More Acrobates

(René Ach part 2 by Paul Vreede)

The circus set I found right after talking to the toys' inventor, René Ach in Paris, was one I must've had when young as well. For I remember having the regular figures, each in a single colour, as well as later getting these, made from two halves in different colours. The horse, wheels and ladders also stirred a couple of memories. As did the arms broken off a couple of figures, a weak point in the design (or at least the engineering) that sadly curtailed the usefulness of these wonderful toys most prematurely. Whereas I remembered the ones in my youth as only having differently-coloured right and left sides, new to me was that some figures in this set have a dfferently coloured front and back (requiring different moulds).

I undertook regular searches, but another set didn't turn up for at least a year or so. Which I'd never have found without Wotan's help. Wotan also had these toys when young, and on one of his rummages round the internet found a page on a "visual arts data service" showing another set. Produced by none other than Raphael Lipkin, and called Funny Men at the Circus. A surprise, for Monsieur Ach didn't mention a UK manufacturer to me. 

The VADS erroneously lists Lipkin as the designer. Not surprising since Lipkin designed many toys of his own, but wrong nonetheless. I emailed them about it, but to no avail. (While preparing this piece the VADS site was unavailable, but there's a European culture site with the same listing here . It seems they took their cue from the Design Council, whose picture it is, and who also featured the Funny Men in a contemporary article on British toymakers in Design magazine (which iirc Wotan also discovered - colour page here. When I got the Lipkin set, I saw the box does mention a patent, but a quick look in my notes confirmed this was René Ach's UK patent. The contents are identical to my French set, except the figures are all in a single colour each.

Wotan also managed to find a number of the smallest-sized figures, some of which I was most grateful to receive from him. We're still looking for the third size, which we believe is in-between the 11.5 cm (4.5") and 4 cm (1.5") in height of what we already have. Next to those, I distinctly remember some giant-sized figures decorating the toy counter in a The Hague department store when I was young - wouldn't it be amazing to find some of those!

And Wotan also spotted a rather curious variation by Marx, where the figures had been fitted with ramp-walking legs. Since both of us were rather skinned at the time, these ended up with somebody else - regretfully leaving me no other option at this point than showing the seller's pictures that I saved for reference (hope he won't mind).

More than a year later, another small box of Delacoste figures surfaced. With a sticker on the lid proudly proclaiming them to be the French Toy of the Year 1967.

Amongst his father's toy catalogues, Wotan discovered two further British-made variations by Pedigree (owned by Triang as was Lipkin's company), being the Funny Firemen (which I do have a vague memory of seeing back around 1970), as well as the Five Funny Fusiliers (equipped with cannon instead of rifles (fusiliers being riflemen) despite the nice alliteration!).

Last year I found another Nr 2 Circus set by Delacoste, this time also containing single-coloured figures, which seems to confirm my youthful impression that the two-tone figures were a later development. Since the small box doesn't carry a number, there's a chance there might be a smaller Nr 1 set still waiting to be discovered. And as luck had it, a second Nr 2 set was also available, which made a good present for Wotan's half-century!