F is for Follow-up - Tobar / Hawkins Bazaar (Schylling / ZZ)

Well, that was quick! My inbox was full of useful stuff on Monday-gone, with Andy B and Chris Smith both adding to the weeked's post on ZZ and it's origins, but from the UK angle, with more on the back story of Tobar and Hawkin's Bazaar from Chris and a catalogue scan from Andy.

First the potted history from Chris, who has seen four members of his family work there; almost in his own words [he sent the following as a more personalised narrative, I've removed the personal bits]

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Hawkin's Bazaar got its name from the old “Hawk Inn” public house in Halesworth, Suffolk which was used as one of the early company premises. Named by the company's founder Sid Templer, Tobar was similarly named after his two son’s TOby and BARnaby.

They then seem to have moved to a farm in the village of Ilketshall St. Margaret. At that time everything was still ordered via catalogue which came as a Sunday supplement with newspapers etc. With the rise of the Internet they went on-line, success outgrew that site and they built a new site on the Ellough Airfield industrial estate near Beccles.

The Templer family sold the business after that (Toby seems to have done okay for himself; he bought a country house; Cockfield Hall, near Yoxford). The new owners moved operations to an industrial unit on Eye airfield.

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To which I can add that Hawkin's became a retail-shop arm, while Tobar developed into the feeder for Hawkin's shops, and - presumably - continuing with the mail-order side for a while?

Possibly about the time of the takeover mentioned above, there was a major expansion in the retail stores and suddenly (mid-1990's or slightly later?) they seemed to be in every high street, every shopping centre, precinct or mall, however they had over-stretched and there was a crisis - not that long ago - mentioned here in an early News, Views . . . , which resulted in a cutting-back of store numbers; they have survived, I visit the Basingrad store regularly, looking for stuff to buy so you don't have to - Iwako plug-together erasersaurs, stretchy aliens, jigglers, sub-sub-sub piracies of Blue Box 'Home Farm' sets!

I have a feeling that Hawkin's may have been sold to one of these corporate investment-management-asset stripper type concerns though, so may not actually be connected to Tobar directly anymore?

Meanwhile Tobar expanded the wholesale arm of the business/group, appearing in Army & Navy (before their demise) at Christmas-time (the ZZ tin-plate and both wooden and plastic toys), the links with Schylling and (through them?) ZZ and Supreme, and more recent supply to independent hardware / general-goods stores (like our own Izzy's here in Fleet), indeed, they may have contributed to Hawkin's troubles, by multiplying - too successfully - the number of outlets for their own products!

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Having mentioned ZZ, and the tree-hangers marked-up to Ingo Roggaz's ZZ, but probably direct from the Chinese factory (maybe via Schylling), Andy B sent this at the same time as Chris's anecdotes were coming-across;

Which is an old catalogue scan, from a 1990's Hawkin's Bazaar cataloge. Points of interest are that A) it backs-up my "...and possibly/probably Tobar and/or Hawkin's Bazaar (in the UK)" from the other day (I was sure I'd seen them in A&N, but got mine from JB years later), B) presciently predicts the eBayer who's auction we looked at in passing with it's "We know that soon they will be passed off as being very much older than they are." and C) fills a gap in the ZZ listing!

Although, only the one car. While the numbering doesn't equate to the 10 of the ZZ zeppelin and the larger/smaller delineation will have to go; they are all really dinky. The changes will take the ZZ listing to;

Tin-Plate Christmas Tree Hangers (1990's, also carried by Schilling in the US, who work with the UK's Tobar, where they carried 10 in Hawking's Bazzar catalogues)

'Series 1' (probably numbered 1-12+ on boxes/packaging, Chinese (?) re-issues of old Japanese (?) or German penny-toy designs)

10 - Airship 'Graf Zeppelin'

? - 19^thC Steam Locomotive 'Nurnburg-Furth'

? - 20^thC Steam Locomotive 'DB 1571 Express'

? - Bi-plane ('31' with German WWI balkankreutzen)

? - Car (2-seat sports-saloon)

? - Fire Engine Ladder Truck 'Falke 13' ('Vomag 13' with Tobar/HB version)

? - Flying Boat / Sea-plane 'Dornier 18 / DO 18'

? - Horse-Tram / Railcar 'Pferde Bahn 15 Altona St Paula' (no horses)

? - Military Cavalry Rider on Horse (not carried by Tobar/HB)

? - Monoplane (not carried by Tobar/HB)

? - Motorcycle and Sidecar 'Sport'

? - Omnibus '103 Nivia-Puder'

There is also D) the very interesting phraseology; "German design & control", the message (also backing-up my previous assumptions) being - made in China! While the note about safety-loopholes in equally interesting because they highlight the 'loophole', but in language which suggests they want you to order them as playthings, not decorations!

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Thank you so much, Andy and Chris, it's nice to confirm a few points and it's fascinating to learn more about these jobbing novelty import guys, there were/are so many of them and most are still quite mysterious.

For instance I didn't discover Marshall's until weeks after they went under, and while I downloaded the catalogues, they were poor-resolution .pdf's I only occasionally throw in the mix as screen-caps!

Another one which seems to have disappeared now was Studio Gifts who were still quite big in the early 2000's but their business model (if I recall correctly) was more like Christmas hampers, WH Smith / Doubleday book clubs or old 'catalogues'; you ordered the stuff as a member and paid installments on the never-never, the monthly-due being adjusted to reflect subsequent purchases . . . what happened to them, can anyone fill-us-in?