N is for Nostalgia - Christmas Bits

The last of the seasonal stuff I think, and an eclectic trio, one's been in the collection for decades, one arrived yesterday and the other pair are 'found objects' from this year's forensic crap.

This - shot earlier in the year as I was sorting stuff - is the box and contents (less the carefully removed charms) of a set we looked at here, a few years back, and as I said then, the set's vaguely titled 'Old World Series' but there's no apparent or hard-and-fast branding, it's the sort of thing Tom Smith might have been behind as contract-manufacturers/wholesalers for someone else, and is most interesting for the cross-over from bass-metal to plastics (see link).

This came yesterday, in a parcel from Kazakhstan! The contents of the parcel will make a separate post, but I thought this was charming, it's an old Soviet-era Christmas card, and apart from the Cyrillic-language of the 'Merry Xmas' (or whatever) message, is no different to similar cards available in the west, then or now.

You see, it's important to realise - as Putin masses troops on Ukraine's boarders - that away from the shit of capitalist industrialists, religious conservatives or those who would rule us, we are all the same, with the same hopes or dreams, sensibilities or sentimentalities, and while you can go-off those who get taken-in by the populists, they aren't 'our' wars, and there is enough money, right-now, on this planet, to feed, house and clothe every man, woman and child - approximately $250,000 per head.

The fact that a few dozen fuckwits are using most of it to have public ego-tripping, penis-size competitions, whether of the Putin/Bolsanaro/Trump type, or the Musk/Bezos/Branson type is immaterial - they will kill us all, while we buy their shit or vote for them!

Found these in Mum's papers! The exclamation mark is because we did get novelty combs in our Christmas stockings, several times I think, and one year we got elephants, which were styled like these (I still have mine somewhere I think?), and were the same red and blue.

Now, knowing how fair-minded Mum was, I suspect she intended to give us these the next year with colours reversed, but lost them in her chaotic filing system, as with the second pair of markers? I'll never know for sure now, sadly, but that that is what they were for - Christmas stockings - I have no doubt! I shall, at some point, pass them on to other little people, for the intended purpose.

S is for Seasonal Selfies

I haven't been so hot on shelfies this year, but to be honest, when I HAVE been out, I haven't noticed much change, or activity in the retail environment, beyond the slow death of the High Street which predates the stagnation of SarsCov-2 / Covid-19?

However I did manage a quick tip to Basingrad about four weeks ago, and shot a few shelfies which may be of interest to some.

The main seam I mined was B&M Stores where the stuff was mostly generics sub-branded to them, and while these aren't the best images; you can see the main elements of this knock-off Jurrasic Park play set are six mini-dino' models, a larger T-Rex and a bitey-head thing!

This was fun if only for having an all-new sculpt of a WWII German Tiger tank (around 1:48th) desperately in need of a re-paint, along with an 88mm FlaK-gun on a truck, on what's best described (with all fingers crossed) as a naval or coastal mounting! It's closer to 1:35th scale. The set has no figures, so is of limited value, if 'value' comes into it at 15-quid!

These - at first glance - look like the usual Matchbox and New Ray copies, but are actually closer to 65/70mm and new sculpts, there is an equal number of green ones shaken-down below the paper insert!

A display of over-blown, unnecessary, ornamental Christmas stuff along the lines of Lemax (and other) crimbo villages etc . . . and of all the stuff in this post, the least likely to still be available at time of publishing, but they'll be back next year, B&M tend to carry lines for two or three years, from my observations?

While it's fair to argue that on one level all Xmas stuff is unnecessary, I find the piles of mawkishly sentimental, faux-Victoriana, poured-resin shite  to be about the worst sinner on a dying world, but nevertheless; it is a source of figures, for figure collectors! I could find hypocritical room for the animal bandstand (at sale prices?!!), the elephant with bass/cello reflects an old Lik Be sculpt.

I also found a soft-spot in my armour of cynicism for this polar-bear with passengers, not that I actually bought one, like all poured resin (or whitemetal) it's hideously expensive for what it is and/or how it came about!

Leaving B&M, I only found one thing in TKMaxx worth shooting (no Phidal at all this year), which was this Redbox 'Motormax' Police Station Playset, or actually RBI (Red Box International) as they are calling themselves these days, following their Tai Sang sister-company Blue Box (BBI)'s modern naming-system and corporate structuring!

It's four new poses of US-style policemen! they were about 50mm I think and there's far more play-value in this set than the military one with the Tiger, above. That's it really, we have looked at Christmas shelfies from Poundland and Wilkinson's here as Small Scale World this year, I have a post to come from Poundland, but there was nothing of toy-interest in Wilkinson's (Wilco).

