X is for Xavier the Mouse . . . ♪♫♪ Where? There . . . There on the Stair! ♪♫♫♪

Heh-heay! I found him, and for the second time . . . sort of, but I'll bore you with that story in a minute, I think we've looked at Xandria Holland twice now or three times, and with stuff from Chris, Theo and a recent purchase, we'll be looking at them again soon, but on those previous occasions I mentioned the fact that I had the mouse with the cheese when I was a kid . . .

. . . and here he is in all his polyvinyl chloride glory!

I can't now remember whether it was aunty Margret or aunty Ruth who gave us these, but one summer's day in the late 1960's or early 1970's we - four middle cousins - all had one, I was given the above, I can't remember which of two my brother had, either the dog tramp (hobo) or the gopher (?) in chef's whites, I suspect he had the tramp, and one of the two cousins' had the chef? I can't remember anything about the fourth?

Anyhoos, we were playing in the bale-stack (as they built them my cousins would leave den's and tunnels hidden in them!) and I must have caught the cheese against some twine, it pulled loose and was gone forever (". . . needle in a . . ." and all that!), only to turn-up in a stiff envelope (no Jiffy back then!) the following winter, after it turned-up in the sweepings at the end of the selling/feeding of bales season!

The two parts hung-around in a drawer for years after, but I hadn't discovered PVC welders in those days, so it went the way of all flesh when we moved-house in 1980. Now he's back and I'm quite pleased to see him! He never had a name, so now he's Xavier - after the maker, because Xandria is a female name apparently! And obviously he's a little mouse with clogs on!

Q is for Quis Es Quo Vadis . . . or Question Time!

In the last donation to the blog from Chris Smith, you may remember there were a couple of small Romans, around the 50-mil mark, we;; they were interesting and in the correspondence that accompanies such donation I mentioned to Chris that while they looked new-ish - production wise - they were also 'new' to me.

A day or so later Chris sent me a link to some on feebleBay, and I started watching it, in the end I watched it for two, possibly three cycles before I felt I had the funds/excuse to bid, put in the minimum bid required crossed my fingers and stopped watching it (fatal if you keep watching, that's how you get in bidding wars!), a couple of days later I had a 'please pay' message in Yahoo, and Bob's yer' uncle - they were on their way!

These are they and they seem to be A) a complete sample of one of each, of eight poses, in B) two colours, with C) four more-military looking types and three who are closer to gladiators in general costume/equipment, with one who's a bit Bi!*. But I stress, there could be more poses and/or more colours, however - I haven't seen them!

As to the origins? They have features, 'signature' features even, in-common with the smaller sized pirate or Ninja output of RedBox (HGL in the UK), Toy Major and/or Dollar General (or Dollar Tree?), or even those Imperial 'vs' paired sets and are very similar to a set of nights currently under dozens of phantom brands on Alibaba and Amazon, in various configurations, with and/or without (or only) mounted company, and/or siege equipment. Ironically the knights are sometimes called Roman Soldiers!

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000858094738.html

and

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4001166827243.html

But I have been unable to find these as current, or in any packaging just the odd lose one? They could just as easily have come from Funtastic, Funrise, Peterkin, Ja-Ru, Playwrite, Unique or any other import 'jobber' who issues bi-coloured sets of protagonists, cheaply manufactured in the Far East as rack-toys or party-favours?

* Shield-wise they could all be Gladiators, and I have searched as hard under that moniker and 'Toy Romans' or 'Roman Soldiers'? I shall call them Etruscan's!

In the searching for info on them I found these all over the place as un-packaged generics; buy the cheapest you can find with free postage is my advice, all-in with postage they vary from the £6.18p I paid, up to 40+quid!! There's one born every minute - don't let it be you!

He's in the style of the 'antiqued' novelty pencil sharpeners which have been a staple of museum and touristy gift-shops and stationers since the 1960's, but a larger piece, and modern, Chinese-made - obviously! He's in a die-cast alloy and carries no clue to manufacturer either in person or on the sales sites, but ticks a box and makes an excellent statue for smaller figures!

Playing in Picasa!

