I remember as a teenager going to my local model shop, where they would sell you a huge range of accessories for these construction toys. You could even buy just one Brickplayer window or one Meccano gear wheel. (The shop was Wally Kilmister in Wembley, North West London. I have since discovered that Wally Kilmister was a successful speedway rider, who opened this shop and a sports shop alongside when he retired from racing. Sadly, the shops are long gone now, but here is an interesting memory from somebody who worked there.)
A possible alternative to this Kit 3A was offered by Accessory Pack 8109, which contained the instruction booklet for Kits 3 and 4, blueprints and two more sheets as shown below.
Any bricks, windows and doors needed to build Kit 4 models that were not provided in Kit 3 could be obtained from the various accessories sold separately in toyshops, as set out in the descriptions of Shop Boxes below, as well as sheets of roofing. Pack 8109 provided all the parts and information to build Kit 4 models that could not be obtained in this way. Kit 3 only contained blueprints for the models that could be built with Kit 3, and 8109 supplied the rest. The components sheet would show the components, such as bay windows, splay bricks and large garage doors, that were not in Kit 3, and the roofing template showed how to cut the plain tiling sheets that could be purchased separately.
Pack 8109 was therefore an attractive route for the owner of a Kit 3 to build a wider set of models without purchasing the full upgrate Kit 3A.
There was no formal upgrade kit to augment a Kit 4 to build the Brickplayer Farm, but a Pack 8115 was available consisting of an instruction booklet for the Farm Kit with a cellophane pocket fixed to the back cover, containing blueprints, various other small components and a template for tiled roofing, as shown in the following images. Click on the images themselves to see them in full screen.
Like Pack 8109, Pack 8115 would enable someone with a Kit 3 or 4 to build some of the Farm buildings without buying the Farm Kit. Anything needed in addition to Pack 8115 could be sourced from a Kit 3 or 4 or from other available accessories (such as stable doors and wicket gate from the large shop box shown below, bricks and tiling sheets that were also sold separately).
If you already had a Farm Kit, Spears offered a separate pack of 2000 bricks that enabled the owner of a Farm Kit to build all the farm models. My 2000 Bricks box is about three-quarters full. The top of the box lid has seen some wear but the box itself is sound.
For Contemporary Brickplayer, the equivalent of Pack 8109 was Pack 242, shown below.
Like Pack 8109, this included the instructions booklet and blueprints and the sheet below showing the components of Contemporary Brickplayer. It did not, however, include a template sheet for roofing, because Contemporary Brickplayer models did not have such complicated roofs. The roofing pieces in the kits themselves were not marked up for cutting; the instruction booklet simply stated how the sheets should be trimmed, if necessary, for each model. Somebody owning a Kit A or B could upgrade by buying this pack, plus any extra components from the shop boxes of bricks, windows, doors, etc. discussed below, and extra roofing from Pack 240, shown further down this page.
Interestingly, although the pack generally contained twelve individual blueprints, one pack I have seen had just four large blueprint sheets with multiple blueprints on each sheet.
The most basic components of course are the bricks.
Pre-war Brickplayer offered three packs of extra bricks. Pack 8024/1 contained 100 full size bricks, Pack 8024/2 had 75 three-quarter and 55 half bricks, while Pack 8024/3, shown below (courtesy of Timothy Edwards), had 40 bricks of each of the three sizes.
Standard Brickplayer offered four basic packs of bricks. Pack number 100 contained 100 full sized bricks. In pack 101 were a mix of three-quarter bricks and half bricks. Pack 102 contained gable and peak bricks. Finally, pack 8107 provided splay bricks for constructing bays in a package with two bay windows. I have the shop box shown below that would have contained packs 100, 101 and 102. These three packs were also available as accessories for Early Brickplayer, so it is possible that this shop box dates from the Early Brickplayer period. My box does not contain a full set of packs, so the photo of the open box is from Dave Meesam.
Contemporary Brickplayer offered five basic packs of bricks. Pack number 201 contained 50 full sized bricks LB1, pack 202 contained 50 three-quarter bricks LB2, and pack 203 had 75 half bricks LB3. Packs 204 and 205 contained the various gable bricks LB4, LB5 and LB6. I have the shop box for Contemporary Brickplayer containing the five basic packs, although it is missing a few packs.
I have three shop boxes containing windows and doors that were sold individually. They are all in good condition and have been completed to display all the original components. Included in the large box are some of the Packs 8107 (containing two bay windows and a selection of splay bricks).
I assume that the small Standard Brickplayer box is earlier than the large one because the latter contains Farm Kit components and the small one has metal windows (although I have also seen one with plastic windows) and solid garage doors. However, it is interesting to note that the prices are higher in the small box. Comparable components in the Contemporary Brickplayer box have the same low prices as in the large Standard Brickplayer box. It seems that Spears reduced the prices at some stage, probably before the Farm Kit was produced.
The other principal form of components was roofing. Standard Brickplayer models mostly used sheets made to look like red tiling but there were also sheets made to look like concrete. The sheets in the kits were printed so that you could cut out the exact sized pieces for each model, but large sheets could be bought as accessories. I have a more or less complete (missing some sheets I have taken to use for my own buildings) Pack 8112 of tiled roofing sheets with strips of capping tiles.
Concrete roofing was sold as single sheets, listed as Accessory number 112.
Contemporary Brickplayer used a greater variety of roofing materials (and included transparent rooflights as shown in the large windows and doors box above). Pack 240 contained concrete, aluminium and pantile roofing sheets, together with some capping tile strips and a Pack 241 that contained a set of the small sheets of cladding. The capping tiles are a different colour from those in Standard Brickplayer kits, to match the colour of the pantile roofing. Contemporary Brickplayer kits did not contain any of these capping tiles, because the pantile roofing sheets include a ridge to be made simply by folding the sheet. The same pantile sheets are in this accessory pack, but capping tile strips will allow the owner to build roofs for models of their own design.
More links: This Brickplayer website sits within my personal website tonyohagan.co.uk. The links below provide access to the other parts of my website.
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