About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.

Wednesday, May 3, 2023

F is for French Relatives!

I discovered yesterday, while looking for something else, that Faceplant now hide or delete anything more than 3-years old on Facebook Groups? Scrolling back through my own submissions to a site, I came to a halt at May 5, 2020, I don't think it applies to personal timelines (for now) and - don't get me wrong - I'm not complaining.
 
There's so much duplicate shite posted by the simple-minded (and me!) all over the Internet, that it would come to a grinding halt if someone didn't do something occasionally to get rid of some of it. But what it does mean, is that I can get the 'Seen Elsewhere' folder emptied here, as it will all disappear there!
 
To that end, I posted these as separate posts over the bank-holiday, but I've pulled them together and added a couple of new shots and a couple of older ones!

Originally posted a couple of three months ago, these were a question mark to me, having something of the Starlux about them, but obviously not, and Brian Carrick kindly ID'd them as Guilbert copies of Clairet, both also French.
 
I have a larger selection of poses, but the others are a bit 'chewed', so these are the good ones, Guilbert above and Clairet below, I wonder if the Clairet are in fact the copies, they seem to be ever-so-slightly smaller, and there is a faint lack of detail on buttons and pockets etc . . . ? Also, I think Guilbert disappeared first, while we learnt, looking at the Knights years ago, that Clairet morphed into other brands and are almost/sort of still with us!
 
A few comparison shots, we looked at the Hugonnet and other copies here, all looks a bit muddled now, but we will re-do the French stuff in a year or two, as I have everything in folders (even Guilbert! Thanks, Vichy!) and can ascribe most of the stuff in the four posts of that sequence, more accurately now.
 
The 'new' sample of Bazaar figures, actually there are a few in that link above, so more future sorting to look forward to! They aren't by Hugonnet (as far as I know), they aren't Cofalu, and they aren't Vilco, but beyond who they aren't, I have no clues, I wondered MF, who did mono-coloured rack-toy bags of farm and others, but they were mostly Hong Kong-product jobbers I think?
 
A few colour variations, I suspect the chap on the right with the black equipment/weapon is slightly later, and another reason for suspecting the Guilbert came first ia that they are more realistically painted to what was being worn in Indo-China and North Africa (olive-greens, not camouflage), than the rather more toy-like gloss green helmets of the Clairet?

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