C is for Cheerio Cars from Canada

This is definitely a minor make, here, back in Canada, back in the day,  I believe it was another workaday 'dime-store' maker, but these are from the UK arm, and we didn't have the same market, we had much more Hong Kong rack-toy tat, much earlier, sitting alongside hundreds of home-grown brands, but they do turn-up and were probably - at some point - readily available; if not actually common.

I think we've seen both these shots (or other images from the same photo-sessions) before so let's get them out of the way, the upper image is my sample of Cheerio, with a comparison shot below, on a couple of similar vehicles from other contemporary companies. (yes Wanna..., not wana...)

Quality suggests that the parent; Cheerio (Canada), was sending the moulds over for a run in the UK plant, and also that those moulds were being borrowed from the US owners, rather than there being any kind of illicit copying/piracy going on.

Years ago we had a discussion about this on one of the Forums (when I was on forums!); the mould-sharing that went on, which has led to the problems of ID'ing a lot of these, was down to good old protectionism, taxes (lifted by President Johnson, I seem to recall, maybe Nixon?) on imports and exports led to moulds being flown about the planet (or trucked to Canada!), as you could run the mould in the customer country for three days and produce all the stock you'd need for the next few years!

Not sure if the chain is original, but no reason why it wouldn't be, although it is missing a hook of some kind. Equally I don't know the origin of the moulding, but I think Pyro is a definite source for Cheerio product.

The little jeep in the first shot (which we have looked at here, before - more than once) was definitely a Pyro moulding.

This is definitely an ex-Pyro moulding; you can see the remains of one of those funny semi-flat, yellowish-tan figures that both Pyro and Kleeware used with their vehicles (except when they were red - fire brigade - vehicles; then they got blue figures glued in.

One wonders how Cheerio (UK) and Kleeware resolved the fact that they were both importing similar moulds for the same companies in the US (or Canada!). The mark is not clear, but you can see how its basically the same as the Kleeware, Pyro and Tudor Rose marks with 'Made In England in a circle and Cheerio across the middle.

The reason for the similar marks and all those blank circles, or simple, unbranded, 'Made-in-England's' on the spaceships will be down to the fact that the mark was on a large rod (like a release-pin, but bigger) running through the mould-block as a separate element, which could be replaced with different rods with different faces, sometimes it was easier/expedient to just put a blank-faced rod in the tool.

This is totally unknown to me, and is a call for help, Brian Berke who's sent lots of stuff to the Blog and for the Blog in the last few months, would love to find one, as this - pictured - is his old childhood bath toy, and he'd like to find one in better shape!

Made by Remark who I've no information on, it's not in Garratt, it's not in White, and it's not in FIM! If you happen to have this boat or a serviceable component (I suspect a deck and mast/sail/s) please get in touch and I'll pass you on the Brian.

If you're wondering what the black thing behind the boat is, it's the mounting-plate for the single pom-pom gun on the back of some Tri-Ang Minic plastic trucks!