Preface
here
is money
to be made in investing in antique silver toys, and there is no reason at all
that, unlike stocks and shares, they should ever drop in value. Furthermore, it
is a hobby that very few people are aware exists, and little is known about the
makers of the toys. As a result, there is plenty of scope for investigating the
history of your hobby, and for still being able to find some choice silver toys
dating back from the seventeenth century right up until the present day. The
obvious snag is that the further back one goes the more expensive the toys
become.
Interest
in making tiny copies or miniatures of items in everyday use dates back
thousands of years. It is conceivable that cavemen, not having silver at his
disposal, whittled a wooden toy dinosaur for his child. Mankind always seems to
have had a yearning and admiration for perfectly formed replicas of the larger
full-sized original object, whether it be a picture, a piece of porcelain,
glass or furniture, or as evidenced by the ‘oos’ and ‘aahs’ one gives when
seeing a new baby. It is a built in delight we have of the Lilliputian-sized
world we are so intrigued by and admire.
The
purpose of giving a toy to a child was twofold: it not only amused the child,
keeping it quiet and happy; but was also a learning aid – a model for the child
to copy, based on its application by the child’s parents or the servants.
Nowadays
we can add to this a third purpose: as a collectable and an investment
The
craftsmen of the day liked to model items which were often made in their
respective trades. Glassblowers would make tiny glasses; exact replicas of the
originals, cabinetmakers would make tiny doll’s-house furniture, of a standard
equal to, if not better than, the full-size original. The making of tiny
objects was indeed a craft of love. It was, and still is, a fairytale world, as
exemplified by, for instance, Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, in
which miniscule objects are a microcosm of the real thing.
It
doesn’t matter what type of materials were used in the construction of the tiny
replicas. European adults, have, since at least the seventeenth century, taken
an interest in tiny toy objects they could display in doll’s houses or baby
houses.
Although
originally intended for children to use, these miniature toy replicas
fascinated adults even more – so much so that the child was only allowed to see
the interior of the doll’s house under the parents’ supervision, and with
strict instructions that they could look but not touch.
It is
the finished tiny copy that intrigues adults and makes them express admiration
and childish delight when seeing a doll’s house fitted out with tiny copies of
what they have only known until then as the real item. One can’t help admire
the craftsmen that have gone to all that trouble to miniaturise a chest of
drawers no bigger than a matchbox, or a fireplace with fire irons and fenders,
all made of silver. It is not only children who are fascinated by tiny
reproductions they can play with.
The
parents sought new toys from the silversmiths, getting them to make something
unique, especially for their collection. The gold and silversmiths, meanwhile,
soon realised that there was a potential market in making tiny toys, especially
in silver and gold, and many silversmiths, especially on the continent of
Europe, began to specialise in this demanding craft of toymaking.
It was
only the English who used the term ‘silver toys’ to describe our tiny copies of
the original-sized objects. They were made originally as playthings. In Germany
they are called silberspielzeuge; in Holland, the most prolific producer
of silver toys, they are referred to as zilverspieelgoed.
This obsession with
miniaturising everyday items has not diminished over the years, and even today
there is a growing and demanding market, seeking even tinier and more accurate
doll’s- house toys in gold and silver.
A person
who might pass by a silver item such as a teapot in an antique shop would stop
and admire and become ecstatic over a miniaturised copy of the same item. It is
difficult to say exactly why we are so taken by tiny toys; perhaps we marvel at
the skill of the craftsman who has had the patience to fashion a miniature; or
maybe the human race is simply besotted with tiny things like babies, puppies
and kittens – and baby toys have thus been accepted into the same category,
just because they’re so cute.
From the
history of toy miniatures it can be seen that Holland, Great Britain, France,
Germany and the United States have shown a definite interest in tiny toys.
However, other countries from time to time have produced the small silver toys,
in particular China and Russia, but not in any profusion like the Dutch.
As well
as using the term silver toys, which were primarily toys that could fit to
scale in a doll’s house, there was a second size of toy intended for a child to
play with. These are referred to miniatures, or, as the Dutch say, miniaturesterm.
Some of these miniatures are quite tall, reaching up to a third of the size
of the original object they were copying.
Another
school of thought is that, as well as making silver toys for doll’s houses
which, as we have seen, seems to be the collecting prerogative of the parents,
the silversmiths made toys in silver, scaled to the size of the child’s doll,
as if the doll itself were using the toys.
There is
proof of this fact in the painting, A Children’s Party by William
Hogarth (1773) where children are seen playing with a seated doll, and, sliding
off the collapsed table is a silver tea service, which is scaled to the size of
the doll.
Figure 1 Painting by William Hogarth, c. 1730: A Children’s
Party, showing a dog upsetting a child’s silver tea set (picture from an
unknown private collection).