set box. On the side, in rather tiny print, it's stated: U.S.A. and Canadian Patents Pending. From what we've seen with the patents, for this to be true, this toy shouldn't have been released until 1961, probably late 1961 in time for Christmas, or maybe even 1962. I don't think it was released in 1956 as suggested by the Vales. The patents don't appear to support the Vale's timeline, and I would suspect if there was a rip-off, there would also have been a lawsuit.

So, here's what I'm thinking: Kenner didn't rip-off Peter-Austin's design. I speculate the Peter-Austin sets, although they look a lot like the Kenner sets, are an offering to cash-in on the market established by Kenner for these toys. Maybe Peter-Austin hoped that with some sort of Canadian-ness to their product, that would be enough of a differentiator to oust Kenner in the Canadian market.

One last thing, the set's name: Trans Canada Highway Bridge Set. Construction started on the real Trans-Canada Highway in 1950, but it didn't officially open until 1962. Was this toy named to honour that event and cash-in on the hoopla?

Well, this is the internet, so this is more-or-less just speculation, but the pieces seem to be coming together :-) I'll keep you posted if more comes up.

Mr. Abernathy introduces the 1957 Girder & Panel set

"Yeah, they're doing it on 5th Avenue now as a matter of fact." But, I ask, what about Toronto?

It’s Skyline for 1956

Page 31 of 1956 Eaton's Christmas Catalogue

As it’s alleged that the Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company released both their Structural Building Set and Trans Canada Bridge Set toys only in 1956, I was curious to see if Eaton’s carried them in their 1956 Christmas catalog. Luckily for me the only Eaton’s Christmas Catalog scan from the 1950s I could find online was the one from 1956. Unluckily for me, the toys were nowhere to be found.

Page 30 of 1956 Eaton's Christmas Catalogue

Regardless, the search wasn’t in vain. Look at these toy train pages. On page 31, down in the bottom right, you can see an ad for Sta-Lox bricks, confirming that there was some Peter-Austin stuff in the catalog. But, look what’s beside it where I thought I’d see an ad for the Structural Building Set: a toy Eaton’s describes on page 30 as “Skyline” Plastic Construction Sets. Wikipedia calls it: American Skyline. It was manufactured by a Chicago company, Elgo Plastics / Halsam Products Company. Here’s what the Eaton’s catalog says about the Skyline toy:

Developed after years of study of children’s play habits and designed to bring out their creative ability in building true-to-life skyscrapers. True architectural scale-unit parts make it easy to assemble many fine models (1/8-inch per foot, actual size). Interlocking pieces of simple design with three basic parts - made of strong, flexible Plastic for safe play. Precision-fitting. Building units combine artistically with the simulated tile sections provided for floors and roofs. Fine, modern building kits for hours of creative fun. Colourfully boxed.

27-P-575, 229-piece set. Price, del’d…2.59

27-P-574. 476-piece set. Price, del’d…4.95

27-P-573, 723-piece set. Price, del’d…7.95

Lower right corner of page 31: Sta-Lox & Skyline

For reference, those prices are in Canadian dollars, and that top-of-the-line set would cost around $77.50 CDN in today’s money.

A proper investigation would search all Eaton’s catalogues from the 1950s and early 1960s for the elusive toys, but until I either find them online, or at a brick-and-mortar library, that’ll be an activity for the future.

Peter-Austin case file update

Peter-Austin Structural Building Set, No. 511 / girderpanel

There were a few good finds after this morning's post. I was again chatting with Vince about this investigation, and it dawned on me to check the Eaton's and Simpson's 1956 catalogues, especially the Christmas ones. I could only find covers, and with this failure I decided to reread the girder and panel section in the Vale's book, especially all the references. This time I remembered I could look for their reference to girderpanel.com in the Wayback Machine even though girderpanel.com appears to be long gone.

That did the trick and I was able to find the page about the Peter-Austin 'Girder and Panel' sets. The Wayback Machine has site snapshots from a variety of dates. The Vales noted they referred to the site on 18 Nov 2011. The last 2011 Wayback snapshot is from 11 July, and that's the one I'll link to here, but I should check the others for further updates.

There appear to be 5 sets, 2 are named, numbered, and come in colourful boxes, and the 3 others are simply referred to as 'Building Set', with set numbers and boxed parts, but it appears that any decorative retail boxes are missing. 

