D is for Die-Cast Desperadoes

Off to Spain now, where poor old Play Me churned out a family of reasonably classy, novelty, antiqued-finish, pencil-sharpeners for the tourist and stationary industries, unwittingly launching a thousand Hong Kong (now China) copies, clones and piracies . . . but not - as far as I know - actual pirates, however Play Me had given us two!

The standard seller was a small box with cannon only, but a larger window-box existed, rather in the style of Britains naval Gun, for which these two zamak/mazac figures were designed, at approximately 50mm, they are a tad small, but I'd imagine being small was a bonus on the cramped gun-decks of mid-millennia sailing vessels?

Here compared with one of those Hong Kong copies, the HK one is particularly clean and rather shiny! there's not much in it to be honest and I thought I'd shot more HK ones, I thought I'd shot the Britains ones and I know I have a scan I now just can't find [see below!], so we'll turn to these again at some point!

I have only the one Spanish cannon-ball (no HK's), but I imagine there were five-to-ten or even twelve in a mint set? Oh, how this stuff used to rattle-round a Hoover until the steel-curved brush-roots caught it, jammed, and the drive-band made that funny-smell and melted!

A comparison with two Lone Star 'Metallion' pirates (Long John [silver] and Captain Blood, issued by Hubley and others elsewhere, some as copies), which were in the same box, also die-casts, they have a silver-finish rather than the copper-effect of the Play Me chaps.

It was on the desktop - Doh! So all my searches in Picasa and the 'finished' & 'waiting' folders were a waste of time!

This is - I believe - the same Spencer we saw here; Spencer Gifts - and still going(Northern 'States and Canada), although someone affiliated to the PSTSM took my image (without asking - ten for one, that's the rule, m'K!) and has been telling everyone it's an 'English' company (not British mind, so I'd like to see his 'empirical' evidence!) for the last two or three years . . . despite the dollar prices! You can't make this stuff up, but I have other plans for him, another day.

Note - it's closer to the Britains cannon, but with a more complicated ratchet affair on the right-hand side of the body. Also, from the description, although as useless as the Britains ones at sharpening pencils, it fires percussion caps, which - back in the day - were hardened brass-alloy and made a real bang. Now you would use those red, yellow or gold plastic ones.

And speaking of the Britains cannon, I hadn't got round to shooting the loose examples (so a return is guaranteed), but this was in the folder with the Spencer scan, so we'll stick it here for the fun of it! I think I'm right in saying this is the less common of three variants, the ones with a white-block carriage being more common, but having two different barrels? Like I say we'll return to them with all the answers another day.