News, Views Etc . . . Airfix Blog - Space Warriors Page Update

Continuing today's space theme; I've added a bunch of comparison shots between the Airfix Space Warriors and various other sci-fi figures, these are to be the first of many, so 'watch this space'!

Looking today at various Hong Kong/Hing Fat sets, Cromoplasto and Torgano from Italy, LB (Lik Be), Thomas/Poplar and a couple of Timpo's Captain Scarlet figures.

LP is for LB - Part 3 - NAS'Astronauts!

This was going to be a five-parter, but there's not a lot to add by looking at the small versions of this morning's two sets, so as a box-ticking 'closure' we'll look briefly at the later (?) addition to the range,  (all two of them!) and call it a day for now.

Almost exclusively cake-decorations, although they did appear in the larger 1970's boxed sets, I used to use a big'ole question-mark with them when ascribing them to the company formally known as LP; Lik Be, now LB!

Indeed it was the work of the guys at Moonbase in finding the larger sets which confirmed my suspicions vis-à-vis their being 'LP', when they turned-up in sets with silver-chrome or gunmetal spacemen and chromium robots - along with lots of little vehicles, some of which were previously known as Tri-Ang Spacex over here and MPC Golden Astronauts over the pond.

You get a flag, nicely square (no/low gravity . . . and a hidden wire!), a chap with a camera "Watch the shadows dude; or some fuckwitt's'll convince themselves we never got here" and a guy with a sample- . . . spade? Shovel? Scoop . . . a sample-scoop! "It's Orange!"

Often issued with a Luna Landing Module (we've seen them here before with it), and bagged either as generics, or various jobber/phantom brands. Over here it was Culpitt.

They seem to have been sculpted by the same person who was responsible for the Robots/Aliens, but a little later - I suspect (?) - with the same base-underside styling and a similar mark, but without the LB cipher.

Which brings me to another question-mark, which remains a question-mark despite my being 90% sure (hedging a tad!), due to a lack of empirical evidence, but I think the AWI red-coat Airfix 'Washinton's Army' piracy, cake decorations (who DO have a blue-jacketed issue in the US - see 'AWI' passim), are also by the same guy, and - being in the same plastic - must be LB too, probably along with at least one set of the 'Spirit of '76' trio, the smallest set in hard polystyrene.

For the missing small scale posts, you can't do better than go here for the spacemen . . .

. . . and here for the Robots

While the vehicles - which I'll have  a box-ticking on at some point (I don't have a perticualrly full sample) - are all to be found here.

As these are 'plastic smalls' they should prove to be of no interest to those so recently of changed minds as to whether they are IDL or LP, but I'm now calling them LB!

LP is for LB - Part 2 - Full Size Robots

Alongside the - previously 'LP' - astronauts were six robot types, although some people think of them (or some of them) as aliens; some of the packaging back in the day wasn't fussed and it's fair to say several of them can be painted-up as life forms.

But for simplicity's sake, I'm thinking of them as robots here, and, because in the small scales they were usually in some form of metallic finish; I've always thought of them as robots, having collected the small ones first!

While the Spacemen have grown considerably over the years as a sample, I don't think I've picked-up a single extra robot (in the large scales) since I last blogged them a decade or so ago, both here and at Moonbase, so this post is more of a re-hash!

Only four of six in the earlier chromium-plated line, and one of them is a silver-sprayed late version, run after conversion to a key-ring, or even a key-ring, sans ring! One of the missing poses is below (next image) but the other has eluded me, although that's probably because Bill over at Moonbase has amassed a stunning collection of the 'Wotan' bot!

And there are generation of these which match the well-painted spacemen, but they seem to be quite uncommon, which may be in part down to the thinner arms and and/or legs and sticky-out bits leading to damage and a trip to landfill?

