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.

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

H is for Holtzstoff

It's a poor pun, but there are six of these posts, so 'any port on a storm'! In this post we're looking at the trees and fences from the Dusyma sample case sent to the blog by Joe Walton from the 'States.

Dusyma Erzgebirge; Dusyma Scenics; Dusyma Trees; Dusyma Wood Toys; Dusyma Wooden Toys; Early Learning Toys; Erzgebirge; Erzgebirge Fencing; Erzgebirge Fir Trees; Erzgebirge Hedges; Erzgebirge Sample Case; Erzgebirge Scenics; Erzgebirge Shrubs; Erzgebirge Toys; Infant Toy; Salesman's Sample; Sample Case; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Wood Toys; Wooden Novelty; Wooden Scenic Models; Wooden Toy; Wooden Trees;
Dark green trees, both fluffy (deciduous?) and evergreen firs, and a length of hedging or shrub which seems to have lost its bases. The bases are a two-ply or 'three-mil' plywood and are stained, against the full painting of the trees themselves - the same is true of the figures we will be looking at.

I quite like the kink in the trunk of the deciduous or 'broadleaved' tree, most of these erzgebirge trees have - traditionally - an axis of symmetry, while other details are the brown trunks, 2nd green tufts at ground level and additional bases, both usually lacking in these types.

Dusyma Erzgebirge; Dusyma Scenics; Dusyma Trees; Dusyma Wood Toys; Dusyma Wooden Toys; Early Learning Toys; Erzgebirge; Erzgebirge Fencing; Erzgebirge Fir Trees; Erzgebirge Hedges; Erzgebirge Sample Case; Erzgebirge Scenics; Erzgebirge Shrubs; Erzgebirge Toys; Infant Toy; Salesman's Sample; Sample Case; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Wood Toys; Wooden Novelty; Wooden Scenic Models; Wooden Toy; Wooden Trees;
Light green stuff; no firs, but solid elm/oak/chestnut types, along with longer lengths of hedge in two designs and an immigrant shrub from the compartment next-door! Looking like they were made yesterday, it's only the accrued dust down the compartment-edge which hints at the true age of this case and its contents.

Like most of the stuff in this set, these are all produced on the bread-slice principle we looked at here at Small Scale World years ago and which is still used by erzgebirge (and Bavarian, Tyrolean, Baden Württemberger, Black Forest . . . ) makers today.

Indeed ignoring the Dubai thing, Dusyma are based near Stuttgart, but I can never remember if Stuttgart is in Baden Württemberg or Baden-Baden - very important if you live there, I'm sure - no 'Hampshire Hog' wants to be labeled a Surreyman, they're all posh and 'up' themselves!

Dusyma Erzgebirge; Dusyma Scenics; Dusyma Trees; Dusyma Wood Toys; Dusyma Wooden Toys; Early Learning Toys; Erzgebirge; Erzgebirge Fencing; Erzgebirge Fir Trees; Erzgebirge Hedges; Erzgebirge Sample Case; Erzgebirge Scenics; Erzgebirge Shrubs; Erzgebirge Toys; Infant Toy; Salesman's Sample; Sample Case; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Wood Toys; Wooden Novelty; Wooden Scenic Models; Wooden Toy; Wooden Trees;
More hedges in dark green are in with the farm fencing. There is also a packet of picket-fencing (there's a silly rhyme in there somewhere!), which is shown originally being in-with the train, one wonders if someone in the factory said to the salesman "Dude, you haven't got any picket fence, we’ve already packed them, here; you better take a pack" (except - in German) before sticking a 'finished' product in the case?

More likely he deliberately carried it to show a sample of the packaging available to the shopkeepers/buyers, as they played with carefully studied everything else!

Dusyma Erzgebirge; Dusyma Scenics; Dusyma Trees; Dusyma Wood Toys; Dusyma Wooden Toys; Early Learning Toys; Erzgebirge; Erzgebirge Fencing; Erzgebirge Fir Trees; Erzgebirge Hedges; Erzgebirge Sample Case; Erzgebirge Scenics; Erzgebirge Shrubs; Erzgebirge Toys; Infant Toy; Salesman's Sample; Sample Case; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Wood Toys; Wooden Novelty; Wooden Scenic Models; Wooden Toy; Wooden Trees;
60-65mm is quite large for these types, which part-explains the extra colours and the bases, they will need something to hold them upright on runs or carpets, and something to break-up what whould otherwise be a large piece of green!

Also; you can see in the reflected flash-light, on the deciduous tree, how crudely or pooly-finished these are; modern examples, pre-war examples . . . and the train well see in a later set, are much better finished with a smooth, even coating, the inference being austerity conditions and/or shortages, in the factory.

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