I remember as a teenager going to my local model shop, where they would sell you a huge range of accessories for these construction toys. You could even buy just one Brickplayer window or one Meccano gear wheel. (The shop was Wally Kilmister in Wembley, North West London. I have since discovered that Wally Kilmister was a successful speedway rider, who opened this shop and a sports shop alongside when he retired from racing. Sadly, the shops are long gone now, but here is an interesting memory from somebody who worked there.)
To see the full size version of any of the pictures on this page, click on the text below it.
The most basic components of course are the bricks. Standard Brickplayer offered four basic packs of bricks. Pack number 100 contained 100 full sized bricks. In pack 101 were a mix of three-quarter bricks and half bricks. Pack 102 contained gable and peak bricks. Finally, pack 8107 provided angled bricks for constructing bays in a package with two bay windows. I have the box shown below that would have contained packs 100, 101 and 102.
No doubt there were comparable shop boxes for Contemporary and, perhaps, Early Brickplayer, but I do not have examples of these. I remember that they also offered a big pack of 1000 bricks. I have even seen a reference to there being a pack (presumably containing bricks and all the other components) that enabled the owner of a Farm Kit to build all the farm models. If that existed it would have been huge.
I have three shop boxes containing windows and doors that were sold individually. They are all in good condition and containing many of the original components.
I assume that the small Standard Brickplayer box is earlier than the large one because the latter contains Farm Kit components and the small one does not even have garage doors, but it is interesting to note that the prices are higher in the small box. Comparable components in the Contemporary Brickplayer box have the same low prices as in the large Standard Brickplayer box. It seems that Spears reduced the prices at some stage, probably before the Farm Kit was produced.
The other principal form of components was roofing. Standard Brickplayer models mostly used sheets made to look like red tiling but there were also sheets made to look like concrete. The sheets in the kits were printed so that you could cut out the exact sized pieces for each model, but large sheets could be bought as accessories. I have a more or less complete (missing some sheets I have taken to use for my own buildings) pack of tiling roofing sheets with strips of capping tiles.
Contemporary Brickplayer used a greater variety of roofing styles (and included transparent rooflights as shown in the large windows and doors box above). I have a box that is rather damaged and empty. It would have contained concrete, aluminium and pantile roofing sheets, together with some related components.
Finally, I have a package of pantile roofing that would presumably been in a proper shop box, or perhaps been taken from several boxes like the above.
More links: This Brickplayer website sits within my personal website tonyohagan.co.uk. The links below provide access to the other parts of my website.
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