Category:Kleeware: Difference between revisions

Bench underside, showing Kleeware logo [image info]

TV Set rear/interior, showing KLEEWARE name [image info]

Piano (wood effect), showing Kleeware logo on its sheet music [image info]

Kleeware dollhouse piano, with the Kleeware script logo printed on its sheet music [image info]

Dining-Room and Lounge Sets, Kleeware for Mettoy [image info]

Mad Hatter's Tea Party Set, "Hygienic and almost unbreakable polythene" [image info]

Kleeware was a plastics and plastic toy company founded in 1938 that is mainly remembered for their cheap and popular "pocket-money" dollhouse furniture (sold through outlets like Woolworths). Manufacturing took place in Welwyn Garden City, and, when expansion later caused them to require larger premises, in Aycliff, County Durham.

They also sold "Kabroloid moulding powder" direct to other manufacturers, and after they also took over the "Erinoid" business, decided to concentrate on just supplying raw materials (rather than competing with their own commerical customers), and sold the "product manufacturing" side of the business to their competitor manufacturer Rosedale in 1959.

Range

Kleeware (like Airfix and Palitoy) were a plastics company that originally used the new materials to produce all manner of small household and personal goods. After a diversion to war work during World War Two (1939-45), Kleeware's inventory of small plastic items grew to include small dolls (as did Palitoy), plastic kits (as did Airfix) and other miscellaneous toys, and ... unlike the other two mentioned companies ... plastic dollhouse furniture.

The kits (such as the aeroplane kits and the "Model Cars of All Nations" series) seem to have been licenced from small US kit manufacturers, who, while not able to finance selling into the UK market themselves, were prepared to hire out their moulds to a "local" manufacturer.

Dollhouse furniture

The obvious advantage of using plastic moulding for dollhouse items was that many pieces (like tables and chairs) were simple single-colour pieces with no moving parts, that could be considered to be "finished" as soon as they plopped out of the injection moulding machine. However, some of their pieces were multipart (such as a plastic kitchen chair with a different-coloured plastic cushion).

Quality-wise, Kleeware's output ranged from well-sculpted brown wood-look furniture with a hard, opaque, almost Bakelite-like glossy finish, to cheaper, designed-to-cost "penny toys set" -style pieces with no stamped brand name, moulded in softer, cheaper-looking plastic. Their cheapest items are (perhaps unfortunately) the easiest to recognise, typically one-piece "shell" items with no moving components and hollow bases, moulded in white, red, yellow or pink.

Addresses

• O & M Kleeman Limited – Mappin House, 156-162 Oxford Street, London, W1
• O & M Kleeman Limited – West Halkin House, West Hlkin Street, London W1 -- 1952

External links

• O. and M. Kleeman, Graces Guide (gracesguide.co.uk)
• Kleeware (planetdiecast.com)
• Kleeware (wikipedia.org)

museum collections:

• Kleeware, Museum of New Zealand (collections.tepapa.govt.nz)
• Kleeware, V&A (collections.vam.ac.uk)
• Kleeware, Museum collections, Wakefield Council (collections.wakefield.gov.uk)
• Kleeware, National Trust Collections (nationaltrustcollections.org.uk)

• Kleeware plastic furniture (shedonthepond.wordpress.com)

misc ranges:

• Kleeware "Littletown" buildings (binnsroad.co.uk)
• Plasticville USA: Kleeware (plasticvilleusa.org)
• Littletown/Plasticville (cs.trains.com)
• K is for Kleeware (smallscaleworld.blogspot.com)
• Kleeman model aircraft kits, Unofficial Airfix Modellers' Forum (uamf.org.uk)
• Kleeware brand kits (hobbydb.com)
• Kleeware Garage with cars (oldclassiccar.co.uk)

• Kleeware toy mechanical washing machine (youtube.com) – video