So continuing with the nice lot Chris Smith
sent the blog at the beginning of May, brings us to the civilians, and kicks
off with the sports figures!
I photographed the diminutive circus chap
the wrong way round, and he's off to storage a while back, so a bit of a
boo-boo there! He's in the style of the mini-copies of the Commonwealth 'dolls', but clearly a circus performer or
ring-master, I guess a cracker prize/capsule toy, but he could be from an as
yet unknown set!
The athletes we've seen before, and it's
the large number of them in many sizes which makes every example useful against
a future post on all of them. While the other item is fascinating - he appears
to be a tobbogan or luge rider, so-far so normal, but his 'machine' is a large
slab, and on the underside is a grove with angled striations which would seem
to suggest movement over a simple worm gear? So some kind of enclosed, interactive
plaything he's come lose from? Anyone recognise him? He probably goes back and forth in a slot or track of some kind?
A page of Firefighters is definitely in the
pipeline, but in the meantime they keep coming in, and I haven't progressed
much on the labeling, despite the fact that Theo van de Weerden has helped ID a
lot, including some of these!
Racing drivers! Like firefighters these are
many-aplenty in odd/job lots, and ID'ing them all will take the rest of my
life! Two big ones, from beach/lawn toys, and a little die-cast chap from
something which should be easier to find?
Likewise the many, many seated figures who
have escaped their vehicle, horse, railway station or wagon over the years, the
red one - front, is Tudor Rose I
think, the red one - rear an Airfix or similar 'old fashioned car' model kit's
driver in 1:32nd or 1:35th scale.
The rider (horse?) bottom right seem to
have been coloured to match early Thomas rubber kids, but is a Polyethylene
Hong Kong thing. Painted blue - front, looks like a Century 21 or similar Hong Kong chauffeur, while painted blue -
rear, is from a similar Hong Kong item, possibly a crane, dump-truck or a variation
of the popular fork-lift truck toys? The other three are random rack toy
fodder!
Solider ground here, with two from a
modernish (1980's/90's) set, an armless Blue
Box mechanic with the larger 45mm Marx
road/construction worker (sold here with the plastic, Hong Kong Muir Hill type dump truck, where the
figure was also made) behind, and finally two of the possibly Lucky mechanics, taken from Dinky
via Blue Box!
An eclectic mix here, with a guardsman! How
do the ceremonials keep turning up in other themed shots . . . don't ask Hugh; you should know, you took the photographs! . . .
anyway, I'd love to know who copied the Britains
Shetland-pony in smaller scale, I have several now although this is the first
in a realistic brown, some Polly Pocket type thing?
Second upscale Matchbox game shooter clone this year, having never seen them
before! A reverse colour-way of the cereal-premium hunter we looked at here.
Behind him is a board-game hunter we may have seen here, or he may be one of
two in the queue, but he might actually be new, he looks like a 3D version of
the Trek (Spears Games) 2D flat?
Which leaves the figure I was told was used
in those weather-clocks, but I believe he actually [also] turns up in cheapo
copies of the Blue Box safari Land Rover?
Love the craft-carved 'yokel', he has the
look of Greece, Turkiye or somewhere else in the Balkans? Common Ertzgibirge
to his left, there's a Matchbox-copy farmer in a soft silicon ruber, I've yet to ID the
set but it will be a rack-toy or die-cast of some sort.
A pair of legs (Barbie/Kinder?), two heads (Star
Toy knock off's of some vintage action figure I've mentioned before I
think) also copied as Monta-Man by Montaplex sobres, in monochrome.
The medic is Corgi - as an unpainted moulding - but I'm still not sure about the
painted ones, die-cast accessories anyway, also die-cast; a wagon horse to be ID'd, and a PVC Micromachine Policeman finishes the
shot.
And back to sports or 'horseflesh' as the trade
has it! The two green ones are from that educational package set, the
outer two are cracker toys I think, I used to believe they were from a board
game, but many variations and colours have turned-up now, so Christmas crackers
from the budget end of the spectrum seem more likely?
Many thanks again to Chris for sending them
all for us to enjoy - vehicles and AFV's next . . . after more Romans?!!
Good morning Hugh,
ReplyDeleteYou are indeed right, the heads look to be from 'Action Jack' which was shall we say, derived from Matchbox's 'Mobile Action Command' or 'MAC' (Brian at Plaidstallions has extensive articles on MAC as he is a big fan)
Have a braw day,
Steve.
Cheers Steve, that's the chap! I may have ID'd him correctly in the past, but you can't retain everything in a monkey brain! There actually seem to be a lot of knock-off's one way or another, the construction must have been easy to copy?
ReplyDeleteH
Yeah, you're right about that! they were held together with the head so if pulled out I would think a semi-competent manufacturer could easily as you say, knock it off!
ReplyDeleteSteve.
Heeheehee! :-))
ReplyDeleteH