These turn-up occasionally with different contents, and their level of survivability suggests late 1970's-early 1980's? The pink bot is one of the missing poses in my small sample, but both it and the green one are key-ring pierced and soft ethylene to match the tank and spaceman. The space-tank is also the poorest type with no pull-back motor and very-proud (of the body) carpet-wheels leaving it looking a bit daft.

While all sizes of both spacemen and robots were issued as Cake Decorations over here and in various window-boxed and carded sets, it seems the large-scale robots were converted to key-rings quite soon which may explain their being harder to find, compared to the astronauts in their un-holed form?

Where the collection has gained is in the field of 'rubber jiggler'/sucker-bots, where I have scored a couple of lots in recent years, but these aren't LB (LP), but various generations of copy.

I've yet to ID the marking on the green ones (top left) although it's missing from the similarly painted sample (which also has a different HK mark) to the bottom right. The simpler painted ones in yellowy-orange have similar HK marks to the larger-lot, but look like those issued or marketed by Mei Kee (marks MK or T [-in-a-circle]) of the New Territories.

The detail and marking differences point to more than one maker, but batches - over time - could have equal variance? or several smaller plants could have been working on larger orders (with Imperial maybe or someone like that; one of the capsule-toy importers?) with sets of duplicate moulds.

Thankfully I have lots of Wotan-bots in these jiggler samples!

I think I shot this after I'd found a few more, or realised that the contents of two bags were the same issue, anyway they are the bottom-left lot in the previous shot, but with additional poses, some colour variations and a couple of damaged samples.

I've inset a screen-cap of a Mei Kee compared with the middle-left one. Are they the same? I have a feeling the MK ones have a slight rim or ring-edge to the sucker?

LP is for LB - Part 1 - Full Size Astronauts

As I think I've said before, I have a problem with these, as they are clearly 'astronauts' (late Program Mercury suits, with the strapping carried over to Program Gemini, not the earlier, more common, Mercury suit with a diagonal zipper/seam?), but, they are carrying firearms, which in my mind makes them 'spacemen' . . . it's a thin demarcation-line but you have to have them or you could never put anything away!

I first covered these here, briefly and small-scale only, nearly 11 years ago (December 2009), and - after hitting it big with larger-scale examples (an eBay lot and the legendary Barry Blood's sell-off at 2009 or '10's PW magazine show) followed-up that post with a guest slot on Moonbase Central. Since then we have returned to them a few times as the odd lot's come in, and the logo was revisited . . . yeeaahhhhsss; I had to have a good look at the logo a little while ago!

Known as IDL, ID or ID Ltd. for the longest time, in around 2001/2 (or a bit later?), work - by several people - in several issues of One Inch Warrior led to the general acceptance of LP as the maker/mark except in Pennsylvania and Florida where IDL continued to hold sway until a few months ago! I'm now calling them LB, as we know they were produced by Lik Be of Chaiwan, Hong Kong.

These are the original set of eight different sculpts, they are surprisingly inactive and even a little two-dimensional, but they were some of the first unique figures to come out of the colony with little of other 'western' figures about them and are well sculpted, well proportioned (for a bunch of six-footers) and nicely finished.

They are manufactured in factory-painted hard polystyrene and were glued into various window-box sets, which - similar to the contemporary Blue Box sets - came in one, two and three-tier versions, and deeper boxes with accessories. Consequently they always have the remains of the glue and/or the paper from the backing card left on them.

Bases are usually a blackish-green, but some paler ones turn-up and we will look at the smaller ones later.

Quite soon they were replaced with polyethylene soft plastic figures, and other colours were introduced (which make them more 'spaceman' less 'astronaut' - in my books!), and we see here soft plastic figures mirroring the gun-metal of the originals, a flat grey, green, white and red examples.

Some were still glued into the tiered-sets, while others where clamped by card cut-outs, or held by rubber bands, in the end they came in styrene-blister packaging, but by then . . .

