S is for Six of the Best

The bulk of the show plunder has been sorted and put away, and while some of it will be seen again - in closer detail - soon, some of it may not be seen again for years! While I was sorting it I photographed those things that perticularly cought my eye or imagination, later we'll look at a 'top five' figures, these both figural or not are the also-rans, or the other half of a top ten plus consolation!

I bought this early British bath toy from Steve Vickers (who I think trades under the same name on eBay), like divers or parachutists, these small submarines are becoming a 'side-bar' collection of their own, and as we've recently had a quick round-up/recap on them; if I don't show it now it might be ages before it's seen again.

Totally unmarked and with a semi-transparent upper hull/deck/conning-tower in what can only be called cherryaide-red, lower hull in a charcoal grey-brown and photographed on a mirror to take advantage of the flat bottom; I once saw the Indian Ocean - as far as the horizon - this still, flat and mirror-like.

Adrian Little had put this aside for me, it's about N-Gauge compatible (maybe a little bigger - 1:100th?), and is marked nicely 'Lemco No. ML 75', all wheels go round and I think Adrien thought it was Scandinavian (where there is a Lemeco copying larger die-casts), or might be? I can't find anything about a Lemco or a Lem Co., so it may be a tool-engravers typo? But isn't it a dinky little thing?

A bit of a cheat as three of them are extant (in the collection) from one or two years ago!

As I started saying on Tuesday, Mike Harding had sold me three, he thought last year, I think two years ago? Anyway, I was chatting with him toward the end of the show and saw he had some more, "You have some more Gem skateboarders!" I said, because there's nothing like stating the obvious! "Yes..." he said, "...you had a couple last year didn't you?" . . . "Three, I had three but wasn't it two years ago?..." I replied - yes; this anecdote is in danger of becoming wheels within wheels and disappearing up its own fundament!

"...But you've got new colours?" I continued, and began wracking my brains to remember which colours I already had, luckily I'd only looked at them a few weeks earlier when I had the box out for something else (footballers and over-moulding posts - proper discovery!), and I knew there were only two of the 'flame' colours and couldn't picture the yellow as clearly - in my mind - as the green so I took a punt on already having red, orange and green and I knew whichever 'flames' I had were in rainbow-sequence and yellow would lead to green which I knew couldn't be the case - Heay, this is how Aspergics work!

Which all turned out to be good guesstimation as he had the red, orange and green again, but I took the blue and yellow . . . phew! Then, when I got home and started sorting through the plunder;  I found Trevor Rudkin's bag had a very nice subdued fawn-coloured one which is an unusual polymer colour for either Gem or Culpitt - I think, the whole leading to the above squadron-in-line images!

This was in a little tub of stuff from Adrian I think, and what interests me about it is that it looks a lot like those US-Emenee-Transogram/UK-whoever Fairy Tale sets we looked at here.

Now having tentatively suggested there's still one set to be found (which should contain Jack & Jill), the 'rule' with those sets was 5/6 figures and an accessory or two. Jack and Jill are two, with bucket and a well; you still only have four items, could he be a play-value, make-weight from the missing set/s?

I'm not suggesting he is, his sculpting is poorer in my opinion, but he is the same 20mm lump of PVC and something went in the 8th set - if it existed . . . actually I AM suggesting it, I'm just not committing. Nice addition to the collection anyway!

We've looked at this before, but in green, it's the Raphael Lipkin ConquerorTank, but in red. I've never seen one in red before and presume it must be a 'Ruskie'-red one from a two-sides play-set of some kind, maybe Pippin Toys?

The green ones turn-up more often and I'm hoping to find an otherwise 'clean' one going dirt-cheap with a broken barrel so I can cannibalize the running-gear, which - missing on this example - led to it's also being very reasonably priced!

Presumably from a large vessel toy's deck, I'm tempted to remove the locating/mounting spigot, but I know that if I do I'll immediately see the parent toy on evilBay, missing it's deck-gun, going for a song, but equally; if I don't remove it, I'll probably never find the originator model! I have some large, deep plastic washers somewhere, if it needs displaying in can sit in one of them!

What I like about it is the throwback to early US pod-foot figures of the Barklay/Manoil type, where a guy (often smaller than his set-mates) is posed operating some huge artillery piece all by himself. I think It's an anti-Dalek ray-gun! Does anyone know offhand where it's from?

All good 'Stuff'!