ZZ is for Hawkin's Bazzar, Ingo Roggaz, Schilling and/or Tobar!

We've looked at them before, Hawkin's have gone under for a final time since Chris supplied his potted-history and the connection with Schilling was proven at a toy fair, but there was one item I really wanted, and another I quite fancied from the tinplate range, and both have been secured since January, so that's what we're looking at here!

The best! Only because I can't really afford those beautiful old French or German ones when they come up occasionally! Vaguely Prussian or Austrian (even Italian or French) cavalryman of that 'colonial' period 1840-1914 so beloved of figure painters (and print artists) for the colours of the splendor of often quite OTT uniforms, many - well 'a few' - of which survive, simplified, as ceremonial uniforms to this day.

The reigns serving as the gilded tree-hanger, and the whole being three sheets of die-cut tin-plate, pressed to shape and assembled with bent ears/tabs in the traditional way.

My line-up now looks like this, with the fictional Vomag (Vogtland Maschinenfabrik AG, actually subsumed under communism and surviving as IFA - Industrieverband Fahrzeugbau) fire-wagon/ladder-truck as the other 'newbie'.

When we looked at these last time I marked some up as not by Hawkin's or Tobar, as they weren't in the catalogues to hand, but they all seem common enough here in the UK for an assumption that all three importers (Schilling [USA], Tobar [UK] and ^Z_Z /Roggaz [BRD]) carried the full range in one catalogue or another, one year or another.

Really a generic fire fighting vehicle with lines that are more American (showing the input Schilling had from the beginning of this ^Z_Z-branded line?) than anything else, the overly complicated bar the ladder is fixed to obviously doubling as pipe-work for interest/external detailing.

Couple more shots of the additions, the ^Z_Z mark being something I've never managed to do justice to within the font limitations of Word-for-Windows! And Dinky's Centurion again shows how small these little tree-hangers are.

There must be loads in people's attics, cellars, sheds and under-stair cupboards, coming out every year and going back on the tree? And they are perfect to take off the tree as presents for sudden, little visitors . . . my late mother always had a few spare bags of chocolate-coins hidden in the center of the tree - on the fat-ends of the branches - for little people to search for, something she was still doing two years ago when the new neighbours brought round their daughter, and a tradition I will continue when I get to wherever I'm going-to.