C is for Carved Cedars and Cathay's Colonial Clones

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!