B is for Best Show on Earth! 11. Plasticine

I shouldn't be blogging I should be painting, but I've had a couple of manic days and frankly my brother is being a c**t, so I've about had life, the universe and everything human in it! So, let's have some toys! Continuing with the show reports from Plastic Warrior's show, now over a month ago, so less than eleven months to the next one . . . bargain!

Many years ago, well, 2008 or 9, so fifteen-odd years ago, I was helping the guys up at the Potter's toy show at the NEC in Birmingham, when someone can up to us with one of these figures, or someone had brought it to show everyone (yes, it's one of those anecdotes where nothing is quite remembered!), and no one knew what it was, although there were some good guesses including something like clay modelling former, but the next day, someone sent some photo's (maybe me but I haven't Blogged them, so probably not?) to someone else (probably Paul Morehead at Plastic Warrior magazine, but maybe not?), who said Plasticine sets.

 

So far, so good, and if you had asked me at the show, last month, I could have filled you in with chapter and verse on it, as per what I have been told, or what others were saying about it, which is;

 

Cherilea for Plasticine, six figure sculpts taken from hollow-cast, who've had their midriff's scooped/scalloped-out for the purpose of modelling onto them with the Plasticine as if they are the maquettes they sort of are? And each having a name originally - two are named above; Lola and Lucy, but by a previous owner on paper tabs?

But . . . 

• By 'originally named' do they mean in Plasticine publicity (in kids comics, it would have been back then), or as the original hollow-cast dancers?
• The Cherilea dancers in Joplin don't look anything like these? Don't run to six poses, and don't seem to be named?
• Similar circumstances apply to the Charbens dancers in Joplin's book, the above sculpts being almost more Charbens'y than Cherilea'y?

 

So, I don't know what to think, as I've only been told what I've been told by members of the 'old guard', some of whom are always quick to correct me when I get something wrong! But apart from [possibly] Paul (or someone else, one of the Brummies on the day perhaps?) being correct about them being Plasticine, nothing seems to stack-up as reported. So I'd welcome not just facts, but any thoughts you may have on these!

 

If anything, the fourth from the left looks like the Women's League of Health & Beauty figure, also in Joplin, from Hill & Co.? Were there six of them, did they have names . . . all a bit pre-war and slightly fascist-sounding to me! There's nothing in the PW Hilco special publication (ISBN 1 900898 36 5)?

 

Clearly they are dancers, and they could be from hollow-cast sculpts and are more-likely to be commissioned or bought-in than manufactured by Harbutt's, the makers of Plasticine, but who made them, were they ex-hollow-cast, were they named, who by (supplier or Harbutt's), while the box reveals more . . .

. . . as there is a mention of 'mens' dress, and the box-art, itself, hints at male dancers (there are males in both Cherilea and Charbens sets), clowns, historical costume, foreign dress, Kings & Queens and a policeman!

 

So there were obviously high hopes that this would be the first of a whole new line of Plasticine sets, but while the Pres-to-Shapes press-dies did run to further sets, this would seem to have remained a one-off and doesn't turn up that often?

While this image shows other vaguely contemporary sets. I thought this image was from the Graces Guide page, but it isn't, so if it's yours I apologise, it's been in the archive for so long it's lost any note, or the 'X' I tend to use to ID such stuff, it's here now for research purposes, but if you let me know where the original is I'll gladly link to it with full attribution.

The Graces Guide page does have some interesting stuff, not least a large-scale lifeguard and an illustration of the Pres-to-Shapes dies, which look to be a hard rubber, like the Linka building system moulds?

More here - Brighton Toy Museum - Plasticine

And here - Brighton Toy Museum - Harbutt's

 

Thanks to all for everything last month; Michael Mordant-Smith, Peter Evans, Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann and Gareth Morgan.

News, Views etc . . . London Toy Soldier Show

I thought it was next week! It's tomorrow!

http://www.toysoldiershow.co.uk/

News, Views Etc . . . Memorabilia!

I've actually added two very different books to the library this week;

The Bill Hanlon one has been on the radar for a while, and in the end its delivery was a nightmare for me and the seller with Evri (still leaving Hermes cards) bringing it to the door twice before losing it, the second one being a bit flawed (pressure patterns in the dust jacket and a coffee (I hope?) stain), but I'll do it a full post on it, one day, it really is a monumental work.

