I have two Excel spreadsheets, originally from Dave Meesam, that give excellent details about all the kits to be described below. One lists the contents for most of these kits, while the other specifies the requirements, in terms of numbers of bricks, etc., needed to build the various models for which each kit provided blueprints and instructions. It is worth noting here (and will in fact be obvious from study of these two Excel sheets) that no kit contained enough components to build all of the models it described at the same time. Brickplayer was always designed for a model to be demolished after construction by immersing it in warm water. Then the components could be reused to build another model. There were always enough components in each kit for its largest model, and often enough to build two or more of the smaller models. Spears also sold accessory packs, so that more bricks, windows, etc, could be acquired to build more models. See the accessories page.
I have managed to acquire complete copies of almost all the different Brickplayer kits that were produced. Some of these have been incomplete when I acquired them but I have been able to complete them by addition of pieces from other partial kits. The pieces are all there and have been assembled in the box to look as I believe they would have looked when new. I refer to these as 'completed'. In other cases I have kits that are genuinely complete and unused, with bricks and windows in their original sealed packages (although some packages may have split because the material used tends to become fragile over time). I refer to these as 'pristine'.
JW Spear & Sons was founded in Germany in 1879 and developed from modest beginnings into one of the world's leading producers of toys and games including Scrabble, for which it is most famous. A factory was set up in Enfield in North London in 1932 to manufacture all the products for the English speaking countries of the world.
Brickplayer was introduced by Spears to England in 1938. There are few details of the kits that were launched then, but Dave Meesam's website described two, that he labelled B5 and B7.
The advent of the Second World War cut short the production of these original Brickplayer kits. The company's resources were diverted to producing things needed for the war effort, and demand for construction toys also naturally declined. After the war, Spears briefly resumed production of these kits, but I refer to Kits B5 and B7 as Pre-war Brickplayer. It seems that few were sold and fewer have survived the intervening decades, so they are now very rare. I have a Kit B5, although it is lacking some pieces.
Follow the link below for more details.
After the war, Spears announced two new kits in 1947, labelled Kit 1 and Kit 2. Models were designed primarily in 1:27 scale (which was popular with diecast toy cars, etc, at the time), although some were said to be suitable to accompany model railways in the prevailing 'O' gauge (which is 1:48 scale).
Sales began to pick up. Dave Meesam says, "It would seem that at that time, constructing model buildings from bricks and mortar appealed to the toy buying public as it mirrored the reconstruction of many of the towns and cities ravaged by the war." Nevertheless, these kits are also quite scarce today because Spears revamped the kits again after only a couple of years.
I have a completed Kit 1 and a completed Kit 2. Follow the link below to a page with photographs, blueprints and building manual.
In 1953, Spears offered a Farm Kit, with designs for 7 buildings and even a plan for how to lay these out to create the farm as shown on the box. To do so would have needed a large number of extra bricks (sold separately in a '2000 Bricks' box, see the accessories page!), so I wonder how many people ever made the whole farm. However, this was the largest and most ambitious kit to date (and the most expensive). It used the same basic components as Kits 3 and 4, and so I class it as Standard Brickplayer, but it also included some new components - a new size of window, a stable door and a wicket gate.
I have complete Kits 3 and 4, and also a complete Farm Kit. All three are essentially pristine. Follow the link below to a page with photographs, blueprints and building manuals.
Kits A and B seem also to have sold well, with plenty being offered for sale online through the likes of Ebay, but times were changing. 'OO' gauge had overtaken 'O' gauge as the leading format for model railway buyers, and with advances in plastics children were finding newer construction toys much easier and quicker to build with. Spears had ceased production of Brickplayer by the mid-1960s.
I have complete copies of all three of these kits. My Kit B is pristine, while Kits A and C are completed. Follow the link below to a page with photographs, blueprints and building manual.
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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