Adieu, René Ach

(part 3 by Paul Vreede)

If you still (or again) have a vintage Spirograph set, have a look at the box (I'd love to show a picture, but I can't seem to find mine off-hand...). On the side is a list of patents for various countries, with the noticeable omission of France. The reason for this is what could be a textbook example of synchronicity: while Denys Fisher in the UK was developing the Spirograph, René Ach in Paris was inventing something remarkably similar. And got it patented in France before Fisher could.

I don't know if Ach ever had his manufactured, but with Spirograph obtaining patents everywhere else I wouldn't be surprised if he gave up on the idea. Nor do I know anything about other inventions I found patents for, being some geometric lampshades (with fitting to rotate same), a self-propelled ball, and designs for a new type of ramp-walking toy figure as well as a motorised walking figure. He also invented a new type of binding system for document pages.

It had been my hope to call Monsieur Ach again, and maybe even try a visit, to learn more about the how and why of his inventions. But sadly, René Ach passed away some six months after I rang him about his Acrobates. 

Apart from the inventions in his early life, René Ach taught industrial design at the Ecole National Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (National High School for Decorative Arts) in Paris, and had his sculpture studio in Les Frigos, an artists' colony in a converted cold-storage warehouse. His amazing and beautiful sculptures are fine examples of kinetic art, where he applied the same wonderful ingenuity as he did in his toy inventions. 

There's a handful of pictures on his page at Les Frigos' website but even better, there's still an opportunity to see René Ach himself (with a friend) demonstrating them in an excellent documentary here.

In closing, I'll just say: Adieu Monsieur Ach, et merci pour tous vos merveilleuses réalisations.

Magic Custard

Brought to my attention (thank you Stewart): an Ebay Auction for the marvellous "Space Mutt". Mentioned a few times on the blog, Space Mutt was Moon McDare's trusty companion in space - part of the  range of A. C. Gilbert dolls which appeared in 1966.

Pity the helmet is in such poor condition, but super to see the dog again. Some good photographs on the Ebay Auction page too ... it also explains the bizarre header chosen for this blog post (smiles).

Breakfast Time Acrobats

The crunchy-puffed-wheat-coated-with-sugar-and-honey Breakfast ...

Oh er .... they'll never fit that on their shopping lists. We'll have to think of another name. What about, "Puff-kins"?

A cereal before my time, by the makers of Weetabix. The description suggests they were similar to Sugar Smacks and Sugar Puffs. Were they available for long? No idea ... maybe you can tell me. What I do know is they came with little interlocking creatures: the Poppit Puff-kins.

While not quite as acrobatic as the Acrobates which Wotan and Paul have been showing to us, they did have some tricks of their own. Each Puff-kin could connect with another in four different ways, enabling them to form stacks, pyramids and chains. There were twelve colours, if the advertisements are to be believed.

Were these premiums given away throughout the (presumably short) availability of the cereal? Wish I knew. All the information I have is that the Poppit Puff-kins were advertised during the opening month of 1960 and Weetabix ran at least three "colour in this picture" competitions.

I'd love to know more about them and the cereal itself. So excuse the pathetic quality of the photograph of my own little troupe of Puff-kins and shed some light on these, please.

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!

Acrobate Excursion

After finding a few loose Acrobates on Ebay last year, my regular trawls for goodies online began to include parameters to discover other similar toys. One day I was lucky enough to spot a really badly described set of figures from the smaller range. I had run into these figures in the late seventies when someone bought a set of cheap knockoffs for my five year old nephew. I had then got myself a set, which were in an unbranded pack and made in quite flimsy plastic, resulting in the arms breaking off almost immediately. Consequently, the broken figures ended up in the scrap box destined for scratchbuilding.

The set which appeared on ebay however contained basically the same figures, but made by a more well known company, Berwick Toys. Also, they were referred to as 'Whipper Snappers' a line that I vaguely recalled. The small box was battered and dirty, the foam insert containing a host of figures and three vehicles, a bus, jeep and lorry.