V is for Variations on a Seasonal Theme

We haven't had a Nativity scene this year, something I'd better rectify while it is still Christmas (I've just re-named two posts from 2020 to 2022, so there's back-up in the long-queue!), with this nice little leftover of . . . probably the 1950's or early '60's.

Which reminds me; 1979 (which is where the 'modern age' began with first Thatcher's election in May and then Regan's at the end of the following year, then Kohl and Mitterrand a year later) is now closer to 1939 than it is to today, while 50 years ago it was 1971 . . . just to make you all feel old!

89¢; would that be the '60's? Dexter's distributed by Lee Wards (seemingly known as Leewards despite the errant capital!), who were a US chain of craft and haberdashers', now owed by Michaels. I'm guessing Dexter's is a phantom brand of Leewards?

Quite a complicated set-up for retailing a set of Hong Kong polymer shite, with a separate pull out tray, divided in such a way everything gets displayed fully, must have been a nightmare to pack! The little metallic-foil laminated paper label says Dexter's Angels, despite only one angel being obvious, so it may have started life with another set?

The Christian family and the diminutive angel! Joseph is about 30mm. The angel has attachment/glue points on the reverse, the reason for which we will look at in a minute, but selling them broken down as craft items, it makes sense that a small piece - 8x10mm - might have some anchor points.

The contents of the other two obvious 'sections' of the tray includes three wise men (it doesn't have to be three), the shepherds (two) and their flock and a couple of barn inhabitants who went hungry that night as there was a soggy baby in their manger! We also get a tiny star!

I think they are all loosely based on larger European (probably Italian) sculpts and I think we've seen a bright-pink, soft ethylene copy of that cow as a Christmas Cracker prize in the past here?

The tray basically contains a kit of parts which - back in Hong Kong - is also used in-whole or in-part for other seasonal novelty items, among which is this Art Plastics set, also from my collection - which I thought we'd seen here before, but somehow the images went to the dongles years ago without being used? Art also produced some of the bigger 70/80mm sets which were straight copies of Italian 'Prespi' sculpts, but not the same as these.

These are better painted and finished (and more realistically coloured) and are probably '1st generation' to the Dexter's 2nd? You can see only the family and shepherds are used and you can see why the angel has the mounting points, it's so it can be attached to the pinnacles of these stables, despite there not being one here; I have seen them so attached!

While here, we have the three Kings as a hanging bauble for Christmas trees on the right, while more of the set are used with the candle nativity - which may have been home-made/garage-manufactured from the Dexter's set, although the little baby Jesus is a different sculpt? Other baubles probably had vignettes of the nativity family and shepherds for a set of three?

I've also seen them as wall hanging relief scenes and in snow-globes, while an equally large range of flat copies exist of this set, if not two or three sets of pirated flats which we will look at another year.

So it was a very versatile set that got a lot of dollars and pounds back to what is now - of course - the troublesome China! We are the architects of our own destruction, or at least our leaders have been.

S is for Sparkle Dream Land . . . of Course!

This was penciled-in for a Halloween post but I realised it just wasn't  grown-up enough for Halloween, so it can go here as a fluffy seasonal box-ticker! I present; the recent 'pink & purple' fantasy playset from Blue Box.

A tub rather than a tube . . . or a bucket? The sort of thing you get bulk peanuts in at Christmas anyway! Pegasusid-Unicorns (Pegusused, Pegususide, Pegususified?), Dragons and Fairies with a few scenics and all in a fetching palate of fairy-cake icing colours! the lid makes a magic-pool.

This was supposed to be one of everything from both sides . . . so two-of-everything Hugh! But I duplicated one set of wings and left the other set out so while it's a usful image it's alsoa complete fail!

Missing wings are on the left! The wings clip-on, saddle-fashion, like divers/swimmers nose-bridges and can be chopped and changed but only among these purple sculpts, as the pinks have saddlery in the way (but no riders) and the foals  have their own nascent wings integrally-sculpted on their backs.

The grey folk (who are also pink or purple!) could actually paint-up really well, under the plastic colours are three nice sculpts with some fine detail, and naturalistic posing, my favourite is probably the more casually standing lady-fairy on the right.

I've kept these two pieces along with all the fancy park-fencing! I thought the arch might make a useful photo-frame in the future, while a bridge is a bridge is a bridge!

But this went to charity; it's too basic a moulding and has no redeeming features! I guess the slide is added play-value for the age-group this set will be aimed at, but, well, yeah! That's the Blue Box 'Sparkle Dream Land'.

