Would you care for a cup of tea ? (English version)

Pour la version française, voir article suivant...

As a child, I played a lot with plastic tea-sets and dinner-sets... In 1968-69, I remember that my sister and I had two Gégé* teasets (they were the must !) that were exactly like this one in shape (with a different motif, and smaller flowers maybe) :

Gégé tea-set

Then in 1970,...
I got offered another one in plastic :

1970 - F. Berchet

I loved its modern look (above all the square dish with its lid)... It's not by Gégé but by another French plastic toy manufacturer (F. Berchet)... Unfortunately all the pieces of these sets got broken or lost... Imagine my joy at finding a catalogue picture of it !

Recently, I came across this child-size Gégé set still in its original box with frame and lid and bought it for nostalgia's sake...

1959 - Gégé diner set

It had gathered quite a lot of dust (and rain) in an attic and the blue on the cardboard insert had been almost entirely washed out... but the crockery is intact and complete (there might just be one paper tea-towel missing).

It dates back to 1959. It was sold in different sizes : as a 27 piece set (mine) but also 37 piece or even, to suit all budgets, a 51 piece set (probably exclusively manufactured for more luxurious Department Stores like Les Galeries-Lafayette or Le Printemps in Paris...). The plates are marked Gégé - Made in France, as is the cutlery... The glasses are made of very thin hard plastic and highly fragile... It does say in gold letters on  a black label inside the box that it is made out of "unbreakable plastic"... Seeing how intact it is, one would almost believe them... Here you can see the same set in a catalogue of 1959...

1959 - Mail order catalogue (Doc Stylb)

A bit later, on a trip, as I came off the coach arriving in a remote Scottish village, I saw a second-hand shop by the bus-stop and... this was in the window !...

1961 - Gégé 39 pieces set

How could I leave it there ? This time the blue on the insert was still all there and looked brand new...
The owner, I was told, had just brought this childhood item in hoping it would go to a good home... - when she was a child, her dad had brought it back for her from Paris -... "She will be thrilled that a French lady bought it", added the shopkeeper.

It is complete (without the lid). However, the plates are strangely attached to the insert in the box (not glued... but a plastic nail in the centre of each plate secured by a metal circle maintains them in place... see photo)

So the plates cannot be removed and never were (no wonder it is in pristine condition, and even the tiny fragile papery tea-towels look untouched... It's perfect for me but, as a little girl, the previous owner must have never been able to play properly with it... Not like I played with my tea-sets)...
So what's the story ? Was it a salesman's sample box ? Or an ex-shop display ?...

1961

Gégé released this set in 1961.




None of the sets found in the catalogues have the same layout as mine...












... or the same number of pieces...











I thought after these two impulse purchases that it was time to stop acquiring pieces in that scale... I am more into miniature and dollhouse tea-sets these days...

Nonetheless, one day, in Germany, I came across this set that I vaguely recognized as one I had seen in a vintage catalogue and I couldn't resist... So here we go again...

It turned out it was from 1953 or 1954 (my oldest set in that scale then if I am right)... It is not complete, and none of the pieces are marked but I have found two illustrations of similar sets (but neither have coffee cups nor ice-cream sundaes with this very distinctive base...)

1953 - Doc Joël

The presentation really looks like Gégé's, don't you think  ? Maybe it is just a sign of the 50s... ?

1954 - Doc Stylb

One thing is sure, this new craze has simply got to stop !

* Gégé was a French toy manufacturer based in Montbrison from 1933. It made toys for boys & girls (dolls and tea-sets) and was the biggest French toy enterprise at the end of the 1950s. They are, among other dolls,  the creator of the Mily doll, well known by collectors.

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