Vintage Children's Codeg Toy Town Tin Plate Telephone Exchange

This is a very nice Vintage Children's Codeg Toy Town Tin Plate Telephone Exchange. The toy was made by Cowan De Groot, whose trade name was 'Codeg.'

The exchange consists of a red metal telephone exchange with yellow plugs, sockets switch covers, and a yellow rotary dial with a red plastic side-mounted hanging handset.

The design of the telephone exchange is based on the Post Office Telephone exchanges of the 1940s/50s when operators manually connected calls on a switchboard with a plug system (and were notorious for listening in to conversations....).

The original box is made of brown cardboard with a label stuck on the lid with the following information:-

Telephone Exchange

Toytown

Codeg

Great Britain

07/49 (this could be the possible date of manufacture)

The box is worn and stained, with the lid held together in the corners by brown tape.

The tin plate telephone exchange is in very good cosmetic condition with some scuffs and scratches, commensurate with age and use. Some of the connector wires are a bit loose, and the yellow dial is functioning but slightly wobbly. The side mount hanger for the telephone appears to be missing and has been replaced with a white metal hook.

The lower front of the toy exchange has two white-on-black panels reading REGD. DESIGN 879566 and PAT APP 57. Neither of these numbers actually exist and must have been used for illustrative purposes only.

Box Dimensions:

• Height: 13.5 cm
• Length: 26 cm
• Width: 23.5 cm

Please click on the following links for more vintage toys and games.

Cowan De Groot Ltd

Cowan De Groot were founded in 1919 in 110 Leonard Street, London, EC2. They were manufacturers of toys, dolls, and doll related ephemera, which they produced under the trade name Codeg. They also imported goods, particularly from Japan and Germany, and relabelled them.

Codeg moved to Chart St, Clerkenwell, London, and were best known for producing, the now highly collectible, Doctor Who memorabilia in the 1960s.