The other is a bit of fun which has slid across from my late mother's library to mine, and is a reasonable coverage of Royal Souvenirs from just before the Fergie/Diana 'tart' years! Took them over the flat yesterday and this appeared in my Faceplant feed today;

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/12/thatcher-nutcracker-trump-toilet-brush-political-memorabilia

 

It's as if the gods were watching, anyway it's an interesting read, and a fine collection of mostly figural items!

News, Views Etc . . . Marx Show

I'm too busy to blog for a few days, maybe even a week or two, but Rudy Panucci reminded us on Brian's site that the Marx Toy & Train Show, starts tomorrow at the Kruger Street Toy & Train Museum in Wheeling, West Virginia, there'll be all sorts there!

More about it / details on this blog;

Pop Cult Blog

 

 

A week later, full show report;

https://popcultblog.com/fun-at-the-marx-toy-train-show

C is for a Cat and a Canary!

Recent purchase from I can't remember where, eBay maybe, or some stuff I got off a mate a while back (lovely parcel from Brian today, and another from Jon last week!), but it's a very early piece of plastic, a novelty whistle from Combex.

Described by The Toy House over the Pond as a flute (inset image, bottom right), it's more of a swannee-whistle, with the canary (stuck in the cat's tummy with a hot wire) sitting over the vent, producing a trilling over the whistle, itself varying in pitch as you push/pull the piston.

The cat appears to have Godzilla's tail!

B is for Best Show on Earth! 10. Civilians

A right-old mix in this post, from the odd rarity, through unusual, to more run-of-the-mill stuff with a current rack toy or two, thrown-in there for good measure, and we'll start with one of them because it was shot first, before I collaged it, and it automatically went to the end of the queue!

Kidzon (which I fear - rather shockingly - is supposed to rhyme with zone) are behind the shipping-in of this little set of construction types from China. A near-1:72nd scale tipper-truck and three new figures, but there are so many construction workers out there, they are running out of decent, unique poses, and two of these look very derivative, but I like the chap with his sledgehammer! Everyone gets a palm-tree these days!

 

Two large rubber boys, who will be Thomas doll's house accessories, and a 'happy drunk' (I've another come-in recently!), who was - I think - used on ashtrays, phone-stands, visitors card racks and the like.

The pink lady will be from a Monogram, MPC or Pyro car kit, and I always wondered why she always has checked slacks when you see her on modelling forums, and it's because the checks are etched into the moulding! While the pink gent is a - probably French - cyclist, sans bike!

Seated Lido (et all) civi', a Taylor and/or Barratt girl from one of the zoo rides or carts, and the best piece here is the - also probably French - chalkware racing-car drive, he's from quite a big toy too, probably tin-plate, around 1:25th?

Kinder sports above with the 1986 Mexico World Cup mascot; Pique, a jalapeño pepper in a sombrero! Two Judo martial-artists and a cameraman who may not be a sportsman, but is busy filming them all!

More general sportsmen bellow (sorry, no sportswomen this time!), with Merit's 'Everest' boardgame climber, several  Subbuteo for those bags, a cracker horse-racer and a PVC-alike footballer, but the stand-out is another of those key-ring fishermen . . .with no rod! I'll find one eventually, they can't be that rare if this is the third! But it seems to be a short-shot thing?

One the left, a margarine premium from Ei-Fein ('fine eggs', presumably to convince you that you can fry eggs with it?) and three Siku railway workers in HO-gauge compatible miniscule'ness.

 

A mix of non-military stuff here, with a slide from a Hong Kong play-ground set - I've never seen one in the packaging, so I don't know if they came with some of those babies (see below) to play on the equipment, or if it was aimed at model railways, but they are that sort of size, and I have quite a selection somewhere (roundabouts, see-saws, climbing frames etc.), so we will look at them more fully one day.

 

One definite Kinder Barbie, and a possible second, both sans bases, a small boy in soft rubber/PVC who may be New Ray, Pioneer or similar. Matchbox stretcher bearer / ambulance crewman, a kit figure (flying boat pilot?) and a game-playing piece (purple) I think?

He's been in the general "Thank you" at the bottom of each post, but special shout-out to Michael Mordant-Smith for these, he had a box-full, but spent about 40-minutes sorting through the whole box, when he could have been going round looking for bargains of his own or socialising, getting them all into pairs, I think in the end there were four missing, which I'll track down (hoping one or two may be in my existing, small sample) and then I'll shoot them in their pairs for a major update to the World Dolls page, which has been in the queue for a while. Van Brode cereal and other premiums.