The original Acrobates figures that I had been familiar with were solidly made and in deep primary shades, appealing  to my love of colour and purity of design in the same way a Lego brick does. These smaller figures, while identical in design, departed from the overall impact of the originals as they feel light and flimsy, with bright dayglo hues. The vehicles themselves are very basic and lack the charm of the acrobat horse. Beneath the cars is a trademark for the maker 'Simex', so they may have appeared under another brand again.

On the edge of the tattered box is a patent registration number, which when I looked it up, brought up the original patent by Rene Ach himself.

Discovering René Ach

(part 1 by Paul Vreede)

Back in 2005, the Great Matt Mason Patent Hunt (1) was staged after somebody in the MMM online group found an online shop selling US patent artwork, and somebody else discovered it could be downloaded for free fom the US Patent Office. Provided it could be found, because all pre-1976 patents can only be retrieved by number and nothing else. 

So a whole range of search tactics were tried and it was while searching for references to "plastic figures" that I was completely amazed to find a patent for one of my childhood toys - which I'd completely forgotten about as well.

As the patent drawings show, these very abstract but delightful figures have arms and legs that clip over the body or head of another figure, allowing a great number of different configurations in which they can be combined. 

After the chase for MMM patents had run its course, I came back to these figures. The patent was filed in 1967, and stated the name of the inventor, a Parisian by the name of René Ach. What it didn't state of course was a brand name (so useful for finding things on the internet), nor even a manufacturer. Monsieur Ach clearly was an independent inventor.

But he had an uncommon name, and that helped. A google revealed a sculptor in Paris with the same name, whom I figured might be related. And then a phone number. Where somebody answered at the first ring. To have what afterwards may have seemed a somewhat bizarre conversation!

I asked if he was Monsieur Ach. He was. The sculptor? Yes indeed. So I said I was looking for a René Ach living in the Rue de Gobelins in Paris 13ème (arrondissement or 13th district) in 1967 and would he know this person. Sounding somewhat puzzled he said that was him. Which had me rather amazed, for the picture on his website showed the sculptor to be sixty-ish or less - pretty young for somebody inventing toys in the mid-late sixties.

So I explained I found his name on a patent for a toy I had when I was young, and then somewhat at a loss for words, had the wits to thank him for inventing such a wonderful toy. I then learned he had indeed invented these figures very early in life, amongst other ideas he had (some of which I had also found patents for) that weren't (as) successful. 

And then came the most important question: what were they called, and who had made them. So I learned they were called Acrobates, made in France by a company called Delacoste (2). And in Germany by somebody sounding like Siemex. A Japanese company also made them, initially without a licence, but was eventually persuaded to better their ways. Monsieur Ach also confirmed the Acrobates came in three sizes.

Next it was my turn to answer a few questions, for Monsieur Ach was curious about how I had found his patent. Turned out he had been looking for a patent a cousin (iirc) had been granted a long time ago, and hadn't had much luck in finding it. With a browser in front of me, and having discovered the EU patent site later on in the MMM Hunt, I asked the name of his cousin (thankfully not a very common name either) and found him the patent while still on the phone. I told him how to retrieve it, we thanked each other and said goodbye.

And then, in what must really be the biggest coincidence ever, I turned to eBay France, typed in Acrobates Delacoste and would you believe it there was a boxed set!

notes: 

1) if interested, the MMM patents can be found on John Eaton's site.

- Delacoste is best known for its "pouet-pouet" toys - rubber figures that make such a noise when you squeeze them. The giraffe that sometimes pops up from the company logo is called Sophie, their very first such figure from 1961, and quite an icon in France. It even has its own Wikipedia pages in french and english. 

Captain's Blog

Woodsy

Don't know if you've found it on YouTube, but just watched a "fan made" Star Trek film called Of Gods & Men [part 1 of 3 here].Actually a good quality independent production, and worth watching I thought!

Andy B.

The Tracy's Were On Holiday and The island Was Overun by....

Imposters!