E is for Evolution

Evolution is a very real thing, not just in nature, but in technology and toys, which - if you've walked round Aldershot or Basingrad - can be seen to lead to negative results as well as positive!

Indeed the evolution of toys can be driven by the evolution of technology, and in this case, like Aldershot and Basingrad, it has resulted in a family tree who's DNA has degraded before our eyes!

It's not enough that Gem and/or Festival seem to have two or three versions of most of their figure output, but that Hong Kong chucked out almost as many copies! Although it has to be said that generally there are far more copies of the known (or believed) Festival items, than those catalogued to Gem.

This may have something to do with the relationship between Culpitt and either (or more accurately 'both') of the Musgrave imprints, and/or Culpitt's connections with the aforementioned Hong Kong . . . or Wilton in the 'States . . . or . . . ?

After the earthquake,

the draughty doors were 

less of an immediate problem!

In both images the cottage nearest the viewer is clearly marked Festival on the broad area of under-wall, the middle one is a different moulding, but still 'early British' white polyethylene, yet clear of markings, while furthest from the viewer is the Hong Kong piracy in hard polystyrene, happily carried by Culpitt (and others) as if they didn't know it was a plagiarist copy of the one they'd been carrying for a decade or two previously!

The clear inference is that either Culpitt didn't care, or, they were (in part at least) responsible? Whether this was done with the blessing of George Musgrave (following his retirement from active business), is the bigger question, to which my guess at an answer is - probably not!

There is a brown-plastic version of this seen in Gem museum images, which I'm still trying to track down, it clearly has no tree/shrubbery to the right and may be the actual pattern for the HK copy, with its lower gable-end?