A is for The Avengers . . .

. . . the proper ones, not the silly American comic ones! Although I was a New Avengers chap, myself; we didn't have much telly when we were kids (no loss - I avoid it by choice now), so I tended to catch Purdy and Co., later on, around friends houses, or after we got a rather smart (for its day) Bush colour TV as we hit teenage-hood.

Tom Clague sent me this a few weeks ago and I totally forgot it despite getting excited at the time and taking screen caps (below) from the clip (above), but it is fascinating for having the rare'ish Airfix 1st version Paratroops in 1:32nd scale, also obvious is the Marx battery-operated tank, Britains pack-gun and 25lbr's, Deetail (?) and Herald infantry.

Spot the conversion!

Marx

 

Deetail mortar team or Swoppet?

 

Herald with Naval Gun? 

I've also added the relevant screen-capcha and the clip to the relevant page for that Airfix set. Thanks Tom, brilliant!

 

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Half an hour later - I posted this elsewhere, FOR FUN, highlighting the Airfix para's and Marx tank, because the Airfix are an uncommon find, and most British kids (and I mean MOST) had that tank, or the sand, blue or grey versions, or some Hong Kong knock-off of it, back in the day - only for some pointless waste of oxygen to point out that most of the figures were Herald! Well; no shit Sherlock! Obviously, I didn't know I had to cover my arse to the Nth degree, by listing the obvious stuff; but here goes nothing . . . 

The mortar team looks to be Britains Deetail in the fuzzy screen-cap', but the video should be too early for such a scenario, so it must be the Swoppet one, which also had quite a bright-green base but not as square as it looks in the shot? Which means there's probably a few other Swoppets on the table with the Herald Khaki Infantry?

 

The Marx tank had a fixed-turret but is missing it's plug-in barrel. There is at least one Britains Pack-Howitzer, which - again due to the dates - is probably the earlier fully-folding one (a later version had fixed legs - less breakages, less irate parents on the 'phone!), along with three or more 25lbr's and a late model of Britains' Naval Gun (which in one form or another had been in their catalogues since the 1930's) which kills the Brigadier.

There were also several plastic-looking vehicles, a fly-wheel motor tank he directs at the mountain, a (Pull-back motor?) jeep and possibly an armored-car at one point (also pull-back power?) which are probably all Hong Kong, possibly Jimson, Telsalda or larger Blue Box types.

 

I think the board is painted Foamex^TM, but it could be a coated particle board, with the lines applied with Lettraset Lettraline or possibly Unipart vinyl pin-striping, but I'm just not sure!

If I've missed anything else, I really don't care, perhaps one of the fastidiously humorless, tediously fuckwitted of this parish can let us know . . . TJF? I honestly thought he'd managed a Christmas without having a pop, but he just can't stop himself!

News, Views Etc . . . It's a Whole Woolworth's!

A small one mind, but with piles of Christmas baubles and stacks of Yo-Yo's, if you are within driving distance of Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, there's this . . .

https://abc7news.com/christmas-artifacts-memories-museum/11352881/

And if the video is anything to go by, it's well worth the visit!

Azco is for . . . well; Your Guess is as Good as Mine!

I'm guessing - from the address (Pawtucket, Rhode Island) that - Azco Products Corporation are now part of (and may always have been - phantom brand?) part of Hasbro Inc.? But this may have been issued by the US arm of a Canadian (Montreal) company, which may or may not now be part of Hasbro?

There are still several Azco's around but they all seem to be in engineering; cutting/packing machine-tools (New Jersey, since 1983), water treatment (Langley, British Columbia, since 1975), industrial construction (Appleton, Wisconsin, since 1949) . . . and etcetera! The trouble here is that the name is - of course - an obvious diminution of 'A-to-Z Company'

Anyhoos, getting here just in time for not going in the Christmas 2022 folder, which already has unused nativity stuff from last year (and 2019's leftovers) in it, is this rather charming blow-moulded set and; another shooting-game, which although a generic infant toy, has a certain seasonal vibe to it, at least to me? Babe's in the Wood, lawn-inflatable's, Crimbo nutcrackers . . . Hans Anderson's The Steadfast Tin Soldier (or The Little Soldier), you get the vibe too, don't you?

