I know; it's a clumsy title, but we've had
Totem's before and in more than one configuration, so I tried to play it safe!
Looking at the carved boughs of Reverence found in the Northern woodlands of
North America and specifically the Britains
Herald model and its may copies.
On the left are two early Britains Herald Totem Poles, the
rust-brown one being the better 'full paint' version, the greyish one being the
later 'reduced-paint' variant. Next to them on the right is the newest member
of the family (as far as joining goes), the CMV
copy, which came from Chris Smith earlier this year and may be among the
earlier of the Hong Kong copies, being closest in size and colouring.
Britains themselves procured the dark arts
of the toymen of aitchkay for the Herald
'Hong Kong' Totem, which was more of a hollow-backed relief statuette,
glued to a separate base, with minimal paint and the whole in polystyrene. By
the time it came-out (1970's) tastes had changed somewhat, and it's there more
as a box-display scenic accessory, that an integral part of the play
environment - I mean they could have glued a flat-back on it?
The CMV
pole is second in this line-up with an equally decorated one (equally early?)
to its left and two undecorated ones to the right. One of the undecorated ones
has the later, more stable Britains
base in its clone-DNA!
The painted one introduces gold, for the de'Luxe
look! I think it's the same maker, and probably slightly earlier than the
right-hand one in the previous line-up. Likewise the two shield-shaped based
ones are colour variations of the previous example.
The last two are similar, but both have
differences from each-other.
PSTSM look away now - as we will see in a
minute; these are all smallies or 'Plastic Smalls' and therefore of no interest
to you, even though none of you read this Blog because it's so crap . . .
heeheehee; Hi guys!
The dark purple-brown one is a modern one
marked China and as you can see although all to a similar size, they are three
different mouldings, with the pale brown one the best - quality wise - the red
one the worst.
I actually had one of these first, decades
ago, but quickly realised large-scale Totem Poles were more in scale with HO or
OO sized figures than the 54/60mm peeps they came with, so started collecting
all totems as a side-collection, despite a dearth of Woodland Indians in the
toy world back in the day!
♪ Twelve Wooden Totems, Standing in the Woods ♫
♪ Twelve Wooden Totems, Standing in the Woods ♫
♪ And if one Wooden Totem, Should get Dropped by a Lumber-Jack ♫
♪ There'd be Eleven Wooden Totems, Standing in
the Woods ♫
Except
they are polymerised-ethylene!
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