E is for Ellem, or Not, as the Case May Be!

Having dealt with Merehall, and added suitable notes to the two older posts with them, I thought I should address Ellem, as they've just have one of their Tag's removed, but it will probably need to be restored when I re-read the articles fully and work out what I posted back then - with all the caveats and questions marks they needed!

 

Ellem were a 'mark' which appeared in the late Sharna-owned Cherilea catalogues, and were an attempt to cut costs by importing cheap product from Hong Kong, rather than relying on the expensive stuff made here, in the midst of, or possibly as a result of, all that industrial dispute/labour turmoil of the period.

This is a box of Ellem Crusaders, with three non-Ellem knights on top, off to the right-hand side, and also courtesy of John Begg (see previous post) but photographed a year earlier.

The Crusaders seem to be the same product as carried by Star Toys, so Ellem may well be a phantom-brand construct of Sharna/Cherilea, while the other two (one very mucked-about with) have the deep-hollow bases of the 'French-looking' paratroopers we saw here.

 

On the other hand, the sky-blue one is another type/maker again, having little circular indents round the locating pegs, and much-thicker walls, to an also hollowed-out base.

This is from an old photoshoot from years ago (2013) and proves little, as the angle is wrong to compare bases, but we will be returning to these from time to time, not least when further attributions turn-up! In the meantime they are just four more, probably from two (or three?) sources, with the Crusader being possibly Star and/or Ellem.

My sample of knock-off shields, the trouble with these is that they are peg-together rather than the heat-welded over-moulding of Timpo's, and consequently can be mucked-about with, by the human owners, within or between makers, to produce colour combinations which never left any of the factories, therefore I offer it only as a sample. Note: some of them are so poorly made, the symbol extends beyond the extent of the shield-board.

 

It's funny, someone used this image (seen before here at Small Scale World) without permission the other day and when I suggested he might be so quick as to enter my grave, he just laughed? You catch someone, in public, ripping you off, and they just don't care, they have no conscience in the matter?

 

Understand this; the more I'm plagiarised, the more I'm followed-up on, the more 'eemies' I have, the better the job I'm doing here, and my stats prove that, because they're all here, reading this, every day - the farty, envious, insecure, thieving, copycat, little scrotes!

 

Someone else in Hong Kong (or one of the above known or unknown makers) produced these copies, also of Timpo, but the earlier 'solids', imported (with poor-quality 'swoppet' foot figures) into the states by Ideal in large playsets, they were the same counter-top box singles here I think, or some bottle-bag rack-toy types? And someone reminded us it was Ideal the other day, but the post seems to have been taken down, so I can't find his name to credit him!

 

Back to Ellem, and some rather Blue Box-looking, Britains-copy, animal solids, in the zoo set, but I suspect 2nd or 3rd generation piracies, and shown here purely to help you sort them out of larger samples of similar animals, I know I have a dozen or so Ostriches now, all 'unknown'!