From the styling of the card I'd say sometime between 1950 and 1962/4 (Hassenfeld opened a Canadian subsidiary in '63 I believe)? And the sort of thing you'd expect to see at a seaside gift-shop over here, or hung near the tills in a dime-store over there? I've found a larger, lawn (or beach!) checkers (draughts) game by Azco too, which sort of confirms their target market/manufacturing bent, if not their history! He's 8-inches from top of Shako to base-underside, so a 7" figure for boot-to-eyeline measuring-Nazis!

Given its age, and the dearth of other stuff available on-line, physically, or as text, I thought it better to not open it, so after cleaning the bag, which you could barely see through yesterday morning, tried to get good shots of the crude blow-moulded cannon and equally basic 'cork' - another polyethylene blow-moulded piece!

Possibly the best shot - you stuff the cork in the end of the barrel and hit the pad on the end of the trail, it claims to fire the cork 20-feet, but my memories of such toys coupled with a test-squeeze through the outer-bag, suggest you'd be lucky to get two feet out of it, or have it last longer than a few hours before one of the edges/seams goes futt!

But that would get you through an afternoon on the beach, or a Christmas morning which would be job-done as it's very-much a one-trick pony. However; the figure is definitely a Toy Soldier, without a shadow of a doubt, and blow-moulded Toy Soldiers are a perennial favourite here at Small Scale World!

100 is for Real Little Dolls!

A follow-up to past posts, most notably this one from February '09, which looked at my two incomplete samples and a few oddities, tying them to the Euro-premiums, some of which some of them were pirated from!

From the archive are a couple of newspaper clippings, one is Dept. DL, which might be a clue to the Detroit Lakes Tribune being the carrier paublication? The other is a more generic PO Box number similar to those used with the comic-giveaway Ad's these 'dolls' also appeared in, but both came to me already trimmed

I played with the pictures and ended up with two usable images! I can't remember why I numbered them, there may be a missing list somewhere! But basically 1-10 are taken from the previously flagged European margarine-premium 'dancers' set, 11-20 seem to be taken from other sources too, 21-29 are more unique to the 'comic' set and 30 is the Santa I'm still missing!

Mentioned in the past, they came with a PVC/vinyl sticker set from which you were to fashion hats, skirts, shirts, collars, capes and bows - for the deer! Like a lot of old vinyl, they are sticky and shrinking now.

Now; I do have this set somewhere, but I'm not sure if these are my scans or someone else's off of that Wibbly Wobbly Way? If they are yours and you want me to remove them, let me know, it's not a problem, I'm just losing track of all the imagery on the dongles!

The missing Santa in the upper shot, and the Berserker doing some scaleing in the lower shot, all the figure images are courtesy of Brian Berke who sent them some time ago, well, about two years ago, it's a long queue now!

The same artwork being used in a rare branded Ad' for Palmer Jones, you can see why some people conflate these with the Giant-branded stuff - there's very little connection beween most comic-stuff and Giant, the exception being the 'board games' by Lucky Products and Helen of Toy, where some components are the same as those used by Giant of New York, World Toy House and others.

There is more on the sets in a brief entry on the A-Z blog here, while I looked at a few of Betterware's versions in this Blog's second ever post!

M is for Merry Festive Eraser Flats

This post morphed out of nowhere, I found two of them among Mum's things the other day, and was putting them in an H is For... folder of similar finds, when I remembered I had something along the same lines in the forthcoming Dinoraser follow-up/update folder, so I threw them together for a quick festive offering!

The Erasersaurs, I don't know if he's a known character (U.S. TV?) or a generic cartoony thing, maybe tied-in to someone's Christmas card line? But he looks friendly enough and Christmas fun is clearly the name of the game, a bit mawkish for me in the normal course of events, but now there's a Dinoraser 'zone' they had to go in there!

These Halsall imported erasers must have been a long-forgotten stocking present, and I suspect they were being held until Mum found something similar for the other boy, she was always scrupulously fair in the packing of the stocking, or I should say - ensured Santa was scrupulously fair!

They have reacted with either and/or both the inner (a kind of cling-film) and the outer packaging (a cellulose bag), and it's hard to tell if they were once rubber, or candy, but from A) the fact that Redfields still exists as one of those over-priced "end-destination leisure-facility" garden centres, and B) there's no ingredients list, I guess they were pencil-rubbers originally, but they are now rock-hard and covered in a sweat which make them look suspiciously like edible icing!

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?

G is for Groping in the Garage!

Nothing exciting, I was pulling stuff out of the garage earlier in the year and found the multi-drawer cabinets I keep all the odds and sods in, by which I mean sewing, boot-polishing, kitchen, plumbing and hardware stuff, but there happen to be six drawers of mostly Micro Machines (in a minute) and a couple with keys and key-rings, which we will look at another day.