The all over multi-coloured painting had been reduced - briefly - to a three/four colour on the front of the figures only, which lead quite soon after (it seems) to the final unpainted versions and here we see all three versions, in their probable order of issue, time wise, each in white (the creamy one in the middle is sun-damaged I think; not a colour variation).

Unpainted samples I have found so far; white, black, blue, red and green, although (going on the robots - next post) there may well be pink and pale green examples out there, and maybe the earlier flat grey or even gunmetal?

All the figures so far (above four images) have the same LB (LP) mark on the base underside along with a blocked MADE IN over HONG KONG, they don't have the same numbering of the robots (next post) and probably date from the 1970's.

There was a late re-issuing of the figures in the 1990's (the originals must - from their suits - date from the early 1960's) of unmarked (left hand) figures; I bought a set of these between 1997 and around 2002 for the editor of Plastic Warrior in the Ballon Shop in North Camp from a large counter display tub (of the sort used at the same time by Imperial the US 'jobber'). The marked one is probably the 1980's iteration and is more 'worn' than a true colour variant.

What is notable about them is that they were a return to a hard plastic, but it's not a styrene (the marked one may be, actually!), so probably a polypropylene or Nylon/Rayon material (?) and their final indignity was to be cleared from the factory with no chromium-plating in what are probably neutral-granule colours (two on the right)

Alongside the Lik Be originals, their metaphorical (or sometimes 'actual') cousins in the colony were churning out copies, and there are two generations of based clones, these are the better versions, although measurably worse than the donors (as you can see; measurable by eye!), with the earlier ones aping the full paint of the proper chaps, and then unpainted figures being sent out.

They have a simple HONGKONG base mark, in a similar but less well defined hollowed-base cavity. I suspect the set shown on the right were once supposed to glow in the dark, but it's an unstable additive and is yellowing and fading-out of a semi-transparent neutral plastic.

The other set are sub-copies in around 50mm, and can be found in gunmetal samples, or multicoloured batches. They only copied four of the poses though, and while I suspect they are HK product, they could be from somewhere else, being unmarked?

The French produced a lot of this kind of piracy as 'bazaar' (rack-toys) as did the South Americans, while to a lesser extent locally-produced knock-offs or unmarked HK stuff was available in Greece, Italy and Spain? Speaking of Greece; Solpa carried unmarked, cruder-still copies of the LB figures, but they had more poses cloned.

The other clones are the novelty sucker-toys (top, far right), shown with what I believe are early/late pairings of - from the left; LB (LP); same-size clones; 50mm clones. I only have the one sucker-figure, but there are several generations of them and we'll look at them with the robots - next post. The lower shot is one of each type/variation of the larger-scale figures, found, so far!

The feebleBay purchase which got the 60-mil collection off to a fine start; my desk-top in the spring of 2009, further colours and some of the piracies came in Barry's little grey bags, that May!

Moonbase has so much more on these; the best thing to do is spend a few hours browsing their LP tag, they also have more sucker variants, baseless copies and the Solpa figures.

X-Plane, Mercury and Gemini suits;

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Mark_IV

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_space_suit

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_suit

B is for Bullshit and Bollocks! And Be . . . Like . . . Lik Be!

Do you remember back in 2017 when I found it necessary to put the diabolical-duo right on the LP thing (worth a read to contextualise this post)? It had come out of previous posts I had published on the range of Blue Box, Lucky and other copies of various Western sculpts within the oeuvre of Hong Kong civilian-vehicle/vehicle set's  production.

"We will have to disagree...."

But let's first go back to January of that year, both TJF (Stadinger - the Jabbering Fuck) and his sidekick are waxing lyrical about an IDL? No italics because it's not a real company! I don't think I corrected them at that time, they get so much wrong, so often, it's a bind to follow it all - Grand announcement/title block on 'Crescent Guardsmen' the other day and he showed us Zang's; then, irony of ironies, the other week he gets Jecsan (the same Jecsan he 'corrected' me on) wrong! He's not a "Legend", he's an idiot!

