Toy Shops

Traditionally in the Netherlands more miniature shops were made than dollhouses or even dollrooms. Maybe that is because the Dutch are a nation of traders. Grocery shops and drapery shops where favourites.

SIO and OKWA

Most of the shops in my collection are OKWA shops, and thus made by Okkerse in Waddinxveen. Judging by the inscriptions on the drawers that are still there (loose parts like drawers and counters tend to get lost), these shops were all intended to be grocery shops.

The SIO factory in Vroomshoop made not only grocery shops but also other shops. Already in the 1950s they produced some drapery shops complete with cloth. I have the most simple version of such a shop, which is called "maison henny modes". In the 1970s SIO also made some shops for teenage dolls: a grocery, two different boutiques and a flower shop. These shops were made of printed hardboard and printed cardboard.

The firm of the Okkerse family of Waddinxveen was founded in 1901. It is not known when exactly they started to produce shops, but it is certain that they started before the Second World War, somewhere in the 1930s.

ado and Simplex

Miniature shops were not only made in the OKWA and SIO factories. Since the 1930s there also have been shops labelled ado. Ado is short for Arbeid Door Onvolwaardigen (labour by disabled people). In workshops at sanatoriums recovering tuberculosis patients could get some work experience to prepare them for their return into society. In one of these workshops toys were made from about 1925 till about 1955. In the 1950s and 1960s there was also another manufacturer of miniature shops which was located in Aalst in Noord-Brabant (Dutch province). The toys made by this factory were labelled Simplex. Simplex is best known for their round wooden jigsaw puzzles made just after the Second World War from leftovers from Philips (materials stemming from the round openings for the radio loudspeakers). The Simplex shops had plastic drawers.