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.

Friday, January 18, 2019

Q is for Question Time - Car & Boat

As a follow-up to yesterday's post on bar-b-queing/hunting/exploring apparent-Africans, and in part to illustrate the type of set I think they might belong to; there's this:

Beach Bums; Boat; Car Towing Trailer; Hong Kong MIB; Hong Kong Novelty; Hong Kong Plastic Toy; Hong Kong Toy; Made in Hong Kong; Old Plastic Figures; Old Plastic Toy; Old Plastic Toys; Plastic Toy Boat; Rack Toy Figures; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Sun Bathers; Sun Bathing; Swimmers; Trailer; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Plastic Toys; Vintage Toy Figures; Vintage Toys;
The bag is crinkly cellophane and probably is the original carrier, however it has no sign of staples (so no header card) nor tape (so always open, but folded closed, so should probably have had a box, but the shape of the bag seems to preclude the kind of long, thin, box we saw with the Laurie-branded set here.

Therefore I suspect maybe a larger box with some other bags; a bag of trees or shrubs, a tent, camping accessories or another vehicle and the whole in a larger, flatter box, a bit like this circus set (which also has a mix of 'styrene and 'ethylene)? It's that sort of thing I was wondering about for yesterday's figures; a Jeep or Land Rover, trees, some animals to interact with the spearman, maybe a white hunter or explorer, a cage . . . ? It's all conjecture!

Beach Bums; Boat; Car Towing Trailer; Hong Kong MIB; Hong Kong Novelty; Hong Kong Plastic Toy; Hong Kong Toy; Made in Hong Kong; Old Plastic Figures; Old Plastic Toy; Old Plastic Toys; Plastic Toy Boat; Rack Toy Figures; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Sun Bathers; Sun Bathing; Swimmers; Trailer; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Plastic Toys; Vintage Toy Figures; Vintage Toys;
An oddity with this set is that while all the components of the car and trailer, along with the two figures are 100% soft polyethylene, fully dismantle'able or clip-together, the boat is 100% polystyrene and glued together - possibly to ensure it floats, by sealing the join between the deck and hull?

Beach Bums; Boat; Car Towing Trailer; Hong Kong MIB; Hong Kong Novelty; Hong Kong Plastic Toy; Hong Kong Toy; Made in Hong Kong; Old Plastic Figures; Old Plastic Toy; Old Plastic Toys; Plastic Toy Boat; Rack Toy Figures; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Sun Bathers; Sun Bathing; Swimmers; Trailer; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Plastic Toys; Vintage Toy Figures; Vintage Toys;
Like the car/caravan linked to above, there is a lot of play value in this (whether or not is was part of a larger set), but it is the next level down as far as production-budget/quality (and aimed-for retail price-bracket?) is concerned and may have been an unbranded generic sold at beach-side kiosks, where it would have been pushing-out the domestic products of Kleeware, Poplar, Rafael Lipkin, Thomas and Tudor Rose, et al as the 1960's slid into the 1970's

Beach Bums; Boat; Car Towing Trailer; Hong Kong MIB; Hong Kong Novelty; Hong Kong Plastic Toy; Hong Kong Toy; Made in Hong Kong; Old Plastic Figures; Old Plastic Toy; Old Plastic Toys; Plastic Toy Boat; Rack Toy Figures; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Sun Bathers; Sun Bathing; Swimmers; Trailer; Vintage Plastic Figures; Vintage Plastic Toys; Vintage Toy Figures; Vintage Toys;
The figures; there are some similarities with yesterday's African chaps, but the differences are stronger, with the pin-marks in the diving figures base, the paint carried round the figures and a more opaque plastic, they are also 50mm though, and there was a lot of this stuff around, and more remain to be ID'd . . . a brand or even just a set title for this would be a start!

Further to and rather rendering the above superfluous; Peter Evans just emailed me on yesterday's Africans . .

". . . Those native figures are from a Safari set made in Hong Kong. Sold in Woolworth's in the 1960s

There are two more natives, one carrying a case on his head - case was a separate piece and a native holding a bow.

There were two white hunters. Both wearing shorts and based on the Swoppet cowboy prisoner body and the firing rifle body.

As far as I can remember it was a carded set with about four copies of Britains Lion, Panther, Gorilla and chimp

No idea who the brand was but definitely Hong Kong . . . Peter
"

Cheers Peter - So a carded set!

While looking at the circus set just now, fetching the link, the bag's are almost identical, so probably an unbranded 'generic' boxed set for the above 'Beach Bums'!

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