Irrespective of whatever they'd been saying, I had been preparing a set of articles which published over a few days in the March (of 2017) and culminated in a long post pulling all the loose-ends together, and in which I also proposed a theory on LP and Lucky being one and the same. Within three days they - the twat twins - were having their little pop at me or 'some people'.

Earlier in the same article TJF goes on to further 'educate' us with the following;

"One thing Erwin uncovered is that each figure not only has the name of IDL and Hong Kong..."

D'ya'see? he 'uncovered' it, sort of like a 'discovery' (they're good at those too!) but you have to really dig at it, by . . . err . . . turning the figure over and finding the same information previously published elsewhere (by your 'emies') has been left on the base - and then (ignoring fifteen years of hobby-accepted wisdom) misread it! Too funny, they're both too funny!

So we had the above-linked 'logo' post, to re-establish what had been common knowledge in the hobby for some fifteen or twenty years, except - obviously - where Mr Standinger and Mr Sell were concerned; they being happy to A) remain in ignorance and B) use that ignorance to try and score points in their silly war with me.

What I perhaps didn't address fully enough (I did say "The contention I referred to in the post linked to above, was the relationship I postulated to, as existing between LP and The Lucky Toys, not the logo...") was the core of TJF's statement - that I was saying it meant Lucky Products. I wasn't and I hadn't, I'd said it was LP [not IDL].

In fact, I had gone out of my way to explain that it was a theory, that other people disagreed with me (in private correspondence) and had  reason to, given the lack of empirical evidence (to back up my theory), but nevertheless gave the circumstantial evidence that had led to my proselytising the theory.

Now . . . those of you who have been following events over the last ten months will know "that evidence (of any kind) 'against' or for a firmer, alternative narrative . . . " (as I put it at the time) has now turned up courtesy of Bill B and/or Alphadrome! But before we fire the salvo to sink my theory (which only remains a theory until proved or disproved!) forever, let's return to the latest from the fraudulent-frères over at shitestuff.

Erwin is now the world expert on, not only LP, but idiots who mistake it for IDL! Idiots like 2017's Erwin and his Jedi Master . . . that's Master Bates to you! "...confused and wrong labeled..."? Who? Who Erwin? Who was that man who confused and wrong-labeled it while trying to attack me . . . twice!!!!?

You really can't make it up. He is waxing lyrical spouting illiterately the very information I had to give him, as if he's known it for years! He then goes on to list the colors in the order they have appeared previously in other people's posts, sometimes as long ago as a decade!

But, being a phony and a fraud, he's only caught-up with where the hobby was on the subject a year ago; had he been paying more attention to his plagiarism he could have told us they were Lik Be . . . and probably, actually LB!

Which brings us back to my [now dead] theory and as to why there's more of my stuff in this post than is normally called-for when countering the shite issuing-forth from other_peoples_stuff_cos_im_a_dealer_not_a_collector.com

I was myself rather suspicious when Lik Be was magically slipped into a picture caption on another site last autumn, but subsequent work by Bill B, in the spring just gone, revealed the truth.

AND . . . could it be that after all these years . . .

. . . the LP is actually a poorly executed LB? I'm not calling-it . . . yet . . . too busy; I've got a bunch of tags to change and I'll be sticking with 'LP - Lik Be' for the moment . . . but - given the company's name -  it would make sense; Lik[-Be] Plastics or Lik Be. . . ooh! I think I've got a new theory! . . . 

Meanwhile the only 'legendary' thing over at shitestuff is how they can cover for their own mistakes with time and bullshit, while castigating others for theirs! 

...●==================◦●◦==================●...

A few weeks later; It is isn't it? I'll 'call it'; the more I look at it the more sure I am, new tag; 'LB (LP) - Lik Be', I think it's gotta'be, despite the poor artwork . . . there are worse Hong Kong logo's around, the next correction will be 'AJP''s wanna'be Blue Box sets - actually HP!

