About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Monday, December 18, 2017

F is for Follow-up - Paint Your Own Toys

Just a quick one; following up on the Paint Your Own posts, Brian Berke sent me these last week, they are a bit cartoony, but then they are also piggy-banks, or Swineosaurus Geldii, as I believe paleontologists are wont to call them, and need to be fat to take all those pennies!

In Walgreen's as of last Tuesday; should you be fortunate enough to live where Walgreen operates! An excellent gift idea for younger relatives, and as they get older they can always repaint!

Brian also sent these a while ago as part of a mixed lot he was trying to ID, and while I couldn't help, I did suggest Paint Your Own sets, as I had just seen the sets I would later purchase for those posts the other week.

I took them (the pictures) home and had a better look (I struggle with images in Hotmail these days, partly down to limited time on the internet, partly down to the fact they make it as hard as possible to get them to show big enough!), spotted the 'CHINA' (on the rear of the left hand figure) and changed my mind, suggesting they were from a medieval play-set.

But now doing a bit of digging into these Paint Your Own sets (there's a fair few out there), I've changed my mind back to the possibility they are actually from a Paint Your Own set, possibly targeted at castles, museums and historical sites.

The Crescent 'Berserker' clearly booked his annual leave for the pre-Christmas period so there's an approximately 54mm ACW Union flag-bearer as a scaler.

Clearly medieval or early 'age of exploration', could they be from a Pilgrim Father's set, or touristy thingy of/from a US source, do you have them? How many poses were there in a set or what was the set called? Were there Local Indians in the set for the pioneers to trade with?

I found this (Kandy Toys) looking for something else the other day, and while they are more dinosaurs, it's further evidence that Paint Your Own sets are looking to be a rich vein for toy and model figures, animals and such like, have you found any useful ones? I've also seen Paint Your Own plaster figurines.

7 comments:

Dan said...

The three medieval figures came in small bagged sets that were sold in the US chain store Target in the late 1990s or early 2000s - it was a while ago. Along with this set, which included "royal" figures, there were also bags of grey and black knights in a vinyl-like plastic - they were clearly modeled on the old Timpo knights, but given different heads and weapons.

Hugh Walter said...

Thanks Dan, really useful stuff. Were they given any 'paint your own' trope, or just sold as a bag of 'rack toys'?

Certainly helps place them in the archive, cheers and wishes for a Merry Christmas to you and yours!

H

Dan said...

Hugh,

My brain just kicked in, and I remembered that these figures were featured in a page at Thor Sheil's Army Men Homepage. You can see the whole line there. The "Royal Family" make a nice addition to a castle set-up. I wish there had been more of the servants! The knights went well with the then-ubiquitous Timpo clones, though the rubbery plastic made for a lot of time doing the hot-water treatment.

Here is the link:

http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/medfigs1.html

Have a Wonderful Christmas!

Dan

Hugh Walter said...

Oooooh! That's a nice little set isn't it! Thanks for that and the link Dan. I have Thor in the link list ('Army men') but it's been a while since I checked it out for new stuff, I'm having connectivity issues today, but next chance I get... surfing!

H

Dan said...

I forgot to link the second page at Thor's Army Men Page showing the accessories that came with these figures. The catapult was really nice. Here is the link:

http://www.thortrains.net/armymen/medfigs2.html

Dan

Hugh Walter said...

I found them . . . and nice separate weapons and a dragon! We like Dragons!

H

Terranova47 said...

Thank you Dan. Sadly this holiday season Target has nothing of interest like these.