A quick sketch I managed to fire-off out of the bus window as we went through a village with an unpronounceable name somewhere near Rimini! Do you have a brand for the little plastic ones?

Both Peter E and Mark the 'Man of Tin' confirm Funtastic - Phew, at least I had them in the long-list! See comments.

H is for How They Come In III (another old one)

This was another lot from Michael Melnyk, and had an added bonus which I'll highlight in an other wise text-light post, which like the last one will be 'captions' rather than full-on verbiage! The first 13 images are what Michael eMailed to me, to agree what would have been a very reasonable price, the rest are my sorting it into temporary 'to be sorted' or TBS bags.

Although I think I'd already Blogged the big-purchase sample, this had lots of useful spares, so was an immediate 'interester'.

Britains Swoppets - can't knock 'em!

Ditto - lots of damage, but useful spares

The broken Eyes-Right are still my only samples

along with a part guardsman, I think?

Horses!

Now, this was all Michael sent on the khaki infantry types, photo'wise

Now blogged; the Trojans, AWI gun-crew and the Herald knights!

I think I've Blogged the Herald Wild West as well?

Not sure where the 7th Cavalry are, but I know I still don't have a full set

- neither Herald HK or Deetail

More of the same

More!

Bits & pieces

This is all of them together

But after I'd paid, he sent this lot! There was a whole bunch of earlier khaki infantry, including 'enemy', and the three rows top right which were also in the post a couple of days ago, with loads of early 1950/60's kit figures, some more bits, shells, space etc!

There's a bag of Timpo 1st version swoppet GI bits as well and other stuff

And, as if all that wasn't enough, there was all this Britains Farm, mostly later stuff, with some vinyl, but mostly shop-clean, and while he had mentioned it, he hadn't sent images, and I'd imagined the usual pile of play-worn Hong Kong/Singapore/China stuff!

I'm not sure where the assault boat is now, sorted to 'can't find'!

Wild West, space and horses, the guardsman was the first of the HK copies in the brighter red, 

I've more now I think.

Damaged stuff and Herald Hong Kong khaki infantry types

The real surprise, was the earlier khaki infantry, which included the brown-based 'enemy' versions. The number of years these ran for means there's always a few variants in a lot like this you haven't got, so although the enemy had been done on the khaki infantry page via the book archive images, I do now have a good sample myself, both from the big-purchase (green bases) and this lot (brown).

The Trojans were the later ones, but with earlier ones in the big purchase and HK ones from (the legendary) Barry Blood's sell-offs, and elsewhere; we've had a good post on them now.

Medievals and odds. 

Again, while I obviously thanked him at the time and have name-checked occasionally I don't always remember who has sent or donated what, and could have credited Michael more often, such as on the earlier Trojan post, so many thanks here, for all he did back at the start of the blog.

And again apologies for the state of the later images which are a bit dark.

H is for How They Come In II (was the original post title!)

I'm not sure why there was a collage of stuff from Michael Melnyk in the other post (yesterday) as there seem to be two posts with his stuff still in edit, and they include the stuff in those three shots, anyway, I'll publish them just to get them out of the way, although it was so long ago, a lot of it's been done properly by subject, maker or theme, and I can't remember the details now; so a few notes, as captions, really.

A quick bit of background - Michael was looking for Swoppet Knights and such treasures (I think) round his local car-boot sales, and offered the chuck-outs to me/the blog, which I gratefully accepted as I was new to the large scale and had plenty of gaps to fill (this was all eight-ten years ago now?), and while I paid for them, I must stress it was pin-money, no more than to help Michael break-even on his purchases I suspect, so consequently was a real help to the collection/Blog.

A bunch of wagons which we have looked at in part twice now, and will have another follow-up; when I sort the Crescent ones in the garage - I have seen them once or twice! Along with other stuff including nice Lone Star and Cherilea Wild West / Native American Indians/

Same view different angle

Small scale bits and a kit-driver/chauffeur - robot's nice!

The Wagons - Thomas (UK)/Poplar and Tudor Rose

Cherilea, Crescent and other figures,

the 7th cavalry were brittle to the point of dust!

