The bug-eyed aliens have a
brand! Yick Fung (Metal & Plastic Manufacturing Company),
from the New Territories; I doubt it's the manufacturer, but rather a wholesaler,
and they were carrying them in 2006 which is about the time I got the
footballers with the little bases, my version of these though, have a lot less
paint (eyes and mouths only) and were party favours a couple of not-so-many-years
ago.
I want cat pencil tops! Dinorasers, train-whistles,
mini-animals including the Britains gorilla pose; is that v.28·5? All good stuff!
Meanwhile at the same time the A1 Company of Shatin, Hong Kong was
pushing my old Berlin-acquired cocktail-glass mermaid or a copy of it, 20 years
later! I actually remember the monkey and the donkey from the same time
(1986/7) and possibly the elephant but the other three are new to me and/or my
memories.
The whole set has shades of the animals
passed-off as Nosco in the USA from
the 1950/60's and also used in Europe as premiums, but simplified over time and
from constant copying! Again, wholesale rather than manufacture I think, the
name points to someone trying to get first-place on the trade-fair lists!
Note they also carry the Brüder knock-off construction vehicles and
racing cars, and I know at least two other wholesalers who do.
Michael Hüttmann from Germany
came-up trumps with the 'wundertüten' Wild West, by discounting the possibility of them actually being wundertüten at all! They are in fact Rundlutscher (the things above) sticks
or 'handles' and in Michael's own words;
"Rundlutscher (round lollipop) is one of those wonderful . . . German
technical terms that you'd probably not bring in relation with a fancy piece of
candy . . . [while] . . . Wundertüte is a concept here, you go to a
Kiosk, there they have a choice of such plastic tons full of different
sweets, there is a plethora available here, everybody has a different portfolio
on offer. These things were among the first ever to be available, they used to
be classics but today kids go for different sweets, from the same little tons.
You tell the guy in charge that you want 2 of these, 3 of these, 6 of those,
you get the idea, he packs it in a small white paper Spitztüte (pointed bag), a
wee thing shaped like a KKK hood but serving a much better purpose, and that is
called a Wundertüte (bag o' miracles or wonders)."
The 'KKK hood' sounds like a smaller version of the chip-cone which has
replaced newspaper in 'Fish & Chip' shops here in the UK.
Michael also pointed me in the right direction
for finding them on the Wibbly Wobbly Way, which I did to obtain the above
(and below) images which are all commercial sales images, if you fancy a tub, they are
available in 20's or 100's except the site selling them in threes (!) and can
be located here;
The kola ones look just like little edible-turds
. . . which is apt; as Michael and I were chatting about some of the shit I
post here, although you know I prefer shite, rhymes with kite and is kinder on
the ear! From the images found, we have;
Aeroplane
Bear
Cowboy Standing
Goose-girl with
Geese
Gnome Miner
Hansel &
Gretel and the Witch
Hunter Jumping
Fence
Indian on
Horseback
Princess &
Fawn
Racing Car
Skier
Weightlifter
There seem also to be two variants;
smoother, flatter 'cut-outs' (kola tub) and more heavily-etched sculptural ones
(fruit flavour tub), which may be an aging 'over-time' thing, a second tool or
outright piracy by a second manufacturer, and there's no clue as to which is
the newer, I'd favour the flat, smooth ones as the/any 'replacements'?
How many other sculpts there are out there
I don't know, but these seem pretty constant between one (or two?) apparent
manufacturer/s (the main originator seems to be Kuefa brand) and at least four
sellers and - with the earliest image dating from 2013 - clearly have been the
same line-up for some time.
Presumably at the height of their
popularity (1960/70's?) there would have been wider ranges of prize sticks/handles,
with subjects/themes turning-over more frequently? So that's Rundlutscher sticks not Wundertüten! Cheers Tschau mit au Michael!
Meanwhile Brain Berke had remembered something of the Cowboys and Indians in the earlier post, and again, in his own words;
". . . the Indians are identical to the ones that used to be in "Lucky Bags".
In the 50's paper sealed Lucky Bags contained a toy, two sweets, usually a chew and one boiled, a printed slip of paper with a joke. I think the price was 1d.
I never collected the figures as they were rare in North London but I do remember collecting a train, one coach or box car at a time [they were ] 1" long hard plastic train cars. The loco and cars were obviously American in origin."
Thanks as always to Brian too, and I wonder if the rolling-stock were the Lido sculpts?
". . . the Indians are identical to the ones that used to be in "Lucky Bags".
In the 50's paper sealed Lucky Bags contained a toy, two sweets, usually a chew and one boiled, a printed slip of paper with a joke. I think the price was 1d.
I never collected the figures as they were rare in North London but I do remember collecting a train, one coach or box car at a time [they were ] 1" long hard plastic train cars. The loco and cars were obviously American in origin."
Thanks as always to Brian too, and I wonder if the rolling-stock were the Lido sculpts?
I actually thought I saw some Mr. Lucky bags the other day, but I
didn't grab one, and can't remember where I saw them, if I see them again I'll
get a couple and see what they are offering these days, otherwise; I haven't
seen them since the mid-1990's.
A longer think (it was only two or three
weeks ago) while this post moseys through edit and imaging leads me to think
they may have been pink & purple/Disney
type themed ones - if you know what I mean - which is why I left them;
fairy-tale princess stickers and an elastic hair-band is rather where I draw
the line!
Hilfe! Mine banane ist infestung mit Gunslingeren!
I couldn't resist it and succumbed to my inner-child Michael! Channelling a certain jolly, fat lady from the 1940's and massacring someone else's language at the same time, and why not; I massacre my own all the time!
Rundlutscher, Spitztüte and
Wundertüten will be added to the
Foreign Terms page, a veil will be drawn over Infestung and Gunslingerung! On the wider subject of languages, -tüte may be where 'tote'-bag comes from?
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