You will also have noticed - if you followed the link, that the tagging has been done and to be fair, most posts still read OK as I was careful to keep the theory and the figures separate (really only the tag that was joined), but a few caveats will need to be added to the round-up post in the plastic-vehicle series and the 'LP' logo post, requiring links to this which can't be done until this posts; the vagiaries of Blogger, but it will all be updated by the weekend . . . I hope!

T is for Two - Novelty Sets

Sometimes stuff comes in which is worth more than a glance in a 'show report' but which won't make a decent 'headline' post, for which the 'T is for . . . ' trope sort of happened, one day. These two definitely fall into the category of novelty shite, but in a way which guarantees that some of you would give them house-room . . . as I have!

Anyone who collects large scale space is going to say yes to robots and aliens, even if they have large holes in their heads! Copywrite to Wilton in Illinois, but happy also to claim Hong Kong for their origin, they are novelty cake candle-holders.

These will be contract manufactured in the colony for the American firm, what is now known as 'OEM' (original equipment manufacturing) contracting, back then it would have been 'exclusive' of some kind; commissioner exclusive, exclusive contract, something like that, it just means the contracting company is not allowing a generic run of 'their' product; not 'made by' Wilton, but made for Wilton - and nobody else.

Mr Men pencil tops, along with the candle-holders these were a find at May's Sandown Park toy fair, where I was supposed to be having a quite time after PW, a fortnight earlier, but still managed to find 17 rack toys, these two lots and a handful or other stuff!

I recognise Mr Tickle and Mr Bump and suppose the yellow one to be Mr Happy, but I haven't a clue as to the green one - Mr silly hat? Oh! Is he Mr Silly, there was one, wasn't there?

I have to confess they sort of passed me by as a kid; we had Beatrix Potter to learn to read (new one; once you could read the last one through, out loud), then it was on to Victor and Valiant comics with their cruiser-tanks and Messerschmitt fighters, or Look & Learn , Tell Me Why, and World of Wonder!

What I really like about these is the stands, why don't you always get stands with a set of pencil tops?  I wondered if maybe they were damaged spring-jumpers, but there's no sign-of or place for either a spring or a sucker.

T is for Two . . . actually six!

H is for Halo

I think I mentioned these in a Friday date's 'H is for...' and further added that we'd look at them separately, well, in the event I got four more and then another three, with only 12 in the line, I'm over half-way there . . . but they have now been fully 'cleared' so I think three-quarter's-Halo will be it! [Famous last words - Since writing this post another has come in and been seen in a Friday date's 'H is for...', so I only need one, I now have eleven (of twelve), and if I can find the commander, we'll return to them briefly as a group]

The first two purchased; a standard 'Space Marine' (from my limited knowledge of the game, mostly garnered from the sides of Mega-Bloks boxes!) [MS2 - Master Chief] and a feisty, blue, robo-babe [MS9 - Cortana] who may be enemy, but balanced what was originally intended to be a small sample . . . of two.

I think these are two 'good guys' above (yes, there are two Master Chiefs; if you game Halo I guess that'll make perfect sense!) and two bad-guys below, but I haven't the faintest idea really! I got four more, because as - you may have gathered from past posts - I really like these little Jada die-casts, and, as I know so little about Halo; I bag each separately with the little name tag they're standing on!

Three more, not sure of the allegiances of any of these, but the Hunchback-of-Halo-World [MS11 - Grunt Minor] has to be an evil-beevil? he's sports a purple fist . . . that's gotta' be bad! The chap in the middle [MS10 - Atriox] looks a bit Marvel'esque, while the guy on the far left [MS3 - Emile-239] looks like a space marine but could still be a baddie, or mercenary?

I think this got left-off any one of several previous posts on these, courtesy of Brian B who shelfied Harry in the US, we have seen the line in a report from the Toy Fair. With Marvel, DC, Disney, Harry and Halo; there's something for everyone with Jada's Nano Metalfigs!

