About Me

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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.

Saturday, September 24, 2016

T is for Two - Fire Engines

Photographed at the same time as the ambulances the other day, well - inter-service rivalry must be met with scrupulous fairness! So thanks to Adrian again.

This one has some age, and like the one below was really photographed with the hope I will be able to ID some of the unknown figures in storage at some point. While their plastic figures were sold under the Hilco label, here they are marketed with the full Johillco moniker.

Toys of this age tend to be sold 'as is', but I would be tempted to try and straighten that ladder with a couple of metal plates and a flower-press, slowly tightening the butterfly nuts over a day or two, then re-wire the winding gear to the crank-handle so the ladder could be raised again?

Adrian didn't rate this one, I guess because it's a copy of . . . French Dinky? But I rather liked it, although the box doesn't do it justice . . .

. . . and again I know I have these figures in storage, might even have some upstairs! They plug-in from the feet rather than the more usual rump-spigot! The mechanism utilises the common Mettoy/Lone Star seat-plugging-into-cradle arrangement we've seen here before. This is obviously die-cast to the Johillco's lead, and therefore is more robust and holds better surface detail.

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