M is for Micro-Mush; Shackman's Slush-cast Smallies

To wit, the 'smallest' ever made? Are they? I think not, but they are pretty small! And they are among the smallest made commercially, with running wheels, although plenty of Edwardian and early post-war board games had smaller vehicles as playing pieces, some of which were hollow- or slush-cast.

The contents match the artwork in configuration (two each of three designs) but not in colour mix, where there is a less random mix than suggested by the artwork! A tad bigger than N-gauge (so Lone Star's Treble-o beat them for 'smallest' for starters!) and representing no actual vehicles?

Maybe a US taxi-cab or police 'Paddy-Wagon' (the green ones?), Ford Model-T (the red open-tops) and something French (yellow/blue)? Copyrighted to Shackman, they are actually sourced-in and marked Japan.

Some vicious flash on the upper-pair and finish - on all - is what you'd call un-fettled!

I've seen these in an O-Ei-A catalogue as being credited to Kinder, but they pre-date Kinder by fifteen or twenty years at least, the trouble with those catalogues is that if it fits in a Kinder-egg it tends to end up in an O-Ei-A 'Preisfuhrer' whether it was actually Kinder or not! Although - to be fair to the authors - over the years Kinder have sourced all sorts of stuff from half-a-hundred manufacturers!

They (Shackman) also did a train; Toot-Toot! You only get the four in this box and with only three different items of rolling stock, but I love the passenger-cars which look like someone took a Wells Fargo overland stage-coach and plonked it on some railway wheels - which is probably close to what actually happened!

My driver lost his head to a low bridge long before he came into my possession, but continues to serve his locomotive with diligence . . . and integral, semi-flat moulding! The pen-top is to give a further sense of scale, but again these aren't the smallest.

Indeed with the exception of the tatty pencil-sharpener engine (top left) these are all smaller, apart from the grey car which is about the same size. I have more of this shite somewhere, but we looked at a few in the novelty posts a few Christmases ago, and I just happened to have these in front of me, so when I've got them all together we'll have a better look!

Gum-ball machine capsule prizes, gift-eggs, Christmas crackers, crafting sets/items, a pencil sharpener 'statue' and the grey car may be from an N-gauge scenics line?