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 10, 2023

H is for How They Come In - Chris - Animals

So, an eclectic bunch of animals in the latest parcel from Chris, dinosaurs, wild, farm, zoo and domestic, it's all grist to the mill!

Particularly interested in the larger version of my childhood favourites, the rubber 'jiggler' Dimetrodon, immediately below one of those childhood steggie's, who is next to a Natural History Museum one from Invicta, the collection of those is growing now, I think I have four, with a duplicate Tyrannosaur, always look out for them in charity shops! But the highlight . . .
 
. . . was another of the 'cracker toy' dino's and it's another Dimetrodon (four in the parcel!) . . . my favorite Dino! As with the other example Chris found (see Blog passim) it is bigger than the wild/domestic animals I have been collecting for years, but has the same block-design to the third part of the tool.
 
A couple of Hong Kong novelty hollow 'styrene horses, the one on the left new to me, the one on the right is a 'realistic' colour version of some I have in chromed gold I think? Not sure if bottom right is a sheep, a goat or a something else, adult or kid? But it's new to me!
 
I thought the swan might be for matches or toothpicks, but Chris said probably a pencil sharpener, and there is damage suggesting something was set into it, so I think he's right, it's a very delicate moulding. While the pink cow seems to be from a peg-board type infant toy like the one we saw here from Raphael Lipkin, but with more realistic animals?
 
The sausage dog is a relief flat, probably from a Christmas cracker, likewise the little poodle, while the other - white - dog, is the Matchbox pointer/gun-dog.

Two of the Merit/Cereal premium animals, a wooden lion which might have been part of a mobile, maybe off a pram? A lovely blow-moulded lion and two cracker/gum-ball elephants. The rhino is another cereal premium; Kellogg's, while the gorilla is a new sculpt to me and the slightly-daft looking giraffe is resin and probably a modern gift-shop piece?
 
Chris pointed out the smaller, better detailed, novelty/charm elephant which I had noted was hard 'styrene and better sculpted (early), is actually marked BERLIN with a sash/swage across his body, which I hadn't seen! So he could be a memento of the Zoological Gardens ('Zoo') which I knew quite well as the two pairs of ornate entrances opened onto the busy area of pre-unification West Berlin, and I did visit it once. And something that small may have been a premium gift with a child's ticket?
 
Taking to the water, and we have a rubber jiggler crock', two pencil-tops, a frog and a shark, a magnetic novelty tortoise, who might be meant to be a turtle it's not clear, but they look like feet, and a flying fish. There is a bag of magnetic turtles/tortoises, and they will - eventually - all be paired-up. And a hooped duckling - from a home fairground-sideshow type game, or a gum-ball, capsule-machine charm?
 

The rest, a Hong Kong novelty pig, a pretty blue lemur, a Hong Kong ape, sans arms and a really nice composition rock ape, which Chris did try on evilBay, but no takers, so I was the beneficiary of apathy and disinterest! The closest match I can find is Lineol's Barbary macaque (Macaca sylvanus), but the face is forward, not turned as is the Lineol, so a lesser makes copy?

Thanks again to Chris, a couple of monsters next, but more canoes tomorrow!

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