S is for Sets

Both from Christmas crackers, and both quite recent I think...well I sort of know, but I'll explain, I tend not to keep these in their sets...no, that's a lie; I was keeping them in their sets until the big lot came in, at which point I photographed them for posterity - er...this article - and broke them into the 'new' classification bags that resulted from the big sorting and bringing-together of the accumulated tat, kak, shite!

The upper four came together a few years ago at - I seem to recall - a works 'do', where cheap crackers are pretty-much guaranteed! The lower shot group were in the big lot of the autumn, The blue plastic and moulding style (3D relief with flat-edged, hollow undersides) tie them together well.

The ship is an old favourite as a cracker toy, although somewhere I have a bag full of them in red and blue with cavity bases from the Lucky Bag depot fire, insurance clear-out I did back in the 1990's. I keep expecting to find the original in one of the many sets of flat premiums from France, but which appeared all over as food freebies, but they tend to be better detailed, so I think maybe 'just' a cracker/novelty sculpt?

These were in those small tree-decoration crackers a few years ago, but I can't remember where, they were either in Tesco's about 2005/6 or Sainsbury's c.2009/10? or 2013? Anyway, we can be pretty sure there were other items and that they were all available in both colours.

Pretty crude; the highlight for me is the scale-down of the Kellogg's 'Tony the Tiger' keyring...someone in HK must have the original mould or master sculpt, 30/40-odd years after the original last plopped onto the breakfast table.

The rook was seemingly the only chess piece? I have a similar knight from the 70's...why not do a whole set with one of the paper boards we looked at a post or two below? Missed opportunity...set of 16 budget cracker with one back row and one front row piece in each cracker, board printed on the box...Bob's your uncle!

There's a hear-no-evil  monkey charm, so the other two may have existed? the rest is typical old gum-ball/cracker fare. Spinners aren't even numbered. The banana is a dolphin!