 

 Lone Star Wild West

and Cherilea ancients

Desert and colonials

 Thomas bits

I've never really thanked Michal for these, I've name-checked him in the odd post, but while I had shot the lots when they came in (for my own 'records'), it was before I started the H is for... trope, so they never got the kind of treatment they would get today, so many thanks Mr Melnyk, they were a real boost to the fledgling collection!

And - again - now I'd increase the contrast on most of the images and drop the brightness on the last two, but they're here in edit, so they can go as they are . . . how it was - a few years ago!

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Blogger's actually playing up tonight . . . they missed their June deadline for switching us all to 'New4.6' or whatever it is, and now they are about to miss the July deadline they're obviously panicking, and while there's been problems with image upload for weeks, the preview is playing-up now and right-click features are missing! Why? Why do you have mess with something which isn't broken? Pink Monkeys - we haven't got a chance in the long run!

F is for Follow-up - Monopoly

Although, when it says 'follow-up', it was referring to something six or more years ago! AND, I thought I'd posted this all those years ago! Hay-ho! Just a quickie . . .

Following the card stand-ups with wooden feet (UK) and composition (US) 'erzatz' playing pieces of the Second World War period, when Waddington's re-vamped the Monopoly set after the war and for a while, they had these die-cast mazak/zamak-alloy flats.

I think we've looked at both the motorcycle and the tank in separate posts (the tank seeming to be derived from or influencing the larger US comic-book cheapness in plastic), but then I found a set (there's a bunch more in the garage somewhere!) of all of them, except of course, there's seven?

I think the 'Blimp' is from another board game . . . Airship, or Zeppelin or something? Where it - possibly - comes in four colours. Aug. 2022 - Waddington's Astron, six colours!

I also shot a selection pf the houses and hotels who have come over the years from various contract-manufactures, some smooth, some textures, some with hard edges, some soft and the plain wooden ones from the pre-through-imediate-post-war era, although I think if you find a few early sets you'll find variations among the wooden ones too!

That's it, it was only going to be a gap-filler when it was first uploaded!

H is for How They Come In - Various, Old

This was one of the posts I pre-loaded back in, whenever . . . 2016 maybe? I can't remember, anyway I did say something at the time, and most of them were subsequently published, but there are about ten still sitting in edit with the Marx Idiots post!

So much time has gone-by I can't even remember where all these came from, but I think we're talking Adrien Little put-asides, Michael Melnyck saves and/or Sandown Park plunder?

Anyway, I'll add a bit of blurb and shove it up here for the morning!

This is definitely Sandown Park plunder, whether one show or two I can't say. I know the four unpainted (Esso pemiums) and two painted Tin Tin figures came from the Belgians who used to stall-out next to Adrian, sadly Brwreakshit put paid to their visits, coupled with the growing number of really good shows in Brussels and suround, topped-off by Covid-19!

There's also stuff we've seen separately - the two versions of Palitoy Spitfire, the Spanish Sobre Land Rovers, the plastic civilian low-loader, MB Games character figures from the Buck Rogers in the 25 Century board game and the Pyro-Kleeware army helicopter.

The rest seems to be small vehicles and various HO-OO compatible bits and bobs, with a carded pontoon-bridge knock-off and INGAP 'planes on the card. And three Wombles - see below!

The stuff on the left here is more of a mystery, I think it's stuff which came to the house over a week or two, possibly from Adrien (in passing), Peter Evans (by post) and a charity-shop purchase or two . . . or any combination of the proceeding!

Obviously we've covered the pirates, sorted the LB (LP) cavemen and the rest has been filtered into the collection for future posts.

On the right is a lovely little lot which came from Moonbase Central's Bill 'Wotan', really because I'd liked the little red footballer and Lone Star Zorro in a 'who wants these' post he did, but he bulked the package out with some other bits, including the three early-learning type zoo-flats, a Lucky (?) fork-lift driver, Marty Toy aliens and three Hong Kong copies of the old Tri-Ang Battle Space helicopter - all good stuff!