Spaceships, mostly Galoob Star Wars stuff, but some Aliens, Star Trek and Soma found their way in as well! AFV's also contain some knock-offs (Kenner Microverse etc.) and I think here I have most of them but one day will consult the Micro Machine Meusuem to identify my gaps and then find them on evilBay (none of them are rare) so I can do complete lines-ups for year/wave, when I do the A-Z entries.

Helicopters, not many, a feature of the hobby refelceted in the few newsprint images I could find to paste on the drawer-front, although the same was true for the spaceships! Civil cars, trucks and buses, the motorcycles - being closer to 20/25mm - were in their own box in the main collection, as were the ATV's, speeder bikes &etc. The lid of the really useful box limited the opening of the drawers!

Ships and 'planes, quite a few planes, not so many ships, but they didn't make many and I think they are all there? There's about three versions of the ICBM-sub, and a rather natty bright-green mini-submersible (visible).

The drawers need work; when I glued the little cuttings on, so I knew which drawer was which, the PVA/wood-glue dried invisible, but time (20+ years) and storage have not been kind to my efforts! The cuttings came from Collector's Gazette back when it was newsprint.

That's it, just . . . an image-clear of stuff to come, sometime!

R is for Red-Dino-Deer!

Well, the last 'quickie' ended-up being a bit wordy - and I added two images! This will be a real quickie, by way of a follow-up to Brian's B's dino-post of the other day; Red Deer, a brand both Peter E and myself keep finding, sometimes the same sets, sometimes different, sometimes the same sets on different packaging, this found about a week ago here in Fleet!

Small 'Toob' of mini-dinosaurs, some of which we may have seen here at Small Scale World already, as unknowns in a Charity-shop post, standard fare, with the tube packed-out with spurious scenics (useful for war-gamers) and a handful of dinky-dino's.

Here are the dinosaurs; all manufactured in a dense polyethylene rather than the more common PVC-substitute these smaller dino's tend to be found in these days. Each then sprayed from above in a single colour, some of which appear to have a metallic sheen, which isn't there when you look closely, so I suspect a slight translucence or inkiness to the paint, like old-fashioned glass-paint?

The accessories, two rocky outcrops and a couple of palm-trees, following the usual pattern for them these days  - a pair growing together in a semi-flat countenance, with plug on foliage. That's it, out there now in independent hardware and 'everything else' stores; Red Deer's imported 12-piece dinosaur set.

Q is for Quickie - Three Wagons on Mah' Page!

I picked these up the other day from the Republic of Ireland, of note as it may point to the wider spread of Giant and Giant-like rack-toy 'stuff' back in the day, but they could have been bought-in more recently by a collector, so proves nothing!

This kind of stuff is really meant to be over on the But is it Giant? page, and the above will all be heading there in the next 18-months (with any luck!), once these three have been added-in to the relevant posts, but I thought as they are a nice mix, as a trio, I'd post them here, and plug the new, temporary, horse page.

Before (left) and after (right) cleaning, we have, from the front; a Giant or post-Giant buckboard/box-wagon with the tarp'ed load inserted, and a marked Giant stage-coach (the reason I bid, it had remained elusive for many years!), with a buggy behind, this has the horse I call 'Large Draft', and came in various branded and unbranded sets as well as Christmas crackers and being issued as a Quosh soft-drinks premium (cheers Chris!), we've also seen them here before under the National brand, but with the two smaller versions of the horse.

From the left; the coach with its full GIANT MADE IN HONG KONG mark, it needs a replacement wheel for the Airfix one it's been given, but I have a bagful of spares, both 8 and 12 spoke (and possibly some 10's?), so that will be easy. Note the unique separate axles of the coach, which leads to a pivoting draw-bar allowing for better photography on uneven surfaces!

Then the 'standard' wagon (it isn't really that standard; there are various version of them), copied from . . . take your pick; Crescent, Tudor Rose or one of several US makers! It has a neat Blue Box style MADE IN HONG KONG mark, but it isn't the Blue Box version, just has the same tool-stamp!

While the clip-together 'kit' wagon is marked MADE IN HONG KONG NO 261 which is similar to some Lik Be (LB, formally LP/IDL) markings, but the letters aren't as rough as the items marked like that by LB. In all there are eight in the series to find and I'm not sure I've found all of them, but I've a better sample now than the last time we looked at them!

Come-in's over the last few weeks!

 

Last Time We Looked At Them (coincidentally with the Christmas-pudding battle story!)

Temporary HK Hollow-Horse ID'ing Page