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.

Sunday, September 2, 2018

F is for Follow-up - Gem Models

A couple of things which have either been raised in the past as being 'in storage' or coming out of a recent Gem post, and starting with the recent post . . .

1 Gemodels Tom The Pipers Son Piglet Plastic Toy Cake Decoration DSCN6968-001 50mm Figures; 54mm Figures; And He Was Beat; And He Went Wailing Down The Street; Boxers; Cake Decoration Figures; Cake Decorations; Cullpits; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Fairy Tales; Gem; GeModels; George Musgrave; Little Boy Blue; Nursery Rhymes; Piglets; Pigs; Stole A Pig And Away He Ran; Stolen Pigs; The Pig Was Eat; Tom Tom The Piper's Son; Sandown Part Show Plunder March 2018 Show Overview
How they come in!

. . . I got a Tom the Piper's Son figure at the last Sandown Park show (next one's only two weeks away), and had totally forgotten when buying it that I already had one!

2 Gemodels Tom The Pipers Son Piglet Plastic Toy Cake Decoration 50mm Figures; 54mm Figures; And He Was Beat; And He Went Wailing Down The Street; Cake Decoration Figures; Cake Decorations; Cullpits; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Fairy Tales; Gem; GeModels; George Musgrave; Nursery Rhymes; Piglets; Pigs; Stole A Pig And Away He Ran; Stolen Pigs; The Pig Was Eat; Tom Tom The Piper's Son; Comparison between Tom's and their under-arm piglets
Fortunately, the one I had has the other piglet! So now I have a small convoy (or patrol?) of Tom's stealing pigs, with the new on having a piglet looking to the left (looking - in fact - rather surprised at its predicament; it has to be said!), while the older one has a piglet looking forwards.

3 Gemodels Tom The Pipers Son Piglet Plastic Toy Cake Decoration DSCN8822 50mm Figures; 54mm Figures; And He Was Beat; And He Went Wailing Down The Street; Cake Decoration Figures; Cake Decorations; Cullpits; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Fairy Tales; Gem; GeModels; George Musgrave; Nursery Rhymes; Piglets; Pigs; Stole A Pig And Away He Ran; Stolen Pigs; The Pig Was Eat; Tom Tom The Piper's Son; Comparison between the three piglets believed to be Gem
The third piglet I'm not sure about, it's overall quality and finish is just a cut above the normal production of Gem/Festival, and I'm not convinced it's Gem at all, it's even finer than the other farm animals, it's feet-bottoms are neatly flat to the same plane.

I have been assured by a collector of some repute whom I respect greatly for his knowledge, particularly of animals, that it is Gem and it's also in the PW Special on Gem, as Gem, so I've put it in the Gem box, but with a note stubbornly stating I'm not 100% convinced!

It's hard to explain, but the quality of the sculpt is just way above the normal output of Mr. Musgrave, it's more 'manufactured' or engineered than the other production; comparing the piglet to the other two is like comparing a Marx 54mm GI with a Gem snowman, the etching is fine-lined and the surface smooth against the rougher, hand-finished effect of the other two . . . if that makes sense! Anyway; I'm giving it a big question-mark until I know the context that lead to its being voted Gem!

Arguing against myself, the candle-holders of Festival, particularly the racing cars have similar high production-values, and the later Festival-for-Culpitts slot-together Santa is equally commercial, so maybe this larger piglet is from that 'tail-end' era?

4 Gem Models A1 Spaceman Cake Decoration Astronaut Cosmonaut DSCN8816 50mm Figures; 54mm Figures; Astronaut; Cake Decoration Figures; Cake Decorations; Cosmonaut; Cullpits; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Gem; GeModels; George Musgrave; Space Woman; Spaceman; Spacemen; Spacewomen; Five different spacemen, two early, two late, one smaller
I think I have referred to these several times while looking at other stuff, or even smaller numbers of these? The A1 - Spaceman from Gem, who I've always thought of as a spacewoman, and the fact that the catalogue says otherwise won't stop me thinking of 'her' as a space-babe!

Now, I think the order of the above is two Gem-for-Culpitt/s on the left (chalky, marbled, more paint - black lead in icing . . . Mummmm . . . Nom-nom-Nomnivore!), two Culpitts under licence from Gem (minimal paint, shiny ethylene, less shrinkage) in the middle and a Culpitt copy (with or without George's permission) on the right?

It must be said that there are size variations of other Gemodels stuff though, so they may all be from the one place. But I suspect it was reduced in the 1970's to run-through their (Culpitt's) packing-line and fit their new plastic counter-stock display units and revolving catering-shop dispensers; both of which had small compartments.

5 Gem Models A1 Spaceman Cake Decoration Astronaut Cosmonaut DSCN8818 50mm Figures; 54mm Figures; Astronaut; Cake Decoration Figures; Cake Decorations; Cosmonaut; Cullpits; Culpitt; Culpitt's Cake Decorations; Gem; GeModels; George Musgrave; Space Woman; Spaceman; Spacemen; Spacewomen; Close-ups of two different sized yellow plastic figures
Most of the height loss has been achieved by removing the middle-depth of the base, but deeper sculpting of the harness and air-lines, along with feet further apart (and a saggy bottom!) suggest a copy rather than a pantograph or a chop to the tool.

That the copy is so similar would suggest it was with Musgrave's knowledge, if not involvement.

The fact that they all look slightly different sizes in the first shot is down to slight curvature away from the blue figure caused by holding the camera too close and at a slight angle.

3 comments:

space.trucks said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
space.trucks said...

Cheers Hugh! I adore the Gemodels A-1 spacepersons and am ardently of the mind that they depict female forms (hips like that ...) though marketing them as "spacemen" may have been judged more in step with 1960s expectations of gender roles. I have examples of the "taller base" opaque half-painted figures as well as the "flatter base" waxier cake topper copies and looking into the change to the base is what led me here. Is there a year to fix on when they first appeared? and were all of them produced in the UK??

SN aka ST

Hugh Walter said...

As is often the Way ST, it's not too clear, but yes, as far as I know they are all UK production, but Hong Kong may have had a stab, I've not found one yet, if they did it would likely be polystyrene hard plastic in an off-white, with painted highlights?

George Musgrave was primarily a freelance sculptor, Gem was his little baby, part try-out, part retirement savings-bank (I suspect), but once he's been pulled-in by Culpitt, not all was well, and at least one of the variants will be a spare/duplicate mould given to Culpitt who had their own fabricator, but which one?

And then there's Festival!

H