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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

S is for Ships (and other vessels); Part 7 - Games and things...

Finishing this seven-part overview of small toy vessels finds us looking at the very small ones, mostly board game playing pieces, but also the Hong Kong copies of Minic ships and some cereal premiums.

So, most of you should recognise at least one of the above lots as three of them are from one or another version of Battleships, and anybody who hasn't had a set of Battleships in his past has had a deprived childhood - in my opinion!

The red plastic ones top left and inset - right, are actually from a game called Up Periscope by Denis Fisher, and the inset shows the depth-charge and torpeado pieces, while the main image has one (right-hand cargo-ship) with the stud removed to make it 'waterline'.

The vinyl ships are from a travelling set of Battleships, the little silver one is from the Merit pocket-set and the grey ones in the other inset come from an unknown source probably MB Games - see below. For size; the vinyl carrier is 30mm and the little silver MTB is 15mm long. The grey set are between 26mm (MTB) and 65mm (the carrier).

This set (red and yellow), is from MB Games - Germany, and belongs to a game called Submarine Hunt, you can see they are similar too but not the same as the grey set from the previous lot, however the shot-pegs are identical - hence my suspicions that that set too is MB - vessels vary between 28-45mm.

The other (clear and smoked plastic) set is from Salvo! by Palitoy for Parker Games and vary from 30 to 40mm. The styling - all 'groovy' Habitat perspex dates this to the early 1970's?

The set illustrated in the two left-hand images are Quaker cereal premiums, and I think this is a complete or near complete set, the inset shows a variation of the Empress of Britain without tonnage and a redesign of the whole face of the male half of the mould.

Queen Elizabeth 83,673 Tons - 9omm
United States 53,329 Tons - 86mm
Queen Mary 81,238 Tons - 85mm
 Liberte 51,840 Tons - 83mm
Tina Onassis 27,853 Tons - 77mm
Mauretania 35,677 Tons - 64mm
Nieuw Amsterdam 36,640 Tons - 62mm
Arcadia 29,734 Tons - 61mm
Edinburgh Castle 28,705 Tons - 61mm
Empress of Britain 25,516 Tons - 53.5mm


The grey vessels top-right are from an unknown sourse and are both well detailed and quite modern in design, they may be from one of the Japanese kit manufactures, sold as war-gaming pieces? The carrier is 75mm the smaller submarine a mere 45mm.  

03-09-2016 Now ID'd with the help of Uncle Brian - Silvercorn.

The last picture shows the 4 sculpts from the MB Games Axis & Allies (Sub; 35mm, Cargo vessel; 38mm, battleship; 50mm and the carrier 55mm) and 3 of the old Lido ships from the 1950's dime-store cards (55-60mm long).

These are a lovely little thing, they are mostly Hong Kong plastic copies of the smaller models from the Tri-ang Minic mini ships, in various grey-blues, the painted tug seems to be another HK copy, but HK was responsible for a revival of the original moulds and they may have put this in with one of the bigger ships? the pale grey tug, while a HK copy - seems to be from another source, being a little 'heavier' all round.

The lifeboat is a Minic original from the launch-station next to the pier and comes in at about 7mm (I forgot to measure it and it's back in storage!) the tugs are 4cm with the larger warships 9cm.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

In you S is for Ships....the little grey ships with the nipples on their bottoms are from a periscope game. The game had a triangular shaped unit with a cardboard sea surface that was suspended over the plastic floor. The nipples stuck through the cardboard. The periscope fired marbles at the nipples underneath the cardboard surface. I wish I knew the name of that game. It was great!

Hugh Walter said...

Thanks for that, it's a 'project' for someone who wants to spend a few hours or days on BoardGameGeek!!

Hugh

Uncle Brian said...

Hi Hugh!

I was hunting through your blog looking to identify some plastic ships that I have recently purchased (They seem to be cereal premiums), and I noticed that you hadn't got an identity for "The grey vessels top-right are from an unknown source and are both well detailed and quite modern in design, they may be from one of the Japanese kit manufactures, sold as war-gaming pieces?"

They are from the the Sea Vessels set produced from an outfit called Silver Corn. PSR has a feature devoted to their 1/72 scale soldier set that you can find here

Hugh Walter said...

Hi Uncle B...there is a synergy running through the hooby, clearly:

I am editing the shots of the set Brian Berke sent me a while ago, and got my vessels out of storage last night to re-shoot! There will be a Silvercorn post in September - as they are shelf toys not Rack Toys!

Cheers...
H

Hugh Walter said...

Hobby....doh!

Uncle Brian said...

I look forward to seeing that!

Hugh Walter said...

Literally - A week or two.

H

Anonymous said...

Hi Hugh!

A word about that painted tug in your pics. You are right, it is Hong Kong-made, I recognise it from a lovely detailed set available in 1968. I received one that Xmas. All moulded in breakable plastic and labelled just "Ships and Boats" the set comprised 2 of the said tugs, 2 small identical merchantmen, a larger scaled cargo ship with many davits and an equally-sized liner (red hull with white decking and a single funnel and mast). The latter delighted me since it resembled the ship aboard which we had sailed back to England from Australia that year.

The models (which were glued to a card base painted like the sea naturally) came in a box with a see-through blister top over which hung a cardboard flap featuring beautiful artwork of a luxury liner moored by the quayside, while the official art illustration of the 'Canberra' graced its backside. Regretfully the toy went years ago.

I have tried in vain to track it down on the net but to no avail, your photo of the tug is the closest link I've stumbled across. So if you or anyone can help with more info, I'd be most thankful.

Hugh Walter said...

Hi Annon - I'd like to think they were either Blue Box or Lucky, but it's lost in the mists of time (at the moment) and the sets do seem to be generics, they do a lovely post set, with the Minic wharves, but with tiny z-gauge vehicles glued next to the warehouses! I saw one on evilBay a while back - so they do turn up!

H