So these were the harbingers of the mother-load to come...I was digging Mum's veg-patch, bearing in mind that she has lived here for over 30 years and both my brother and I have dug bits of the garden from time to time, dug-out old roots and weeded here and there, and I have found the odd bit of Lego or Betta-Builder over the years but thought nothing of it, there are billions of bits of both in the UK and you often find them in the strangest places...but this; this is different!
The stuff was eventually coming out of the ground with every forkful, and I dutifully put it to one side along with an old Marmite bottle and a Camp chicory bottle, both pre-dating this stuff by several decades and both in good nick.Top right shows the washed articles like a plate of little jewels, for the most part the plastics hardly faded or affected by several decades in the ground, bottom left shows them divided into four piles; Binned before you read this (sadly that included the Matchbox Spitfire wing...why were their transfers so much better than Airfix's?! +/- 33 years and a wash in hot soapy water and they stayed on!); The 'Savable with work' pile - yellow and green bits, the 'Odd bits for an eventual feeBay lot' which will join tons of similar detritus in a large picnic-tub somewhere and the 'Going into the collection' pile which consists of the items in the close-up.
Being - a near-mint Charbens lifeguard trumpeter on foot, regal trumpeting, for the use of. He did have the remains of paint on, but it was so sparse I removed it at the washing stage. A rocket-tip or bomb for the bag of such things and a piece of pink plastic which I'm pretty sure is from the Merit castle-builder/infant-toy we looked at ages ago, I'm so sure I'm not even going to check that post before I publish this, so maybe a slice of humble-pie before bed? [Hark the sound of an ample slice of pie being consumed - the hole wasn't even the same size! so...] If so it will go into the useful bits pile!
Top left is a few of the other usable items, and the broken car, which I show here as I have a horrible feeling its a Mebetoys car, a few years ago I worked with a chap called Andrew Adamedies, who is a bit of an acknowledged expert on Mebetoys and remember him telling me how you could tell them by the self-tapping screws rather than rivets on the underside...this one has a self-tapper!Weird how the ear from a Mr. Potato Head - usually the first item to brake - is the only survivor of a long-lost set! The yellow thing is some precursor of Kinder, and I have found a few of these over the years, the holes are for sticking things into it to make something a bit more recognisable that an egg with holes...gum-ball machines?
The flat-bed for the Lego articulated lorry seems beyond redemption, but a judicious cut by the wheel-stops will result in a usable piece. The fork unfortunately killed the Lego tree made from raw-material pellets (my favourite type of Lego tree) and I think the base is still in the ground as the break was clean. However, a bit of rain may reveal it, or tomorrows raking...and in the meantime the three-pieces will glue-back together to make a fine bush!
So, a bit more digging tomorrow and then planting, but from plotting what I found today and where the other bits were a few years ago, the main mother-load is still to be dug, they are safe in the ground for a few more years and one day I'll make a project of it...It's a load of junk but it was free - which is always nice - and it just came out of the ground - which is nicer still!
If this was a movie; Someone (Guy in yellow tee #3) would be throwing his safety-helmet in the air, jumping up and down, grinning like a madman and shouting;
"Broken Plastic! Boss - We've hit broken PLASTIC!"
"if this was a movie..." What? is this NOT a movie? it's probably the most amazing story about toys I have ever heard.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie "the boy who could fly", Fred Savage buries his G.I.Joes and later gets them back from the earth in a raining scene. This is something similar, only 33 years later.
Well - it's just a few bits of plastic detritus, but I was thinking of when they hit oil, there's always one bloke covered in crude and grinning like a fool!
ReplyDeleteA few more bits turned-up today but the rest will have to wait, still they've been there for at least 34 years, so a few more won't hurt them!
Hugh