P is for Plunder Posts - 3 - Themes This Year

As we've already seen today (and will see tomorrow) this year's plunder pile was very eclectic and unlike last year (when I was looking-out for Fontanini and Fonplast), this year I had no real agenda beyond the obvious constraints (or driving-forces) of RTM (Rack Toy Month) and Talk Like a Pirate Day (TLAPD), however, there is/are always a few patterns or trends revealed to be running-through the spoil-heap, once it's sorted and this year there were two manufacturer-based themes in evidence.

Gem, Gemodels, GeModels, Ge-Models call them what you like (they did!), these are mostly Culpitt's anyway! This was the primary synergy in the plunder this year and it raised several paragraphs worth of anecdotal stuff!

You may remember last year (or the year before) Mike Harding offered me three skateboarders, to which I said a hasty "Yes!", well he had some more this year, and there was one in Trevor's bag, so three of them for a start!

I'm hoping the pop-bandsmen are a different brown to the ones I already have, and while the drum-kit is missing a side-drum, it's otherwise complete and will be wholly-so when added to the rest.

The shrub is brittle and missing its 'top-knot' so future photo-background scenery only! But I noticed that the stuff Musgrave issued as Gem, with the base mark (shrub, cowboy and horse guard), are chalkier plastic than the ones Culpitt's had produced for them by a third party (from un-base-marked moulds supplied by George) which are much glossier.

The Santa in the bottom right-hand corner is Festival which are 'Musgrave' of some kind, while the upper-right pair with a set of skis (which fit both) are later HK sourced stuff of/from Culpitt's, probably also carried - in the 'States' - by Wilton. Skiing Bear . . . bear on skis - priceless!

The tennis players however - are driving me mad! There must be a trader at PW who got a job lot of these years ago, and over the years I've bought most of them from him, because; not being the brightest button in the box, every time I see them, I think "Are these the ones I need?", and buy a pair, but every time I get a sunburnt boy with painted base and a flesh-coloured girl with plain base, I need the opposite! Literally - I have three pairs here and another one or two in storage! Big Fat Doh!

I picked-up several more Gem/Culpitt items two weeks later at last weekend's Sandown Park toy fair; boxer's in European and Negro finish, another cricketer, nursery figures, more skis!

The other trend which revealed itself in the sorting stage was Blue Box, it's an annual thing - in part because I do look out for them, in part because they were successful, so the stuff is pretty common, and they had quite a wide range, branded to themselves.

This is both Blue Box and Blue Box-like, I'm not happy with the wheels on the hay-cart (I think they may have been taken from a Tudor Rose type beach-toy truck?), but I have a near mint one with card insert (which we've looked athere), so it can stay as a curiosity for now, while the blow-moulded hay-rick is very different in style and colour from the ones I already have.

The Noah family probably are Blue Box, but there are many Noah sets and at least five or six generations of figures associated with them, they were popular with both Bible or religious book shops, and mail-order 'openers' in Sunday supplements and cheap weeklies through the 1970-80's,  so for now they are Blue Box-like in the sorting, especially are they are all poor copies of the sublime Marx Miniature Masterpiece original!

The tailless 30mm horse has already gone to recycling, but his base stayed!