V is for Variations on a Theme - Keep-Fit Santa's

This is the held-back and enhanced tail of a post from the summer on the Model Power sets Ed Burg sent me ages ago, as the more I dug-out, the more it looked like a whole other post, but first back to the obverse of the Model Power card;

The reverse of the card gives a hint at the range of sets available in this scale/size and the most interesting one is the Santa Land one, clearly designed to do seasonal front lawn or garden (front yard over there) displays in O-gauge/O-027, of the 'full Griswold' type! But they look familiar . . .

. . . not least than because I have Blogged one here years ago; under Culpitt or Anniversary House branding I think, might have been a smaller cake decoration supplier? We've also seen some of the second set (see below) under the Doric label before now.

You may have them as Wilton or Carrousel, but in 1986 two Hong Kong factories (from Bill B's catalogue) were both advertising them as 'new'! The truth is probably that Argeal made them and Greensward shipped them but a third contract manufacturer could have made them, with both Greensward and Argeal then taking them to load their novelty lines for wholesaling to Culpitt or Wilton . . . and now Model Power have them!

I only seem to have one (on shelf), I thought I'd got all of them, but they may be in with the Kinder stuff? A second, more modern set also exists, clearly influenced by the mid-80's set (possibly from the same source - decoration is spot-on - yet smaller belt-buckles), but six new poses, also doing things you;d expect to see in a gym, not from Santa Clause! We see three above . . .

. . . and the other three, with their icing-spike (pick)'ed twins. Whether the spike came first or second I can't tell you, but the spikeless set show no signs of the removal in the moulding (lump or scaring), and they may have been two sets?

The spikeless set are the ones we've seen before, I got them in a Christmas pop-up store in Basingrad a couple of years ago, probably as old stock, but not that old, so . . . last ten years? The Snowmen who accompany them have a large (almost but not quite pencil-top size) hole in them and each gets a crude'ish fir tree and a motto/sign for the cake.

A seller was offering them with sleds (sledges?) this time last year, but as 'assortments of three - six designs'. Looking at the sledges (sleds?) they are drilled for a string or wire (to a reindeer?) and might be the seller's marriage of two bulk purchases, rather than an original commercial offering?

A third set of six Santa's is out there, slightly smaller and probably another source, they either started life as gnomes, or where designed to be both gnomes and Santa's, having all the boot and hem trimming one associates with cake decoration Santa's, but clearly engaged in a spot of more gnome-like gardening . . . or mining - the chap with a lantern; is there a seventh pose somewhere?

Cheers again to Ed for the Model Powersets.