N is for Nostalgia - Meeces-to-peeces and a Cat, four Pelican's but no Swan!

I have been building-up a bunch of Nostalgia folders for anytime, or even a new Blog I've half a mind to at some point, but this one needs to go out at this time of year so it might as well be this year, as these were in our Christmas stockings many, many moons ago.

I can't now remember if we got two each one year, one each over two years, or one each with the spare mouse and cat retained by Mum? The fact is I do remember 'the' mice (at least two) being in Christmas stockings (which we always seemed to open about 4am!) one year toward the back end of the 1970's.

Made by the German firm Pelikan (pelican) similar-to but unrelated to Schwan-Stabilo, another German stationer, I don't know how many there were in the series or what other animals might have been produced, while Google and feeBay only seem to confirm they are hard to find! The black's dried-out and the green's gone a bit weird, while the Blue's gone turquoise!

I'd shot three before the blue one turned-up elsewhere, I don't know how they ended-up here, as they should have been played-with to death with by my Brother and I, but I guess Mum saved them when we'd gone off to big school! Nice thing to find many years later anyway!

They are similar to a series of trucks/cars both freewheeling and - I think - pull-back motor, which were also given animal/rodent faces and big coloured wheels, which were also popular novelties at the time, we had a gray rabbit and . . . a yellow cat? Also Crimbo-stocking presents but long gone now. D'you remember these?