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.)
To see the full size version of any of the pictures on this page, click on the text below it, or in some cases on the picture itself.
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. The pictures below are from Dave Meesam and John Oldenburg.
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 box shown below that would have contained packs 100, 101 and 102.
I do not have the comparable shop box for Contemporary Brickplayer, but the following photos are from Dave Meesam.
There may, perhaps, have been something similar for Early Brickplayer. I have three shop boxes containing windows and doors that were sold individually. They are all in good condition and containing many of 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 solid garage doors, but 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 of tiling roofing sheets with strips of capping tiles.
Contemporary Brickplayer used a greater variety of roofing styles (and included transparent rooflights as shown in the large windows and doors box above). I have a box that is rather damaged and empty. It would have contained concrete, aluminium and pantile roofing sheets, together with some related components. The photo of the contents below is from Dave Meesam.
Finally, I have a package of pantile roofing that would presumably been in a proper shop box, or perhaps been taken from several boxes like the above.
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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