C is for Canoes - 8 - Knick Knacks!

I'm loving these! These are definitely toys, if you want hyperrealistic 'model' figures, then get your wallet out and go support the Russian War Machine like naïve kidults, but for those who collect 'toy' figures, they don't get much more toy-like than these!

All courtesy of Brian Berke, there is, or there were two versions, a three-man and a one-man, and they are probably celluloid. The packaging reminds me very much of those faux-glass animals which used to be given away as prizes at fairground side-booths; small, low-grade (crumbly folds) cardboard with miss-registered screen-print artwork, but oozing with a charm that evokes a time from almost before I was born!

 

Three-man version, look at that axe, that's for the necks of Henry's wives! Made in Japan, it's one of the ironies of history that a lot of the best novelties of the 1950's and 60's came from Japan and Germany, because while we were struggling to rebuild after the war, money was poured into both economies to rebuild the 'losers' as bulwarks against the permeable curtains of the Cold War!

Sometimes, at the Fair, if you fished-out two of your three ducks, or got two of your three hoops over, you got a smaller prize! Interesting in that he's a fourth pose, not one of the previous three, re-purposed.

 

Other colours are available and I'm going to have to track some down, there's a nice red one on at the moment but postage is silly. It's getting hard to bid on US stuff, purely from the shipping costs, and that's mostly the 'International Shipping Programme' (or 'program'!), there's no bother from Canada, from whence I've had a few bargains recently, and they will have these too, so in time . . . and those US seller's who still use USPost can be half the price of the evilBay-Pitney Bowes-Hermes (call us Evri because our old name is mud) scam!

 

In the meantime; Thanks to Brain for sharing these Knick Knacks with us.