H is for How They Come In - April I - Chris - Intro.

So, back to the folder of folders! This was a lovely lot from Chris (none haven't been!), with some very interesting items, and as I'm struggling to populate these opening paragraphs with words on all the similar posts; let's just get stuck in.

On the left are things which caught my eye in the minutes after opening, on the right what I am carefully picking through to add to the left-hand display, you can see another racing car in yellow, another turtle, a nice small-scale hay-cart . . . parachuting paratroopers!

Sorting into thematic piles gave (clockwise from top left); Military, civilian, historical/ceremonial, medieval, cartoon/TV & movie, Wild West, Space & Sci-Fi and finally; animals - the gold lady in 7 should really have been in 5, as she is a superhero character!

The fruits of my sorting (and Chris's labours), from the vehicular genre; the two racing cars were probably cake decorations, but they can also be found as rack-toy fodder, usually with a simple slam-plate, sprung-launcher, the sports-coupe is fun and the wagon has a series of six articles in preparation for the Giant Blog, this one having been given what looks like a Lledo horse and is most likely from a Christmas cracker?

The jig-toy lorry needs no introduction and the two rubber boats (Kinder? Behind and kit piece forward) are grist to the mill, while the Kellogg's submarine is missing it's conning-tower details, but they ARE the four stumps of the earlier moulding, and the plastic colour is very unusual?

And the liner is superb! I thought it might be a missing piece from the probably Zang set we looked at a while ago, but Chris pointed-out it's plaster, not harder composition, so an old chalkwear cake decoration, but not one I'd seen before - lovely! The three funnels suggests an attempt at RMS Queen Mary?

Some of the civilians included two larger racing drivers, a really nice pair of safari explorers (presumably from a modern play set?) and a better copy of the Corgi copy safari guide than my broken yellow one, seen here before. I think the two large ones had a markers mark but I've forgotten it so I won't make an arse of myself by guessing the wrong one!

The lower shot shows to reissued Marx linesmen (which I wish I'd had when I photographed the telephone-truck! Although it was a much bigger scale), along with an ambulance man who looks similar to a weird military stretcher crew I have - as parachute toys! Final item is an interesting and probably home-made figurine of a woman carved from a close-grained softwood - maybe for a nativity scene?

Some of the more interesting sports figures and a Dinky-copy firefighter who clearly had a push-on hose. The blue lady was manufactured with ring-hands and may be a Hong Kong (or minor make) take-off of the Marx / Cherliea types? But she's polystyrene which is not 'palyable'.

The two running figures may be from those board-games I've mentioned before, where a larger figure/target throws things down a 'mountain' to knock the players over before they complete a task or circuit of the board and start climbing up the sides to get the 'target' figure?

Don't know anything about the skateboarders, (next day - but Chris does; “Tony Hawk” McDonalds happy meal toys 2005/6 each came with a ramp or half pipe to do stunts with) but there are a lot of toys like them around the place at the moment, and they will encourage me to satrt a skateboarder section as I have a few now, mostly cake decorations but others like these. The road-worker is a particularly nice one and I think the 'diver' with a spring is actually a footballer from an interactive board (or 'tray') game?

Drivers and seated; as I've said before, like paratroopers, these are always in mixed or junk lots, or rummage trays at shows, divorced from the vast number of die-cast and plastic vehicles and novelties made over the last seven-or-so decades and the ID'ing of them will be a major job - one day! There are two versions of fork-lift driver here for starters (painted - top left) and I hope to ID the large motorcyclist at some point.

Thanks as always to Chris Smith for sending this stuff to the Blog to be shared with y'all, and it's animals next.