"No, sorry, all I know is
what you know, Hong Kong copies of Britains garage mechanics, the bases look a bit like Marx's 45mm air force figures . . . ohh! Hold-on,
yes I do know . . . read on!"
It's
really nice to discover the answer to a regular question in my inbox, although
when I say 'regular' I've been asked about three times since the blog started
so about once every half-decade!
And
when I say 'discovery' it's really more rediscovery, as all this stuff we seek
was once common knowledge to various people or groups, from toy fairs to
sales-rep's visiting newsagents! Sculptors, pantograph-operators,
polymer-granule wholesalers, marketers and Christmas present un-wrappers!
The
'offending article', copies of better mechanics by more household names (Britains & Auburn?) which turn up quite often, indeed 'mysteriously often',
given the evidence, but I'll get on to that in a minute. I have a fair few of
them, but only the three poses, which again will be addressed below.
The
Britains' sculpts are either-side,
the one in the middle is from a US maker's donor, I think, but a cursory search
didn't throw-up the actual figure, Auburn
have the hat on a casually walking figures, but no oil can or pourer/measuring
jug, while Kentoy here have similar poses without the hat? He looks like Sgt. Bilko with an illicit or purloined
urn of coffee!
Anyway,
the answer - which will be specific to the UK - is Home Paraphanalia! Some tup'penny-ha'penny mail-order outfit
offering cheap deals in the Sunday Supplements (Sunday Telegraph 1974) to get peoples contact-details so they could
bombard them with shite from a dozen other companies for ever-after!
The
'Fabulous' 2-Lane Road Racing Set;
from the side-fencing, would seem to be a knock-off of the Scalextric system.
Now . . . there is a forth pose, holding/rolling a spare tyre, who is also reminiscent of
several other peoples' figures, but I've yet to find one and a figure in a publicity
photo is never a guarantee of an actual issue . . . do you have one? I have
several similar figures and we may have looked at some a while ago, so I'll
check them at some point , see if he's been miss-directed to the wrong tub/bag.
Once
you know it's a Beach Buggy slot-racing game, Google quickly reveals that the
same game is common as both a generic (two on evilBay right now) and also
branded to Eldon (dozens findable)
which will be good for most everywhere, but, neither seem to come with the
figures? Yet for the figures to be so common, they must have either sold this
mail-order offer bloody-well, or we'll find the figures to have been included
in various other, similar sets?
The
ones I've found don't even seem to have a space for the figures, but it may be
they all had them as a bagged addition shoved into a space, and to have just
lost them? The generics would have been sold from markets, the old newsagents
and general stores, sports shops etc . . . I was discussing the old Aldershot
market with Adrian from Mercator the
other day, and we both remembered it fondly, it had several stores selling this
kind of stuff.
A
couple of mine have been conscripted due to the efforts of other buggers; army
green Hong Kong'er on the left and a FANY boiler-suited Britains on the right, like a certain HMtQ!
♪♫♪♫ "Iiiiii'm
toppin' up my Space Car
kickin' at my white-walls
dylithium's for snails . .
. " ♫♪♫♪
The premises of
Home Paraphernalia is now a
Majestic Wine Warehouse with offices above, the company doesn't seem to have a presence on the 'web, and probably folded decades ago.
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