C is for Crazy 'Crazy Pirates'

Phew - it was the power lead (forty-quid) not the receiving-port (sixty-quid, plus parts and another two weeks without the laptop!), so here's the antipodean pirates . . . a bit late!

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I know - it's not International Talk Like A Pirate Day (ITLAPD) yet, but this was the other jewel in Glenn Sibbald's parcel, and as they are cartoony, and the pirate 'rule' has been broken (with whole ships) two Christmas's running, we're having some more pirates out of pirate season!

And believe me; there's already plenty in the TLAP folder for the 19th of September - six or seven posts-worth so far.

Now, I think most of these were sourced from New Zealand, certainly 'in' NZ, but a couple have an Australian origin, where they were issued (or are believed to have been issued-) by Nabisco in 1971. Four of eight poses (the other four will be along in a minute) in various colours of a soft (Airfix type) polyethylene and almost certainly sculpted by the same chap who did the Working Dogs (Crazy Canines for Kellogg's here in the UK; November 1972).

In Australia they were given names known to be (from the left above);

Black Captain Cutlass

Long Thomas Thumbscrew

Pierre Pegleg (who I've dubbed Peg-legless Pete!)

Sir Swashbuckler

But - there's no evidence of them being given the same names in New Zealand, or of them even being a Nabisco promotion, both Sanitarium and Griffins being more likely as the issuer, but no packaging or advertising seems to have come to light . . . yet?

I think it's worth reminding ourselves here, that while people tend to block them together (much to the chagrin of the locals), Australia and New Zealand are much further apart than say Britain and France, or Britain and Holland (or the US with Mexico or Canada), and their markets and brands, their 'household names'; differ just as much as ours, as anyone's does with their near neighbours.

The rest of the motley-crew; again naming from the left, we have;

Hook

Mr. Jonathon Greed

Scarface (Dagger-legged Derek!)

The Right Dishonorable Roger Jolly Esq.

Is it me, or are the three to the right all cousins of Dick Dastardly!

Glenn has been trying to get a 'complete' complete-set, e.g. one of every pose in every colour, and while it's proved harder than he anticipated he's getting there, but the number of colours and the relative rarity of the figures down there has been exacerbated by the fact that they are quite hard to find in good condition.

You can see that Scarface/Dagger-legged Derek (my favourite!) has at least six points of vulnerability, and Roger Jolly is very hard to find with his rapier A) still attached at both ends and B) still intact. All eight have either thin, sticky-out bits or very narrow pinch-points, most have both!

And for that reason - again - I can't thank Glenn enough, as while we've benefitted from his duplicates; he has also made to send the Blog complete, undamaged and shiny-clean samples, which is incredibly kind of him.

He has in fact sent us six which his research leads him to believe are the [also] New Zealand colours, with two - probably - Aussie [only] one's he couldn't spare in NZ-origin pigments.

The Oz collectors list - in alphabetical order - thirteen colours;

Aqua

Blue*

Brown*

Green

Grey

Lemon

Lilac

Lime*

Orange*

Pink

Purple*

Red*

Yellow

Those with an asterisk are the [only] six colours Glenn believes were in the NZ Issue, while in the quarto above the outer pair are New Zealand  or believed to be NZ colours, the inner pair are the Aussie set's two, but clearly; there are more colours or shades than those listed. It should be noted that elsewhere they were issued in still other colours.

And I don't want you to think they are New Zealand exclusive colours, it's just that six of the colours out there are those commonly found in NZ, the Aussies seem to have got some extra colours, among which is an unlisted, second red, assuming one of the above blues is 'blue' and the other 'aqua'?

Scame in Italy produced a set of eight 'homage' copies as tourist 'mocherettes' (a word of my own invention, which I will explain, one day!) for museums and gift shops; these were also carried by Ferrero in their Kinder Eggs, in the 1990's - if memory serves?

Some sources state that 'some figures' are marked MADE IN AUSTRALIA or plain 'AUSTRALIA' but Glenn - who has seen more of these than most (I suspect) - has yet to find one. Other collectors 'down under' wonder if they were from a British designer/sculptor, and while they are credited to Rosenhain and Lipmann (R&L), there's a lot of stuff credited to them which I - for one - maintain big question-marks over.

Glenn has a note to the effect that a Consolidated Plastics in Auckland may have produced these for the NZ issue, he's not sure where the note comes from, but thinks there's some mileage in it?

He also talks of "...some scuttlebutt...", re. the moulds ending up in Mexico (sometime in the 1980's), however, given the number of premium moulds known to have ended up somewhere in South America, a cursory search reveals that indeed that seems to be the case so it's probably not scuttlebutt, but the reality?

Many, many thanks to Glenn for donating these to the blog, he calls them his 'Precious', yet he sent eight to this 'orrible little 'obbitsis! If I remember - I'll do a comparison with other caricature pirates in September; just to get them up here again!