F is for Fould or Foulds Figurines

I am around, just been indulging in real-life (how selfish!) and this week I've been busy over on the Airfix blog, adding stuff!

This is all I know about these figurines;

Edgar Rice Boroughs E'zine...scroll down about half-way.

But...I'm not even sure that's right, I mean; clearly the figurines go with/are for the toy theatre, but I can find nothing else about 'Fould' without an 's' and the order-form in the link isn't enlargeable to check spelling. As I have squirrelled away all sorts of stuff over the years I know that a company called Foulds & Freure (with an 's') were importers of Japanese and European toys (to America) between the wars, I suspect these (the link's subjects) are them? There's nothing on either name in Garratt.

The figures illustrated above, will be originals. probably from Germany (?), and are about 8 inches high, hollow, slip-cast bisque (or;Parian Porcelain) mouldings in the style of Fairings, which they may well have been issued as over here...there..Europe. Doh!

29th Jan 2015 - Paul 'Stads' Stadinger has sent a link with further information....

Hakes Dot Com

Thanks for that Paul (both Pauls!)., and it's a different Foulds altogether, in fact it's Gem Clay...when it's not Heinz!

"In 1932 the Gem Clay Forming Co. produced a series of Tarzan plaster statues which were offered by various sponsors ........ The insert sheets/sets varied for the different sponsors. One side features images of the 10 numbered statues along w/color chart and offer blank. Opposite side advertises Foulds/Heinz products. The main difference is the statues offered. Most are same from set to set, with a few exceptions. Foulds offers "Three Monkeys" and "Witch Doctor" statues while Heinz offers "Kerchak The Ape" and "French Sailor" statues and sheets have different layouts".

J is for...JE SUIS CHARLIE

The complacent, the disinterested, the politically ignorant/politically uneducated/politically 'old-school' dogmatic, the climate change deniers, yeah; even the liberal elite are going to have to get off their comfortable, fat, well paid, well fed, grey, middle-class arses in 2015...we are blundering into the end of days, led by money-driven monkeys, thinking science will save us from ourselves, believing our kids and their kids will be 'all right', hopeing technology will find/provide the answers befor it's too late...really? I mean; REALLY?

T is for Twelfth-Night

Which is tomorrow - unless you want a year's bad luck! Stag-on Green Bearskins, your work is not yet done!

F is for Follow-up Fellows from Spot On

As with the Vitacup the other day, figures come in in dribs and drabs, occasionally allowing for a new article so further to the Original Post these are mostly new poses or new colours of Spot-On figures for die-cast toy vehicles...

The two green ones and the school teacher are straight duplicates, and the guitarist and two top right have appeared before in alternative colours, the rest are additions. These were looked at in some detail in a recent issue (155 spring/summer number) issue of Plastic Warrior, and I'll come back to them in detail when I've tracked down the last few!

T is for Two...Toy Tractors!

The other side of midnight and a link with the past as I cheat Old Father Time by tying the old year to the new! I nearly called this "T is for Two...Taffy Tractors", but some would have seen vague colonial racism, and the link to Taffy Toys is tenuous to say the lest!

One of the first things I got from volume two of the new Farming in Miniature books I will be reviewing in full in the New Year is the fact that the tractor and accessories I blogged way back, are not as simple as they seemed at the time!

There are in fact; two versions of the tractor, and the implements I showed, don't all belong to the Paramount tractor I was blogging. I suspect the Thomas Toys is the original, purely on the tolerance of the front wheel spigots which are the correct length to hold the wheels tight, the Paramount spigots are longer, so the wheels travel a bit.

Most of the other differences are annotated in the comparison photograph above. I shan't correct the old post yet, as firstly I feel you should go out and purchase the two volumes if you wish to know the differences for yourself, and secondly I need to track-down a few bits before I can do both family's justice!

- Farming in Miniature Volume 1: Airfix to Denzil Skinner: A Review of British-made Toy Farm Vehicles Up to 1980

- Farming in Miniature Volume 2: Dinky to Wend-Al: A Review of British-Made Toy Farm Vehicles Up to 1980

A couple of head-ons to show some of the differences above in greater detail, in my original post on the Paramount tractors you will notice a lack of the two front brackets on the bumper (fender) undersides, as the two bagged ones are the same, it would appear there is an intermediate third design.

The Paramount version was also issued as a premium with Oxydol washing powder, these were sellotaped to the powder boxes (there was ONLY Sellotape in the 1950's!) and then stacked in the stores, so get crushed AND ripped, it's a tough life being a premium!

Tractor fans might enjoy this collection pictured in Tasmania...few too-many row-crops for my liking! And thanks again to Adrian Little (one of the co-authors of the above books) for the opportunity to photograph these together.