The left-hand lot was from a home-visit to Adrien when I was passing, and then I think he brought the middle lot to a Sandown for me? The right-hand stuff probably was a Sandown, the weekend after the plastic Warrior show tends to see me skint and buying very little at 'the park'!

We've had a closer look at the Birmaina copies of Comet-Authenticast, the Airfix dogs and the cake-decoration plastic copies of Britains Lilliput, the rest is grist to the mill! The little yellow box is a Benbros copy of the Britains Lilliput cart and posts are mostly prepared on them for the But is it Giant Blog, actually dealing with the Christmas cracker copies in plastic, but they're yet to be blurbed-up!

The Hulk is from Corgi and missed the series of posts I did on them back in 2012/13 (?), as did most of the superheroes (Batman, Robin and Spiderman . . . Spidermen!), as they were all in storage, so forthcoming . . . one day!

This is a lot of Sandown Park purchases, possibly from more than one show? A lot of these images were old when i loaded them, so we;re looking at stuff which has been in the collection now for half-a-decade or more and the old grey cells can't pin it all down!

A bunch of Marx 101 Dalmations from the Disneykins sit above three more Wombles, I have all bar Madame Cholet who seems harder to find; I will Blog them one day as a box-ticker. We've now looked properly at the Zang/Timpolene set, the modern Corgi lead and the Jet Petrol vintage car premiums from R&L, along with Gem's footballers. I think we also saw the Craftline boats? The rest is bits and bobs!

This lot was from Michael Melnyck, and we've had a good look at the wagons (back at the time I think) and the cereal premium Wild West while the small scale stuff on the right has been sorted away! We haven't looked in depth at the Cherilea 60mm's because I haven't got a full-enough sample for a box-tick, but when i got those Saloon pieces a year or so after this lot, I think we looked at a few of these at the same time?

The left-hand lot was I think also from Micheal, mostly 1950/60's kit figures in various box-scale or odd scale (1:40 and such-like) sizes, some space and smaller bits/parts, while the stuff on the right looks to be a handful of 'gash' lead Adrien chucked at me at some point and a bag of Sandown Park end-of-show floor finds? If I get time I'll always wander round the halls picking-up the stuff left behind!

Many thanks to Adrien, Michael, Bill and anyone else (Trevor, Gareth?) who thinks they may have added to the above plunder, it'll all be posted properly on the Blog one day! And, yeah, sorry it all took so long to publish, the images will need to be right-clicked on, if you don't have the hover-enlarge thingy us Mozilla users enjoy, and some of them are a bit darker than I'd let through now!

And I'm so out of practice with editing in this box, I'll apologize now for any typos that get through!

R is for Rainbow Warriors

The Quaker Oats 'Sugar Puffs' breakfast cereal premiums and Tom Smith Christmas cracker novelty Gladiators!

We've done them here before (link), there are comparisons on the Airfix Romans' page (link) and I helped Dave over at PSR with images years ago (link), but I really like them, keep collecting them and will return to them from time to time because they ARE eye-candy!

One of each; just to remind you of the set's contents. You get/got five foot figures and three mounted for an eight-count, probably in one tool with a three or six-cavity second-tool for the horses?Sorry; only realized just now it's the old image - new one next time!

Several of the foot figures make useful auxiliaries/allies (the three at the back) while the chap with a round shield looks more Persian or Asiatic. The other guy makes a half-useful slave-driver on-board ship, but is otherwise the duffer in the foot-figures!

With the mounted, only the one in the center is worth collecting for 'army-building' (and steppes/Franks/Goths rather than Rome?) the others having obvious gladiator armour (left) or a ridiculous shield for a rider - on the right, not that they can't all be thrown together with a mix of Airfix, Atalantic, Revell (Elastolin sculpts) and Giant (Marx/Britains) with newer stuff, to make Spartacus's mob!

I took this shot ages ago, and have forgotten why I numbered some of them! But I'll have a stab at most of the notes.

1 - Definitely a Tom Smith colour as that's how ours came in when we were kids, it's a sort of fawn-grey.

2 - This is a metallic green of the sort more usually associated with hard-plastic space-stuff from a decade or so earlier.