 

I've passed on these several times on eBay, just because even if the set is cheap, the postage usually isn't, but then these aren't they, these are Hong Kong copies of they, the Tim Mee 'atomic clowns'. There's ten poses in the set, so whether originals or Hong Kong clones, I have a way to go yet!

 

In front of them a buckshee clowns foot! From a very big figure, one of the larger (not Cherilea)'s Diddymen maybe?

Another carded set, with a knock-off Barbie 'fashion doll' from BJ Toys. A lovely little shooting set with anodised, pressed-tin flats, I think it may be supposed to have a rubber band to fire matchsticks at the animals? And I found Suzy on Steve Vickers' stall, we will look at her fully another day!

Rather fortuitous as I had a post on adult novelties ready to go, as good as, which I've been building for months, and for which I had all the collages and so forth done, it just needed text, but she's been added in and that will come when we get all the show repots out of the way (Sandown still to come), but suffice to say she's quite fun!

 

A clown walker and Spanish bull-fighting horse (Jecsan or Reamsa?) on the left and a useful firefighter (Deluxe Reading) on the right, useful in that he has a few of the accessories so often missing from these larger figures. We've seen the clown before in a different colour and I surmised then that he was meant to be wearing a pantomime horse round his waist!

 

So, two Frenchies; one either side, both of which look a bit Starlux'y, but probably aren't, maybe Minialux or early Cofalux for the policeman, and . . . Cyrnos for the girl with teddy (O-gauge?), I think they have usually green or brown bases - any help great fully received.

 

Between them are three composition/terracotta HO railway figurines which are pretty exquisite, and I think Andreas said they were Fröha, but I may have that wrong and will check with Reinhard Schiffmann's book, they are a better HO than the Berger's we saw last time I got his book out! Actually, I think I last got his book out for some Pfeiffer's, but they don't seem to have made the tag-list?

The yellow polo-player is a copy of a Marx figure I believe, but here found reduced in size and polystyrene, from one of the above-mentioned model-car makers I think, while the large doll's baby is a heavy chunk of composition, maker unknown (but in the dolls world there are many, many composition makers!), and the Hong Kong copy of the Britains Hospital baby is useful (I already have a large bag of such knock-offs) for coming with a stackable bunk-bed/cot!

Which leaves a line-up of relative sanity! From the left Kentoys; Pioneer or similar (New Ray?); Lucky Toys early; unknown - might be French, might be HK (clearly missing a barrow and a copy of Reisler or Dinky?); Lucky Toys late; modernish firefighter and a Spot-On Policeman.

Thanks to all for everything last month; Peter Evans, Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan and Michael Mordant-Smith.

W is for Wagon Train

Picked this up a couple of months ago, and it's definitely a 'grail' item, despite being pretty low on plastic, but it is there, and you must remember that until a decade ago I was a specialist small scale collector, where this was one of those 'must have one day' pieces.

An early example of the multiple branding we are more used to now as Morris & Stone (aka Morestone) under their Budgie trademark licence the Wagon train TV series from Revue Productions in the USA, utilising their little prairie wagon. I thought we'd looked at these in detail here, but in fact it's a pretty poor article from the early days of the blog, I'd now veer toward Nibblet for the sculpting, or even Les Higgins, but that almost strengthens the possible Aifix link?

 

There are four poses of figures, with the hand-up guy presumably meant to be the Seth Adams character (played by Ward Bond) and the other rider Flint McCullough (Robert Horton) with two generic wagoners? Wagoneers? Wagoniers? Spellcheck only likes the first offering!

Err . . . I don't think they're terribly rare! An old Vectis shot. And even as this large set, I've seen several over the years! Metal fatigue, though, is over twelve-years worse than the last time we looked at them; the white tilt one in my set is disintegrating, I'll try and replace it.

B is for Best Show on Earth! 9. Divers

Thinning-out a too-long civilians post, we find ourselves with some all-diver stuff!

In the centre we have the mini-sub from Hing Fat, with older bagged James Bond knock-offs (Thunderball - the original version) either side and a couple of the air-line uppy-downy bath toys behind.

 

We've seen (with much help from Brian Berke) various domestic and foreign versions of the smaller one, but the other is, as you can see, jai-huge! It has heavy-metal (lead?) feet, to which the body is melted on, presumably because the amount of plastic made the diver too buoyant even when filled with water?

