Bear Facts: The Mystery of Arto's Granny Bear

A while ago Arto found a cute boxed plastic Finnish toy bear by Telex at Finland's Juthbacka fair:

This is it, Rukki ja Karhu.

One of a group of toys Arto owns, curiously, it also made reference to England's Palitoy-Vogue on the box side in a small boxed panel.

 Intrigued, Arto and I began to dig and attempt to unravel the mystery of his spinning Telex Granny with English roots in Palitoy.

First we found a small picture of Vogue toys on the far left here, an auctioned Palitoy Progress 1957 Retail Catalogue.

Further clues appeared on the cover of this auctioned Palitoy and Vogue / Cascelloid Export Catalogue 1959, which pictured a similar Granny Bear in her Rocking Chair top left!

And then we found this! A whole Vogue stock list from 1957:

https://share.google/9gZURBCa7jVSG33Uo 

Which lists ....

"Granny Bear Spinner no. P231"!

Yes! That's her! Arto's bear! 

Arto adds: 

"Checking this Vogue list further, the next item on the list, "P232 Rocking Dobbin", was marketed in Finland - and I have it mint boxed!"

Then we saw the section "Mechanical Toys" and P225, P229, P230, P231, P232 and P233!

Bingo!

There they all were! Granny Bear Spinner and her five clockwork friends!

Result!

To conclude, Arto sums up the fruits of our research on his elusive plastic bear: 

"Granny Bear Spinner is one of the five plastic mechanical toys "Made in Finland of original English Palitoy and Vogue parts", as it states on the Finnish box by Telex. The original English toys are included in the Vogue January 1957 export price list ....

.... The Telex ad in Helsingin Sanomat, November 6, 1956 promotes the toys as fresh novelties (Uutta! New!), so they arrived in Finnish shops in late 1956. The ad mentions Cascelloid along with Vogue as providers of the toy parts, which were then assembled in Finland. Pictured Granny Bear Rocking Toy and Granny Bear Spinner only, no mention of Cinder Sid here (nor Rocking Dobbin either, have to check later ads).

The story continues!"

This post compliments Tapani Suominen's Telex research on his Fintoys page:

https://www.fintoys.com/telbear2.html

And by the power of the internet and Arto's fabulous collection, here are photos of some of the six toys listed -

(Arto adds: "the Vogue Granny Bear I bought from Sweden. My Telex Granny Bear is missing her bonnet (pictured below, yellow chair). I also have the bear with the broom (Sweeper) and Rocking Dobbin too, but cannot locate them right now."

Enjoy!

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Granny Bear Rocking Toy

P225

(Arto also owns a Finnish boxed Granny Bear in Her Rocking Chair or Keinu karhu kutoo)

Granny Bear Sweeper

P229

Baa Baa Black Sheep

P230

(Small catalogue picture)

Loose toy pictured below right with the sewing machine in the group of three 

(Arto's collection)

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Granny Bear Spinner

P231

(Arto's Finnish Telex version shown above and below left. English original not found)

Rocking Dobbin

P232

Picture Not found

 ( But stored in Arto's collection: in Finnish, Keinuhevonen or Rocking Horse)

Cinder Sid

P233

(Small catalogue picture)

Picture of actual toy not found

( And the only one missing from Arto's collection!)

*

Re. Finland, Arto adds " This set of Telex toys was advertised here (Finland) in newspapers already in November 1956, suitably for the Christmas '56 market. I will check if Cinder Sid was mentioned in the ad."

*

And The Portuguese connection!

Similar toys made by Osul.

Granny Bear Sweeper

And the same bear with wheels! 

Anymore for anymore?