3 - Pfffh . . . I obviously had something world-changing to say about 3, once!

4 - This is the same colour as the late Airfix cream figures, and it is cream, not yellow! This is not to say Airfix was involved in their production, but that if two companies were involved, they were probably getting their granules from the same wholesaler.

5 - As per 3, can't remember what I was going to say, semi-translucent . . . which it is? The only pink one? Can't remember!

Ah yes - The Ford Mustang, available in every colour except black! Just the one sculpt for the horses! The whole point of the rainbow-shots is to allow you to consider the origins for yourself; my own feeling is that the only firm that produced the same wide range of colours was Hilco, or at a push Cherilea, both ending-up connected anyway?

But if the Quaker issue were the commoner, primary-colours, and if Tom Smith got access to the tool and farmed it out to a contract manufacture (Tatra or similar?) years later, even the colour range might not be much of a clue?

The obvious gladiator pose is the Retiarius, and the pile behind are the miss-moulded short-shots, the four in front are those with passable tridents, although - as you can see - the first on the left is not fully-formed. I don't often use the term, but finding a decent trident is 'rare' in the true use of the term!

And kids would not necessarily have known he has been posed as having just thrown his net? On a plus side, given both the size of the figures and when they were made, is that he's a very good likeness for a sub-Saharan African with cropped 'afro' hair, a heavy brow and full-lips.

The bases are very Airfix!

M is for Marx's Mardy Misses

Or; technically, W is for Wild Western Women, as two of them aren't Marx! And several are re-issues.

As loyal readers know I didn't start collecting large scale (apart from a composition Cossack, Tim Mee Jap' and a couple of hollow-cast on display in my old kitchen) until after I started the blog back in 2009/10, so I've only been at this 'full-on' malarkey for a decade, but I seem to have picked-up a few Wild West women and when I was sorting the Wild West a couple'o months ago, I shot some of them together before splitting them up.

Not only are they mostly Marx, they are mostly Dale Evans . . . how boring! No, but several of them are, and from the left we have;

Marx 60mm Dale Evans - Roy Rogers [early] Playsets - PVC vinyl-rubber*

Marx 54mm Dale Evans - Roy Rogers [late] Playsets - polyethylene, earlier, painted

Marx 54mm Dale Evans - Roy Rogers [late] Playsets - polyethylene, re-issue

Marx 54mm Dale Evans - Roy Rogers [late] Playsets - polyethylene, re-issue

Koho 70mm Calamity Jane - polyethylene, early, painted

Marksmen 60mm - ex-Marx Town - polyethylene re-issue (via Rado/Ri-Toys)

Marx 60mm Townswoman - Town sets - chalky polyethylene (Swansea?)

Marx 60mm Cowgirl - Ranch Cowboys - polyethylene (re-issue?)**

Marx 60mm Cowgirl - Special Town + Sets - PVC vinyl-rubber (paint may be home-added)

*early version, later mouldings had an added base/stand

** I don't know what she's supposed to ride but she fits several of my hippo's and a extra-large lion!

I also have this poor casualty, and she's a casualty twice-over having been apparently sculpted as a casualty, and then lost a hand and a foot due to the brittleness of the material coupled with rough handling!

I am assuming she's a [Ron] Barzo piece, being sculpted in a two-part epoxy/PU-resin, but she could be a garage/aftermarket or home-sculpted piece? If Barzo she may be a one-per-box from one from his big boxed play sets? Not that she is definitely Wild West even; he did many other 'horse & musket' periods/theatres including pirates?

In the searching for the Koho (Koch und Hofmockel) babe's details I managed to ID two others, both from the smaller 54mm line, and after this shot was taken a yellow 60mm Indian with lance turned-up, along with another 54mm cowboy, same pose, so; another growing corner of the collection!

Some cruder-looking versions of the 54mm were issued in France as premiums by Jeunesse, who are still going in the health & beauty market which makes the issue of Wild West figures a strange promotion in any age, you'd expect something like costume dolls from the sexism that drove 1950/60's marketing; maybe they launched an aftershave or men's deodorant, or something like that? Kid's bubble-bath or toothpaste?