I have not been paid for this message - I just love 'em!

B is for Broken Blind Bags

They're broken because you can see the contents!

In the news all the weekend just gone, as there was a major competition in the US (New York?) with millions in prizes - I shelfied these in the Works, where the full range (including the 'really rare's) all seem to be on clearance, I don't know what they cost first time round, but they weren't cheap enough for me to 'invest'!

Five-packs, I think I've seen two different ones, but in different stores! Figures are about 75/80mm, I'm not farty enough to get the tape-measure out in a discount store . . . although as I don't carry a tape-measure that would be hard to do, even if I was farty-enough!

Two-packs are more affordable, yet more expensive at £2.50 per figure against the two-quid of the five-packs. I know nothing about Fortnight, but have seen various references of it in the media to know it's one of the big games (online?) at the moment, and presumably these are the better-known thirty-six or favourite download characters/'skins'? 

The single 'blind-bags' which aren't, are the most expensive way to purchase them, but the easiest way to fill-gaps, clearly the marketing model is for you to purchase the five-lots, then the pairs, then finish off with the singles, but - if you are tempted - I'd look for the 'rarest' first wherever they are (one is in a twin-pack), as they will be in smaller quantities, then grab the commoner ones later!

The whole set; the image embiggens to reasonably large - but a bit blurry - if you click on it! Epic-PMI/Kids Works-Sinco Creations, that's how it is these-days, with this stuff; licenses within licenses!

A word of warning though, if you are tempted, but are also an ethical buyer, these may be made in china and licenced to various intermediates, but ultimate profit channels-back to an Israeli firm.

S is for Stop The Presses!

Damn, missed it by a day!  Not quite the 'waiting for a bus then three turn-up' analogy, but that 'lassie' post has been in Picasa for a couple of three months, and been on the desktop for several weeks, so publishing it yesterday when the parcel containing this was waiting at home for me is somewhat ironic, but there you are!

Chris Smith has sent the Blog a fantastic parcel with all sorts of lovely things in it, but right on top, almost the first thing I noticed (after a bag-full of Dunkin soldiers!) was this chap (or chap'ess!), and - compared to any of yesterday's HK's - what a peach! It's in a dense PVC, similar to the output of either Joal or Prior, but is not marked and I don't know it from either range, but there you go - turning-up late to a party was always slightly fashionable!

And it's a lovely sculpt, on or 'after' the Timpo original (?) - Cheers Chris!

C is for Collie-dog

Having to work out why there are definitely two types of collie dog, I discovered there are actually four . . . ish! If you are interested I can only send you here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collie, but suffice to say in polymer there are basically two, the long haired Border or Farm Collies, and the even longer-haired (and more pointy-nosed) Rough Collie. I used to think Border and Welsh were the same, but Welsh are short-haired (my cousin's endless line of unrelated 'Rovers' - saves learning a new name!).

From the left and all basically Border/Farm Collies with one exception; Britains 1st type, Timpo (the exception, he/she's more Rough Collie), Britains prone, Britains 2nd type and finally; Britains Hong Kong - to which you can add the Spears 'A Shepherd and His Dog' board-game copy, although I decided it was probably Britains supplied, unlike the sheep.

Of the three designs Britains ran from the '50's (?) to the mid-1960's, the running one is more Rough Collie than the other two, and is probably a second 'exception'! However the later HK-manufactured version (far right) is defiantly Border/Farm with the thicker muzzle.

The Timpo Collie has the longer fur of the Rough, and while early ones had a touch of white paint on brown or black plastic, later examples are unpainted in black, white or brown. The darker-brown dog is a Hong Kong copy with a spray-painted white belly.

The Hong Kong clone has been copied with some skill, to the point where there is little size variance and the 'E' of England on the original is still readable on the knock-off. If it wasn't for the slightly blobbier feet and tail and different join-marks (in a three-part tool), one might think the HK maker got hold of the old Timpo mould!

