P is for Plastic Pastoral Play-sets

I think my enthusiasm for these was fully displayed last time we looked at them, following a  donation from Chris Smith, to which I was able to add a few which turned-out to be different, well, there are now three or four  types/sources and some additional components!

Also; reader 'jhnptrqn' if you are still following the blog, several clues to your quest follow . . .

So, I found this one first, from the hard, polystyrene cover/lid, and the full photo-graphics I think we are looking at a date around 1972-4? And I suspect it was probably commissioned by a department store, or big-store chain. "Up to 5 years of age" . . . caught red-handed, doh!

As I said last time; if it were found here (in he UK) I’d say Conran/Habitat or Heals, maybe Debenham's at a push . . . but it was found over the pond in the US where my knowledge of funky, modern stores of that era is zero! But it is an unbranded generic, of an overall quality you'd expect from a major departmental or mall-chain retailer, or maybe the 'big book' mail-order listers?

New this time - but seen in the feeBay image last time - is the dog, pine tree/fir, the twin-tower/gateway arrangement/thing and the picket fences I still think I may have a few of somewhere else. Also the two sizes of building. Still no pigs . . . wishful thinking!

Posed similar to the box-art; I seem to have the same 12 picket-fence pieces but one less of the two-bar fencing, maybe the fence-packer was having a bad day counting, however I suspect a loss!

Now, all this was happening about a year ago, and while I was taking mental notes I didn't write anything down, so I can't remember which set was the same as either mine (Hong Kong) or Chris's (unmarked), and I say 'which set' because another set turned-up a week or two later!

Also from the 'States, and clearly ascribed to Larami and their long-running visual-recognition line of Popeye brand-marked (but nearly always nothing to do with Popeye) rack-toys, is this set.

The postal services of evilBay (global shipping delay) and Roayl fail conspired to wreak the box, but that the seller put such a thing in a jiffy-bag didn't help! The next post will cover my fixing-it after a fashion!

Comparisons between the two show that the one is of a different class to the other (better box, rigid lid, twice the content-count), yet dimensions are similar so  one is based upon the other and both are probably - as I suggested last time - aping a Western product? Note: both Popeye and Popeye's are used.

As to that Western product . . . last time I suggested such luminaries as Galt, Hestair Kiddycraft or Triang Pedigree, to which you might add Pippin/Raphael Lipkin, or even the Design Centre in London who were behind a lot of modernist/post-modern toys, but I wonder if I/we shouldn't look further . . . Scandinavia, Germany maybe, Denmark? My British link was based upon the policeman we saw last time, but he's quite generic and some European countries had similar police helmets back in the day, if only for traffic direction or ceremonials? While 'jhnptrqn' remembered a possible French connection?

I don't know, but I remain on the hunt (if only to see if there are piggy-wiggies!), and finding out will be fun, which we will, one day, all this stuff is mass-produced and all survives somewhere.

Larami's set is on a blister held into an open frame by the fold-back sides, and the most notable difference (as I didn't record my notes on marks and release-pin dimples) is that some of the animals are in colours as leery as the packaging, with orange dog and horse and cows in pink and blue!

Combining the tower sections! "Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down you hair!" I also remember (now) that the buildings in the two sets were slightly different, even though the tower stacked, with different dimensions on the Larami barn (right hand) and a roof with an inner ledge more like the smaller building's from the anonymous set.

One of them was the same as my loose ones (the unbranded one I think?), but with Chris's unmarked sample, we seem to be looking at at least three sources, which is not uncommon for this kind of stuff . . . how many spinning UFO disc-toys, how many ramp-walkers, or jig-puzzle issuers!

There was also an inclusion! The hair of a paint brush (used to clean or lubricate the machine-tools) or a factory cat's whisker managed to get caught in the blister-sealing iron, and survived for another four-odd decades untouched, stuck under the rim of the clear plastic cover!

We shall return to these, for sure, I like them and their design and place in plastics history is worth a study, while with three professions and a farmer, you feel there must be more figures, where are the women and children? And pigs . . . gotta keep the hope alive; farms need piggy-wigs!