Ready-Cut Village Vintage Paper Village - Pt 1 Hardware Store

We're starting a new short series today,   "Ready-Cut Village" Vintage Paper Village. I really don't have much to say about the manufacturer of these buildings because the manufacturer has left no clues about themselves. No name is to be found anywhere on the box or the buildings. Perhaps there was an instruction sheet at one time with all that info - but it is lost to the ages. All five buildings are the same size, the only differentiation being either round cut or angle cut dormers and are just the right size for display on a pre-war O-gauge train layout. They are all made of a very light-weight cardboard and the walls are printed on one long sheet, joined at the ends by a tab-&-slot arrangement. We'll post the set in the order in which they are printed on the box top:

-Hardware Store

-Village Store

-Fire Station

-Garage

-House

The seller listed this as a 1930s set but quite frankly I'm more apt to date this as 1920s. What I've noticed after starting to collect vintage paper is that the artists/designers design what is current, not what was already considered dated or old. They draw what they see around them in their world at the time the buildings are being made. That makes vintage paper wonderful time capsules and I'll be able to justify my thoughts a little clearer as we progress. Each house measures 4" (10.2cm) W x 2 3/4" (7cm) D (without the roof). When you put the roof on they measure 4 3/4" (12.1cm) W x 3 1/2" (8.9cm) D. the houses are 4 1/2" (11.4cm) H The roof pieces, measured flat, are 4 3/4" (12.1cm) x 5 1/8" (13cm). Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

  

I love the accouterments shown in the windows and actually reminds me a little of the neighborhood hardware store we had just up the block from my house when I was growing up. Except that store was in a long building which housed other businesses like a barber shop, tavern, apartments, and so on. But walking inside the dimly lit interior I remember the dark wooden floors, the wooden display cases, the boxes and barrels of miscellaneous stuff. Okay, on to our paper hardware store.

In the left window of our sample is a large wash tub. The wash board is leaning up next to it. (and yup, my mom had and used one of these old washboards on occasion). To the right of the wash tub is what appears to be an ice box.

In the right window is a carpet sweeper (just like the one we used to have) and a manual lawn mower (yup, you got it, we had one of those too)

This window is a stumper. The white appliance to the right is stove/oven. BUT, what is that brown cabinet to the left?? Does anyone out there have a clue?? Was it a hamper? Bakery cabinet? Vegetable cabinet?