I is for Itlerpud - Part One; Bits & Bobs

Which sounds like one of Adolf's paw-prints, but is in fact ITLAPD . . . AaHaarrrrrr! Mee'Artieees! It be Int'ernationaalll talk loik a Poirut day! Again begorra! It be almost loik it's everry yearrrr?

Thaall'be foive postin's to come this foin day, this'un be'in the firrrst ov'em! AaHaarrrrrr!

I think that's enough talking like a pirate, so long as you're seen to be making the effort! So, the first post will look at the odds'n'sods that I have picked-up or found since last year's ITLAPD "Aa'haarr!"

These were 'unknown' last year (or the year before? Mass nicht!) in different colours/poses, but I recently found them on my old phone, taken in 2009 in clearance store Poundstreatcher (I think? Mass nicht!), they were attached to the backing card of a large window-boxed 'Pirate Ship Play Set' and branded to Halsall (now HTI), they would have been branded to others/nothers elsewhere and are really generics, but it's nice to put them in a named-place if you're a UK collector!

I think this has missed a couple of TLAPD's "Aa'haarr!" having been put in the unknown/TBS civilian box as a kid in dressing-up clothes, which he is, but they are Pirate clothes, so he should have been included in a  previous TLAPD "Aa'haarr!"

He is - as some of you will have recognised straight away I'm sure - a Hong Kong copy of the old rubber Thomas Toys dolls house child, others included a girl dressed as the Statue of Liberty. I have somewhere in storage a similar copy of the Dutch Boy with his ill-fitting trousers, and when I say similar; I think it's the same 'army-man' green plastic. So from a set of kids not from a set of pirates - but definitely piracy!!

As we're on copies, let's stick with them for these two pirated pirates pirating (centre, yellow) who are 'based-on' copies of the Ideal pirates (outside, grey, here re-issues by Glencoe), they are not exactly the same - the left-hand one having simpler buckled slip-on shoes (against bows on the original), no bows on his stockings, no pistol in his waistband and no hat, in addition his collared-shirt is a sleeved affair, open to the waist at the front with the sleeves rolled up as opposed to the string-vest of the original sculpt.

The right-hand diminutive imposter has lost the turned-down 'cavalier' boots in favour of the shoe/stocking uniform, has added a neckerchief to his otherwise equally bare chest, replaced the waist-belt with a cummerbund and had a haircut!

I've had a Google for them and found zilch, they have some of the look (and size) of 1970's European bubble-gun and ice-cream premiums by Gelados Olá, Mundi bubble-gum, Tito, and the rest, but they lack the typical release-pin holes in the undersides of the feet typical of those makers/issuers figures, still,  someone must know of them?

22-09-2017 - Paul Morehead, revered editor of Plastic Warrior magazine, thinks they are Poplar Plastics which makes sense, but then why didn't they scale-down the spacemen or Romans; 'cos they had the moulds?

Finally in this introduction to TLAPD "Aa'haarr!", are the chaps I picked out of Peter Bergner's rummage bins, thinking I didn't have enough for ITLAPD "Aa'haarr!"; how wrong I was, but, here they are again; generic Chinapirates!

I've seen them in various colours and two versions; some are less well-fed than these - and look a bit better for it, these are not terribly realistic having the squat look of badly designed war-gaming lead. Someone suggested they were Toy Major, I can find no evidence for it, although Toy Major are a jobber and have carried all-sorts, but this lot aren't in their current inventory.

Now known to be Tai Sang's 'Redbox' and carried by various wholesalers/generic or phantom brands

These appear to be the thinner, better-looking version.

That's it for now, next part of ITLAP Day "Aa'haarr!" in a couple of hours . . .