H is for How They Come In - Brian, One of Two

I was trying to get them all in one post, but it wasn't going to happen, even with collaging, so I've split them sort of equally! A lovely parcel came from Brian Berke in New York about a month ago, and it was full of lovely things - you may recall we looked at the micro/space stuff the other day - and, of which these are the first half of the larger stuff.

 

 We're going to start with one of the real mystery suprises . . . my first thought with these was 'Flipper' the TV show (some Larami rack toy from the 1970's), because of the two dolphins (did Flipper have a mate?), but the characters just don't match, and these look much younger/newer, although they could just be clean and un-played-with?

 

But we have a girl (Flipper has two lads) who looks to be in medieval clothes, or 1950's snow-garb, she could even be a page-boy 'he', or a young (and poorly sculpted?) cheer-leader? With her is a ground-crewman of some kind (helicopter, carrier-deck?) and mechanic/sunbather/daydreamer, who's possibly the poorest sculpt?

They seem to have come along with some standard 'rack-toy' GI's copied from Airfix and more seventies in look and feel. Indeed, I did seperate them, but realised subtle changes of shade of the plastic colour were in both bags, so the soldier's bag is rolled up and placed in the character's bag, suggesting I'm not 100% either way, but don't want to seperate them until I know for sure!.

Now, come-on guys and gals . . . who knows what about these, someone must know something? That there are colour variations suggests quite a production run, and whether they were made last month or forty years ago, someone must know something? It's quite a hard polyethylene or nylon'y polymer? Can anyone help ID these, they need to be in the Tag list correctly!

 

5-5-24 - Brain himself came up with the answer the next day! But it took me a while to get a shot and wait for it to disappear from the sales site! They are Marx, from a late Dunby-Combex/Burbank era playset, Undersea Adventure, from about the same time as those odd, carded, 'shelf' vehicle rack-toys, or the late Guns of Navarone photo-art boxings. These khaki ones are reissues. I believe the vehicle stared in a few space playsets as well!

There were a nice bunch of flats, a couple of poses are similar to those ascribed elswhere to Cracker Jacks, particularly the bucking cowboy and baseball hitter, but they are not the same, and the [sports?] shooter too, while the ones in the larger image have the same bases as some Cracker Jacks, the others don't, so some other source maybe? The boxing kangaroo's "Put-em-up put-em-uuuuuup!" suggest an Australian connection?

 

I've divided them up (and photographed them) in three lots according to those bases, with the vehicles having quite angular ends, the bulk ovoid or 'cartouche' bases, and the other two figures something in-between, I suspect they all go together, but it helps to identify differences at the start rather than later!

We love paratroopers here, we love paratroopers in donation parcels! And this quite large one, is a different version, again, of one we've seen here before on more than one occasion, with quite high production values and a very small Hong Kong mark in the parachute case/bag.

These are US Cereal premiums, given away with Nabisco's Rice Honeys, and apparently manufactured by MPC, each has its name on it and there are some less common ones among them, and they are biggish with the Oarfish at 140mm/5½ inches, that's about half-a-banana, for some Faceplant readers! Clockwise from the flying fish;

• 17 FLYING FISH 20 IN
• 6 MANTA RAY 20 FT
• 17 NEEDLE FISH 5 FT
• 5 PORCUPINE FISH 5 FT
• 4 OAR FISH 30 FT
• 18 SAWFISH 20FT
• 3 GREAT WHITE SHARK 21 FT
• 9 BARRACUDA 10 FT

Ten feet? Ten phuqing feet? That's more than fifteen bananas! I thought barracuda were slightly-vicious, angry-salmon things you could punch on the nose, I don't think I'm ever going in the sea again . . . they come in herds, you know! Yes, there are two 17's?

 

Three lovely, full-on 54mm-compatible fantasy figures which I haven't found on Shaun's site yet and don't recognise, but they look a bit Tolkien'esque? So possibly a recent knock-off, although by recent, one has to remember how quickly the last 22-years have sped-by!

Lido Wild West, and originals, not the slightly insipid pastel ones from Hong Kong I have somewhere, so useful additions for future comparison shots, a modern AWI figure (Accurate/Revell or Imex?) and two very interesting copies of the M-Toy/Marty (Maymoon) barbarians, but in a smaller size, fantastic!

I can't remember who the big guy kneeling with the radio is, Marx, Ideal, or late Aurburn? But the others are the larger size of MPC, and are very useful as I have a few that are darker and lighter greens or metallic blue and silver, so these mid-olive green ones are a nice addition.

 

You know I struggle to thank these guys enough for these donations, and the best thanks is to share them enthusiastically with the rest of you, but many, many thanks to Brian, there are some real treasures above, and more to come, which, if I can blurb them up in the next hour or so, I'll schedule to publish for 9:30 our time (GMT).

And can anyone ID the dolphin 'playset' figures?