J is for Juvenilia!

Although the box says 'children over two' so; "Phew! That's me off the hook!" I'm definitely over two! But seriously; there's only one rule on Small Scale World, it must be figural, and even that's not always adhered to! It must be figural, or military, or associated vehicles, equipment, accessories, or small, or in-scale . . . Doh!

This has been bugging me for years, as a few of the figures and animals have turned-up from time to time (indeed, I think there were a few in last autumn's donations from Jim or Chris?), and those figures will remain in the collection - properly labelled, as a sample, long after the set[s] looked at here has gone back to charity.

I say 'set[s]' as the research conducted (cursory - because it was easy!) suggests that the above shot is two complete sets, the maths doesn't quite add-up with the box-lid message, but I suspect that's the copy-writer getting confused as to whether the two boards and two connection lugs were part of the total or in addition to it!. See below!

Trees, and hedges, animals and people, sadly no farm equipment or wagons, and while they are 'flats' in the style of the old wooden ones, they also carry the property of having a thickness that gives them three-dimensionality.

There are four figure sculpts, basically; mum, dad, boy and girl, the classic sixties 'nuclear family'. They have four animal types to look-after, sheep, pigs, cows (6-each) and horses (three). While you get two pine/fir trees, three rather (or equally) amorphic deciduous plants and eight-pieces each of two hedge-lengths, along with six-each of the two yellow road/path pieces, which can be used in blocks as a crop.

One of the design flaws with this set is how hard the road-plates are to un-pin, being stuck-fast and near-flush with the surface. The other is the connector-plates (small green pieces) which are better used on the underside as they don’t have a cut-out for the boundary-ridge between the two plates.

You also get several buildings which would be excellent for a very 'old school' war gaming table, perhaps with wooden blocks in red and blue for the opposing forces! Consisting of a farmhouse (door; no windows), a Dutch-barn type-thing (filled-in ends) and two pig-sty shaped structures; these can obviously be arranged in a verity of ways.

The scenics also would go quite well with the similar set we looked at here which may well turn out to be one of the biggish-names like Hasbro or Mattel, or one of the Lines group's brands or companies?

The undersides of the grid-pierced, sheet-form, base-plates are marked with a clear Made in England, and that is the only marking on anything, which is why they were 'unknown' for years, however once I'd found these in a charity shop the other day, it encouraged me to dig deeper (there's tons of this stuff in the unknown boxes) and they proved easy to find.

Down on the Farm by Pippin Toys (part of the Rafael Lipkin group). You can see the two three connectors shown in the artwork, as being visible, but - as I mentioned above - I found they fitted better if placed underneath. There should be 134 pieces in two sets (65 pieces + two base-plates x2) but I only have 132, hence the note above., but it might be that there should be four horses per set, or three connectors?

A while later - Duurrr! It's there in the artwork (in the middle by the corner of the hedge), I'm missing two connectors; smallest parts, easiest lost!

Which gives us a full set count of;

·         x1 Farmhouse

·         x1 Dutch Barn

·         x1 Farmer

·         x1 Farmer's Wife

·         x1 Boy

·         x1 Girl

·         x2 Base Plates

·         x2 Pig Sheds

·         x2 Fir Trees

·         x3 Deciduous Trees

·         x3 Connector Plates

·         x3 Horses

·         x6 Pigs

·         x6 Sheep

·         x6 Cows

·         x6 Short Path Sections

·         x6 Long Path Sections

·         x8 Short Hedge Sections

·         x8 Long Hodge Sections

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·         67 Pieces (65 + 2 Base plates)

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It's juvenilia, but it's figural, it's been identified, shot from both sides and presented here for posterity, properly tagged . . . box ticked!