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.

Monday, September 3, 2018

F is for Follow-up - Metal Flats; N'animals Not Nazi's

When we looked at those peculiar Nazi flatsthe other month, I said I had a rhino (and possibly other animals) in storage, so I was pleasantly surprised to find I had in fact added nine additional animals to the rhino.

Aluminium Flats; Bactrian Camel; Bear; Camel; Chicken; Cigarette Premiums; Die Cast Toys; Farm Animals; Flat Figures; German Flats; German Toy Figurines; Goose; Llama; Mandril; Mazac; Metal Toy; Penguin; Pig; Premium Flats; Premiums; Rhino; Russian Flats; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Stork; Wild Animals; Wild Life; Wildlife; Zamac; Zamak; Zoo Animals;
Domestic animals and birds, wild animals and birds, all the bases are covered! The rhino; who I remembered to be smoother and cleaner 'of line', actually looks more like Albrecht Dürer's interpretation of an Asian Rhino!

I have no idea how large the whole set was or . . . 'sets' were, and like the clowning Nazi's don't know where they came from, or when. The suspicion is that the source is the same . . .

Aluminium Flats; Bactrian Camel; Bear; Camel; Chicken; Cigarette Premiums; Die Cast Toys; Farm Animals; Flat Figures; German Flats; German Toy Figurines; Goose; Llama; Mandril; Mazac; Metal Toy; Penguin; Pig; Premium Flats; Premiums; Rhino; Russian Flats; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Stork; Wild Animals; Wild Life; Wildlife; Zamac; Zamak; Zoo Animals;
. . . both as far as the manufacture of the figures goes, and where they appeared, I favour cigarette premiums, but it's all up for grabs!

They are the same lightweight, tinny, aluminium casts and while the side-flanges are a little different, the overall look is the same, but that difference, along with the more realistic sculpting might still suggest a different maker?

The problem with shiny, looked-after aluminium is that it's impossible to date! A thought though - The Russians and East European members of the 'Soviet Bloc' did use this material a lot, including as flats or semi-flats, even for Toy Soldiers. So, were these to be from 'beyond the curtain', that would back-up the satirical angle of the previous set (especially if they came from the former East Germany) and date them to the 1950/60's?

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