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.

Sunday, December 18, 2016

UPS is for United Parcel Service

Well, these days Christmas comes in a 'white van' for most people, with the odd red, yellow or blue one! Letters, parcels, supermarket food-deliveries, Amazon sub-contractors . . . and then there are the chocolate-brown ones! You know, the funny-looking "Who made that?" one's . . .although albinism has been known!

Another delightful contribution from Brian Berke, this toy is credited to Nasta Industries Inc., of the old Toy Building - 200, 5th Avenue, but probably commissioned from UPS as an advertising gimmick of some kind? Although once you've made the toy, a retail run is bound to happen at some point?

You can see the corporate colour-scheme (as distinctive as the UK's Royal Fail red, or the 'Euro-post' yellow) is carried over to the packaging, and the figures are a touch larger than 54mm at a small sixty! The set included 8 paper/card parcels; presumably hidden in the van - for safekeeping!

The box with and without it's outer liner. Given how much larger the die-cast and railway hobbies are than the specific toy soldier branch, this would have had a great appeal to kids one suspects, but I've never even seen the figures loose in a tub somewhere, so it must have been a US (and HK?) exclusive release? Brilliant - Thanks Brian!

More on the distinctive UPS vehicles at Wikipedia

Update 19-12-16 - Brain has added an image of the cut-out packages, with the following note;

"As I said when I sent the pix I'm pretty sure that I saw the same figures and conveyor in the UK which on further thought was a Farm Tractor and trailer, hay bales, conveyor and figures. At the time it was amongst Blue Box toys but it may have been just mixed in as there was only one."

They seem to be printed on the underside of the packing tray for the set?

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