 

The bags seem to contain sub-piaracies of the ones we looked at here, which had a handful of accessories missing from these bags, it may be that the moulding is the same, and price-cutting is responsible, but it's not clear without taking them out and comparing with something currently in storage, so a future post there!

 

Thanks to all for everything last month; Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith and Peter Evans.

M is for Magneto's Magnetic Men & Maidens

I'm not going to suggest Magneto is responsible for all the magnetic novelties copied in Hong Kong from the 1950's until, well, now! Nor will I suggest they were necessarily first with any of them, but I suspect they can claim ownership of some of the originals of/and or some classic firsts.

 

This all (a huge Google session) came about after Chris Smith spotted this in a charity shop cabinet and realised it was ID'ing a past unknown here at Small Scale World, it's the Oompah dancer in his Tyrolean get-up and his lady (not seen before) in her Dirndl outfit.

 

They have a mirrored drum to dance on, with - presumably - a pair of clockwork magnets under the glass/polished surface providing them with their gyrations. I would add that 25-quid takes East Anglian Charity Shops onto a retail universe all of their own, so Chris left it there!

A reminder of mine, on the right, and another Magneto on the left, he usually has a lady to dance around his 'rock', who looks nothing like him having a round base (which won't catch on his rock's corners), and from the styling, I reckon the white ballet dancer we saw on another occasion may be Magneto too, but I haven't tracked down her set yet.

Although when I say tracked down, it was just Googling, and I found all the usual cars, Scottie-dogs, frogs, flying carpets, bath beauties and the like branded to the same German firm, and of better quality than the HK versions, but these things go back to the days of wood, lead and ceramic toys, so the true origins are rather lost. I did purchase the non-magnetic farm by the same company we saw a month or two ago.

 

The one on the right has lost his magnet, while the one on the left, fully marked, has lost power (as has the ballet dancer), but these novelty magnets often do, I found a horseshoe magnet the other day with no power left in it.

 

When I have more time I'll track down a few of the better toys from this company, and we'll have a couple of posts box-ticking their output and comparing them with the British (Bell, Merit, Fairylite), US (Lionel, Commonwealth) and Hong Kong products, but that probably won't be for a few years.
 

However, thanks to Chris, Magneto are now ID'd and can easily be found as the general toy collectors knew about them all along, and they are regularly on evilBay, Etsy and the like, if you want to find them.

B is for Best Show on Earth! 8. Civilian Vehicles

Lead here by the two non-show purchase carts this afternoon and there is more horse-drawn stuff (along with elephants; another great favourite sidebar of mine), but we've got all sorts to look at.

 

We've seen this in more than one Hong Kong iteration, here at Small Scale World, but I have a fancy this one is actually French or Italian, someone like Cle or Jouplast issued them as beach toys I think, and supplied some (of the smaller ones?) as premiums to people like Bonux, while in Italy, think I they might have been married to Texas and their plug-in based figures?

But don't quote me on either point, it's only memory! Suffice to say the finish is sharper than the Hong Kong ones (previously we've only seen stagecoaches), and the plastic is chalkier. The design of this one is a tad ridiculous, with over-sized tools stuffed through two unrealistic holes in the removable, but not working, tailgate. However, if you're moving sand on a beach, quite playable, if not terribly practical!

Tudor Rose beach- / bath-toy tugboat, small Hong Kong pleasure cruiser and A Bruder vessel make up the merchant navy in this lot. I believe the TR Tug, was reissued by Springwell in a retro header-carded net bag!

 

There is a bag of the HK ones slowly growing, and when I think I've found most of the body-type variants I'll blog them, in fact there are lots of bags of similar things all slowly growing . . . or at least some are!

 

Mixed road transport, a magnetic racing car we'll look at below, Praline and Minic (Triang-Mettoy) model railway HO/OO (respectively) compatible cars, a jig-toy truck (which will join all the others) and two classic 'dime store' or - in the UK - corner-shop/pocket money vehicles; a car marked 'Made in England' which could be Kleeware (?) and a Fairylite road roller.

The steam road roller is either a phenolic plastic or an early, unstable polystyrene, and is beginning to warp, while the racing-car, also Fairylite is quite stable.

A handful of Quaker racing car premiums to be checked against the master sample, and a comparison between the number-3 car (also used - as a sculpt - by Parker/Waddington's board-game Monopoly) and the previously seen Fairylite model.

