Speaking of Adrian Little (as I was at the
end of the last post), this was shot on his stall at Sandown Park's toy fair,
back in September. The contents are somewhat mixed, incomplete or added-to, but
the overall 'thing' is a beautiful plaything, that should have brought joy to
an owner back in the day.
I say 'should' as someone obviously looked
after this to the point where not much play can have occurred, but the items
are too clean to have been on display either, which is a little sad - that such
a lovely toy was probably not played with?
The packaging has an undeniable circus
theme on the top flap/cover, but the rest of it is more farm or countryside
themed, artwork wise, and obviously was a standard, dual-purpose factory box,
with set specific inserts.
Likewise the internal sheet of press-out
scenic accessories are more rural in nature, but a back-drop, box liner, is -
again - undeniably circus in subject matter. Clearly a bit of a curate's egg,
cobbled together from what was in the factory or with the printer's, enhanced
to tie-it in with the contents.
The cages are manufactured from soft wire
rod, they will have been set out on a wooden jig and spot-soldered by hand
before painting, and there were more than I photographed, allowing for a decent
animal 'holding area' to be constructed for the circus.
The safety-tunnel into the ring is likewise
produced, probably being trimmed and bent to shape after the soldering and
before the gates were slipped into place. We had a go at something similar at
Uni' years ago, while being shown the workshop facilities. I made a
shelter/gantry for a bus-stop!
A rather fine elephant, I don't know if
it's a baby from the 70mm range, a scaled down adult from the same range, or a
40mm line-specific sculpt?
And you thought a 'Bear Dance' was
something Native Americans did!
This must be one of the last things
manufactured by Hausser under the Elastolin moniker, using composition
animals, especially in this smaller 40mm scale, and with both wood and metal
accessories?
A whole pride of Lions to train, there were
no tubs for them to stand on, or hoops to jump through, leading one to suspect
there was more to collect in the wider range, or that a larger collection had
already been broken-up prior to Adrian obtaining his sample?
This mysterious aspect of the 'set' is
mirrored in the two figures which are of different scales and styles and the
only two present, a keeper and a clown? No ringmaster, no animal trainers? No
other performers?
I'm not sure if the clown is sharing his
moment in the lime-light with a monkey or a mountain-lion/cougar . . . or even a
hyena!
A pair of tigers, a zebra and a camel, all
things you might find at an old school circus, but in the case of the later two,
more likely to be in the day-time 'zoo' than in the night-time performances,
and all things you'd equally expect in a proper zoo. The circus ring is the
only plastic component, being a trimmed vac-form, with a drop-in 'gate'
section, also vac-formed.
The lack of a tent or marquee is another
pointer to this being a part-set, and one wonders if the box (part farm-linked)
was actually included in a larger set, for which the other liner has gone AWOL,
the contents of the sample can fit in the box but only by ignoring the slots
and packing everything loose. I suspect there was once much-more to the whole
set, yet it is still a really lovely thing - Best Toy Ever ['till the next one]
- Cheers Adrian!
No comments:
Post a Comment