Peter-Austin Highway Bridge Set, No. 500 / girderpanel

I like the name of set No. 500. I thought it might be giving a nod to the Trans-Canada Highway, but that didn't officially exist until 1962, and this set was released in 1956.

The box art on the blandly named Structural Building Set, No. 511, is surprisingly good. It has an iconic late-50s modern vibe, and at the same time is a fairly accurate depiction of what's in the box. 

Speaking of what's in the box, girderpanel.com has a page that compares the various parts in the Peter-Austin, Kenner, and other releases. You can see for yourself the strong similarities - the parts are nearly identical.

Ok, even though the girders and panels are highly similar between the 1956 Peter-Austin version and the 1957 and beyond Kenner releases, that doesn't confirm the Vales' speculation as there might have been some business arrangement between the two companies regarding this toy. girderpanel.com doesn't have anything to add to the story. I'm thinking what actually happened is somewhere between the story the Vales assert and the one confidently given at Wikipedia. Maybe there's more out there waiting to be found.

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]

Sta-Lox Bricks

Front and back views of Vince's Sta-Lox Bricks can

Not long after I made yesterday's post Vince called me up and told me he had an old Sta-Lox Building Bricks can in his garage. Not the bricks, just the can. He mentioned that he too had a set of these bricks when he was a kid, and loved building things with it. This isn't the can to that set, but one acquired decades later at a vintage goods store in Toronto.

Even so, the can itself is quite interesting. First, there's the list of pieces in this set: 600 bricks in assorted shapes; 14 doors and windows; 9 sidewalks, stairs, awnings and gardens; 2 sheets of roofing. And then there's that little extra piece of information: the Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company was a division of Kelton Corporation Limited, also of Toronto. I don't know what year this set was sold, but maybe by that time Peter-Austin had been acquired by Kelton. More questions for the internet.

Architecture on the Carpet

It’s true that you can’t tell a book by its cover, but there are a few books I buy just on the promise of the cover art and title. That’s the case with this one.

The title was quite intriguing, Architecture on the Carpet: The Curious Tale of Construction Toys and the Genesis of Modern Buildings, written by Brenda and Robert Vale and published by Thames & Hudson in 2013. I don’t think I’d be unduly giving anything away by saying the subtitle is a little misleading. The book’s premise is that building construction toys of the19th and 20th centuries may have had a crucial role in determining the work of modern architects who played with them in their childhood, and on the perception and acceptance of modernism in the general public. In the end the authors come to the conclusion that only a few famous architects of modern buildings might have been influenced by their childhood building construction toys. However, that doesn’t discredit the book at all. The reader isn’t beaten about the head and shoulders with the thesis, but it seems more of a lightly applied structuring device to present the fascinating history of these toys, and speculate on what their influences on the built world may have been. The book’s highly readable and I recommend it.

Of all the toy stories presented, the one about Kenner’s Girder and Panel construction sets in the chapter, Bilt-E-Z, Girder and Panel, Arkitex and the Brave New World, was the one that had the most personal resonance. Sometime in the 1960s I was given one of those Kenner sets as a Christmas present. Kenner produced a wide variety of sets, and I don’t know which one I had other than it must have been fairly big as I recall I could build from it a lot of small buildings or something quite large. It was my favourite toy, but I remember that after much use the little holes that held the panels to the girders tore, making construction a challenge. 

I was surprised to learn that the toy we know today as the Kenner Girder and Panel set was invented and sold by a Toronto firm called Peter-Austin Manufacturing Company in 1956, and the version that Kenner first released in 1957 was more-or-less an exact copy. The Vales speculate the Kenner product was “what appears to be a commercial rip-off”, not something sold under license. Being Toronto born and raised, I thought that was interesting. I then cruised the internet looking for more information about the Peter-Austin company and found that they also sold a building toy called Sta-Lox Miniature Building Bricks, a tube of which I also owned and played with a lot at the time. I continue to learn something new - or maybe old in this case - everyday :-)

What about our old friends the Pretty Village play sets? They aren’t discussed in the book, but there’s an extensive discussion on the dawn of model railway toys with a focus on station models.

Overall this is an excellent book on a particular genre of toys. It also has an extensive notes section whose references may unlock even more interesting material. I can see many nights of good reading ahead.