 

Which is here for a third look! A simple magnetic novelty toy where you used negative-to-negative to push the car around with the hand-stick, a simple thing for simple times, what would they make of today's all singing-all dancing, digital Frozen dolls, or Super-deform Star Wars Angry Birds!

 

The jeep is supposed to be Tudor Rose, but smaller and less accurately portraying the real-life version as we saw the other day in military guise, and being unmarked, I'm only considering it an 'unknown' vintage beach/garden toy for now?

The tanker is usefully marked Banner Oil, so clear piece of Dime Store tat there! And the old-fashioned car is another of the better detailed Hong Kong copies of a French original I think?

The motorcycle side-collection took a real fillip in the last few weeks with another Airfix the following week, a second French Bazaar police motorcycle and then two more Airfix a week later.

 

What we have here are, from the left; that French bazaar copy/late issue of Cofalux's policeman, a Hong Kong with the base we were lacking when we sorted all that out with PW's help a few years ago, the motor-trike by Poplar Plastics / Poplar Playthings (they used both, and Poplar Plastic Products!), and the two Airfix 'dispatch riders'.

So soon after the gold one from Chris Smith, comes a full colour Gondola in the larger size, Brain Carrick remembered these being sold (or cleared?) through Woolworth's, but as this would have been the beginning of the age of mass-consumerism we're now trapped/locked-in to, there is the secondary reasoning that rather than being clearance of unsold Italian tourist trinkets, they are aping the silver neff which the rich had on their dining tables or sideboards, in a more affordable material?

 

It seems to be missing a couple of components down by the Gondoliers feet, and there appears to be two hinge-covers for a storage-compartment flap behind the customer's throne, so I will now look out for a cheap bashed one which happens to have the missing pieces.

 

 

Finally, a couple of 'box scale' wagons from Kleeware, from US tools (Pyro-Bachmann-LifeLike?), note that the buggy driver is about HO/OO compatible, while the fire-pump's driver is closer to N-gauge! Same sculpt. I have a bunch of these somewhere and will look at them all one day.

Thanks to all for everything last month; Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith, Peter Evans and Brian Carrick.

T is for Two - Civilian Horse-drawn Transports . . . 1hp!

Looking at a couple of very different single-horse power toys today, one the equivalent of a natty-little Triumph Spitfire, the other a Morris Traveller with a misfiring plug! Both are soft polyethylene plastic with a metal axle.

We looked at EG Toys once, a long time ago, and I doubted, at the time, we'd ever return to them here, but this is they, here they are, and isn't it a peach! No mere copy of Britians or Timpo, Morestone or Barrat, but a from-the-floor-up, local-design I think, although the horse has been nicked from Marx!

 

The driver sat easier after I'd moved him to the right-hand side, thereby proving by real sciencey stuff, beyond all reasonable doubt (shut-up at the back there!), that Napoleon was wrong, and the British do, in fact, drive on the right (as in proper / correct), right (as in orientation) side of the road! It's only what the Romans gave us, and it's what ships do!

That Marx horse in full!

 

While I suspect that this unmarked little sports model is a French bazaar type rack-toy? It's a harness-racer, 'Trotter' (also sulky, spider, or chariot), or trotting cart (to make it a pacer you'd need to replace the horse - different leg poses required), and while it looks like Hong Kong tat, it's unmarked, so the French connection is more likely, anyone got a brand for it, Hugonnet-Féral? It could be a premium too, soap-powder boxes would have room! It's a little smaller than the EG, at about 45/50mm.

And apologies for the fact that everything's getting the same background at the moment, but it's a bare table in the new flat, with chair, and window behind, so until I cover it in crap, it's just too convenient!

B is for Best Show on Earth! 7. Animals

Not a dinosaur this year, not a one, but it's not the show for dinosaurs, so that's hardly surprising, and a lot of these were in the donations, but there were some nice purchases too, so without further ado;

Mold-a-Rama Elephant, I like Elephants as those of you who've been here for a while will know, and I've known about Mold-a-Rama for years, but never had an example, as it's quite an American-specific thing, although it's also touristy, so a few should make their way over here from time to time? Mine came from Milwaukie County Zoo as you can see!

