Cardboard Christmas houses made in Japan preserved by collector

The Daily Inter Lake

he miniature Christmas houses set up in Robby Lucke's living room look like standard-issue department-store ornaments to the untrained eye.

And they were - 80 years ago.

The Somers collector has spent the past couple of years assembling an entire village of Japanese Christmas houses, all made of cardboard, that were popular in American homes from the late 1920s until World War II. Hand-crafted in mass quantities, the smallest of the colorful cardboard houses sold for as little as 3 cents at dimestores like Woolworth's and were a mainstay under the Christmas tree as decorations.

Because they weren't cataloged with model numbers or manufacturer names, the houses are difficult to date.

"Once in awhile someone will write a date on the bottom, or there will be a price tag on it," Lucke said, pointing to one 1930s house. "This one is marked 49 cents. I paid $200 for it."

Lucke was first introduced to the Christmas houses as a boy growing up in Havre. His mother had a couple of American-made cardboard houses she routinely placed under the tree.

"I played with them for years and years, took them out on the prairie and played cars," he recalled.

Those childhood Christmas houses didn't weather the test of time, but Lucke never forgot them. Later in life, he began collecting porcelain houses, but it wasn't the same.

His focus changed when a friend told him about the vintage cardboard houses and suggested he look for them online.

"I went on eBay and saw the two houses I had as a boy," he said. "I got really excited and bid on a couple and got them."

His collection now fills the living room of his home on Flathead Lake and has overflowed to the kitchen and entryway.

A retired English and Montana history teacher, Lucke has had as

much fun researching the houses as he has collecting them.

The tradition apparently was popular in Germany in the late 1800s and early 1900s. These German "putz" houses (putz means to place or decorate) were also placed as decorations under the Christmas tree. They flourished until the beginning of World War I. Production of the houses seems to have ceased until 1928, when the Japanese began making huge numbers of similar cardboard houses.

The houses were crafted in many different genres, and Lucke's goal quickly became finding one of each genre.

"Five-thousand dollars later, here I am," he said with a smile.

Lucke sold about 30 of his Christmas houses at the Conrad Mansion arts and crafts sale this year, and has a collection for sale at The Barn, a Bigfork antique shop.

"There were never any catalogs, so one of the great mysteries is how the Japanese made these," he said. "They were masters with paper."

The oldest of the Japanese-made houses were produced in 1928 and are called "printies" because of the brick pattern on the cardboard.

Another variety are "glossies," with lacquered walls and roofs for a shinier finish.

"Experts think that during the early '30s there were a lot of highly glossy train sets, and instead of using tin for buildings, this was the answer to getting inexpensive accessories for train sets," Lucke explained. "I have a rare glossy decked out for Christmas."

Most collectors' favorite Christmas houses are referred to as "coconuts" or "frosties." They feature a ground-up cellophane mixture put on with heavy glue to create a kind of stucco finish and snow-covered rooftops. It has the texture of ground coconut. Other genres featured cotton batting for rooftop snow and corrugated cardboard to create a tiled effect.

EBay has produced the best results for Lucke, though sometimes the descriptions of houses aren't accurate. He's had some pleasant surprises on the online auction site, getting larger and more valuable Christmas houses than he expected.

"At estate sales, you know you'll get a good deal, but they've probably had a lot of wear and tear," he said.

The "loggies," chalet-style log houses, are among Lucke's favorites.

"I love the chalets, so I try to specialize in them," he said. "They remind me of the Going-to-the Sun chalets" in Glacier National Park.

Lucke spends summers in Glacier Park as a driver for the red buses and is in charge of walking tours.

He's still searching for the largest size of cardboard chalets produced, and he desperately wants a "coconut" version of a house in Glasgow that he walked by every day on his way to teach school.

The "Made in Japan" houses came to an abrupt end after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The cardboard decorations were pulled from dimestore shelves, taken into the streets and crushed because of their association with the enemy, Lucke said.

An American manufacturer, Dolly Toy Co., began making the cardboard houses after World War II, but by 1950s, the novelties had more or less become history and leftover houses were left to languish in attics.

"There will be fewer and fewer as time goes on," he said. "I'd like to see people in Montana get excited about these, so we could have shows and trade them."

He's come to believe that Christmas-house collectors are few and far between in western Montana.

"I've gone to every antique store from here to St. Ignatius" and no one has heard of them," he said.

Lucke also ran an advertisement in a local shopper, to no avail. Local obstacles haven't stopped him from assembling an impressive collection, though.

"To think these are 80 years old and still here is remarkable," he said.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by e-mail at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com