Britains running pose, started life as one of a 'family' of three, with standing and prone kennel-mates, but by the 1970's only the runner remained in the catalogue. The top row shows those early dogs (another yellow-brown one came in today - 17th July - with a charity lot!), definitely 'Lassie' type Rough Collies, they can have dry-brushed highlights on the collar or plain-white shoulder-stripes.

Middle row compares the earlier sculpt (outer pair) with the later Hong Kong supplied replacement (inner pair) which is definitely the Border/Farm type, while the lower row is a variety of those late versions, with a washy grey-white plastic Tomy example fifth from the left and an unpainted example on the far end. Star Toys of Hong Kong copied the later design in all-black polyethylene with a battery-operated, big-rig, horse-box/animal transporter.

The earlier poses obviously sold well before they were dropped from the inventory, and they don't seem to be much less available, although the standing poses is a little harder to track down.

The right hand prone dog is a Hong Kong copy with the same purplish-brown as some pretty-common rabbits from the colony, which came in Home Farm sets, but the Holly type, not Blue Box, although some (at least one?) of the 'generics' below will probably be Red- or Blue Box.

Note also that the far-right standing dog has a gloss finish, against the commoner matt of most; a failure of the out-worker to properly stir the new paint?

Marked with a simple 'ENGLAND', this is Crescent's entry into the sheepdog trials; and they've paired a clear Rough Collie with . . . a  . . . ? . . . phffffff . . . Springer Spaniel . . . kennel mongrel? Tail's odd for a spaniel! Early painted - later unpainted, always black I think, but there may be white-plastic shots?

In the foreground Crescent's sculpts are here both pirated as Christmas cracker or gum-ball machine capsule-prizes, both marked with a blocked 'HONG KONG', to the right is a very crude sculpt (but new pose, see below), not Star Toys' one which was the Britains running pose, but of similar end-use as the Crescent copies and probably quite modern.

It's a Rough Collie, while the large (probably Chinese) one in a Schleich/Papo/Bully compatible size is clearly a Border/Farm Collie, it's unmarked and a soft PVC-replacement against the polyethylene of the other three.

This post's photograph folder grew over a few months as I tried to get everything together, with most of the above from storage, the previous image is recent - mostly Charity shop - stuff and this image is also storage stuff; the Far East 'junk'!

Three more Crescent copies at the front (green boxes in the key), a unique sculpt (purple) marked 'Hong Kong' and copied by the black one in the previous image and two marked 'China' (red boxes). Crescent's are Border/Farm types, the rest more Rough Collies. The other larger one (2nd from left back/top row) has a neat 'Made in Hong Kong' mark.

This lot was the 'here' stuff and we have another three Crescent cracker/gum-ball types (the 'spaniel' doesn't seem to have been copied so prolifically?), another Britains standing, a brown Timpo with the remains of paint, two more prone-copies (with purplish-paint) and along with three PVC types are another bunch of generics (various marks or none) to make up the pack.

Those PVC types here include; back left marked 'China 8' (or B), the next one along is marked plain 'China' and while it looks more like an Alsatian/German Sheppard, doesn't look-so, when placed with the other Alsatian/German Shepherd toys, so I've put him/her here for now and when I get round to German Shepherds will show him/her against them too, so everyone can make up their own minds - both are original sculpts!

While the large Britains ['ish] running copy (front middle - brown & white) is unmarked and might be a European die-cast/farm vehicle accessory. The two dogs (behind him and third from the left on the back row) over-sprayed with dark orange-brown may be from a Berwick board game, but I don't think so.

...The Hounds of Hell milled-about on the lawn outside Professor Farquhar's study, they knew he only had the one silver-bullet left and a small phial of holy-water, but he'd need them both - for himself - before the night was over or the fire dimmed, and cooked meat was as good as fresh!