 

Having now found one, the first thing is how big they are (that's two of my fingers poking through in the bottom-right shot), and, because I'd always thought they were smaller, I'd always assumed they were solids and possibly some kind of wax (of the glue-gun type), to be able to be produced 'while you wait' (these are made in coin-operated machines at various sights and venues all across the US), and when you read about them, it usually just says "plastic", with no technical details!

The fact is, they are heavy blow-moulds, probably from a 'slug' or 'plug' of polyethylene which will look something like a 2" mortar round, Sodastream gas-bottle or extreme sex-toy . . . a round-bottomed bottle, they look like a round-bottomed bottle! This needs to be sized/weighted to whichever mould is in the machine.

 

The machines are changed from time to time, for instance; the silver Seahorse has been swapped for a pink Flamingo today (yesterday now), in the same Milwaukee County Zoo! And each mould, or whole machine (sometimes they change-out the whole unit) will require a different plug to rapidly produce the model (from a kept-hot tool?) while the punter waits, without filling the machine with flash or other waste.

 

So not exactly rare (although they were getting so before their recent renaissance I think?), but it's nice to have one at last, and there will be a greater rarity of those marked from now-defunct venues, one-off issues or long-gone events/exhibitions . . . I believe some of the dinosaurs are particularly sought-after. All the remaining machines however do date from the 1960's, so there is a finite life left to them, they won't last forever!

 

Inanimate objects are also featured, along with seasonal (Halloween and Christmas) items, there's plenty more here; they have a website!

Various birds came in, both purchases and donations, with a nice gull (or poor pelican sculpt) which might be Spanish or Portuguese, a Japanese novelty rocker in blow-moulded celluloid, it has a set-in weight to keep it upright, and predates Weebles by at least a decade-and-a-half!

A similar floating duck and one of the Marx Miniature Bird Model-Kits I think; the green one with separate wings - another post which has been in the queue since . . . well, September 2017! So I'll try to pull them out as a follow-up

I can't remember if I need the Vitacup reindeer still, I know I've had a broken one for ages, but I may have alleviated that problem some time ago, and I fear this one might be 'good one number 3' now! They all came together and mostly need a clean!

 

What can I say . . . board-game pieces at the infant level? I'll keep one for the 'sample'!

 

Two nice groups, on the left we have Tudor Rose in polystyrene, I have a decent sample, but these were clean, and I'm trying to get all colour variants of each animal, and don't carry wants lists at shows, so just grab them if they are affordable.

 

On the right a small group of composition animals, who seem to be all babies - calf and foals, and seem to be too good to be Brent (and we have looked at them in the past), so I'm at a loss, but they may be French?

A mixed bunch of horses from across the day's acquisitions include an early British (far left, Gemodels?), a flocked Cherilea (?) behind the probably New Ray foal pair, we've seen the white version before here. The kicking foal is Cherilea, I used to think it was Hilco, but the two are related so . . . and the Crescent foal on the far right. The red-and-gold one is probably a Hong Kong/China knock-off from a fantasy set (?), while the hard plastic foal with airbrushed tan is a mystery too.

 

A whale-tail pencil top! A third of a camel (Italeri or Heller WWII Western Desert kit, or Historex?) and a polar bear which - from the feet - looks like he goes with a construction-brick set. The two prehistoric mammals are Safari, and big-cats are big cats! The bags behind are all those smallies from Blue Box et al., with the odd Corgi and Bachman.

The polar bear from another angle, he's not Lego, as far as I'm aware, theirs is hard plastic and graphically simplified, but I don't think it can be Mega Bloks either as we've seen theirs here in the past, and it was different, or was that a yeti? Might be Mega Bloks then? But there's a lot of these improved Hestair-Kiddybrick issuers out there, and he could just be kinder with construction-toy stud-sized holes in his feet!

 

Odds; the rubber dog in grey on the right needs a brand, the Airfix pointer/greyhound/lurcher means I now have colour variants/duplicates of all six of the dogs, a Marx Miniature Masterpiece farm calf is mentionable, with a couple of Hong Kong's behind.

 

This is a bit of fun, in need of both sorting and - eventually - some ruthless recycling, but as an image, there's a story here I think. They all came in one of the donation bags, and are clearly someone's attempt to build a set of ammunition pack-mules for a wargames army or diorama, after the old Britains Hollow-cast set of British/Colonial mountain artillery!

Thanks to all for everything last month; Adrian Little., Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith, Peter Evans, Brian Carrick and Trevor Rudkin.