M is for Merry Mass of Malleable Model Mayhem! 1 - Introduction

Oh . . . it'll do! It's a question of coming up with something fresh that isn't Chris's this or H is for that, and the two I initially came up with were a C and an S and we have plenty of them, but not so many M's, and there will be a few posts because Chris Smith's Christmas Cracker (yeah, you can see where one of them was going!), was stuffed like a trussed-turkey . . . shall I see how many seasonal puns I can squeeze into these posts! I'll try not to, it'd annoy me as much as you!

 

I've sorted the plunder into about ten folders, but some may get combined as I go, in the meantime these were the 'everything else' which I left in the original folder, and I don't know what to do with half of them, so I'll heave them up here in a lump, and blurb them as I work down the page!

 

Obviously the above is first impression, move the bags out of the way, and there's a very interesting diver, just sitting there, all "Look at me first", and possibly the best thing in the box, but you'll know as well as anyone now, Chris's boxes always have a few 'best things', so keep an eye out, these will be interspersed with Christmas posts, model railway posts, and anything else I can find, over the next week or two?

Had a bit of a dig, I think - taken a few choice pieces out, including the diver! More room for more rummaging! I've said before, the big bag/s of Hong Kong stuff get put to one side and will all be properly sorted/Blogged on the Giant site at some point.

 

If I recall rightly, it was a few weeks ago now, I had to shoot off and do something else that afternoon, so I emailed/messaged Chris my joy and gratitude (he hadn't told me it was in the post) and later I did the sort, while messaging him in Faceplant as I found everything else! I haven't labelled them, but you should get a flavour of each pile's theme, if you open the image.

 

Briefly, it's Medieval-Wild West-Historical/ceremonial up top, Civilian-Mad Figure-Vehicles down the bottom, with Ancient-Gwitarwrist-Odds-TV/Cartoon in the middle.

While this is Paratroopers-Animals-Buildings/Defence Works across the top, Military-Ethnic/National Dress/Pirates in the middle and Aeroplanes-Vessels-Sci Fi/Fantasy down the bottom, and that's literally the first layer of sorting, then animals say, become farm, zoo/wild, at the second level then insects, sea-life, arctic etc . . . at the third!

Can't have a Chris intro-post without the Paratrooper shot, not least because it's often a seen elsewhere shot, and this is a good lot, the big blow-mould is in army green, where they are often bright-coloured, and that Lion brand 'shooter' (second from the left) still has his parachute . . . funny how that 'file' has grown from a loose figure, through the catalogue scan, then a set with the trigger-poles missing, then some loose but complete, to this complete with parachute, over several years and several posts! And both Chris and Peter Evans have helped that journey, I think?

Oh lord! What am I supposed to do with this? I'm supposed to pray one of you knows the answer, that what I'm supposed to do! As I explained elsewhere on the day, he's in dense PVC-alike, about 65mm, modern'ish I guess? And I really can't tell if he's meant to be a cowboy, firefighter, circus performer, or Zombie-hunter!

Chris himself wondered if he might be a dinosaur wrangler or a modern day "child catcher"? Any help from the loyal readers with this one greatly appreciated, I suspect the sort of flat, big-box play-set A-Z/Paggett's might have imported? But farm, dinosaur or circus? Wild West or fire-crew?

 

Odds and sods, the soft plastic (silicon rubber soft) 'mine' has turned up a few times recently, and may, like that red-foam ball the other day be part of some larger game or craze? the Musketeers uniform is from a Kinder toy, the TV we will look at again in the Wild West post (it's fun!) and the [football?] cup, is interesting, and probably has some age, like 100-odd years? It's a very stiff foil, rater than plate, and could be for dolls houses, or home-theatres? Even a sample of some kind - very unusual?

 

I like the vehicle load too (the larger one, the small one, hard to see is from the Matchbox safari Land Rover), looks modern'ish, and from its squareness, not railway, so a pick-up of some kind, maybe a Model-T type thing in 1:24th? While the - homemade (?) - flags are just charming, and there's a whole unknown flag-zone they can go to.

Structural elements include the yellow 'roof' which I think might be a Kinder frog's umbrella! The sentry-box could be home-made, but it's so polished I suspect a hollow-caster's commercial piece, from a boxed/gift set?

 

The card portcullis will go in the tub of such oddments somewhere, the HK bridge is missing it's centre section, but there's a bag of bits for them somewhere too, and the benches are exquisitely home-made, carved, sanded, and varnished in an age where you had to do it all yourself, O-guage I think? The brown hexagon is from Atlantic's Abaline City.

This is all Kinder which would - otherwise - have been broken down into the various other pages, and I think one or two were re-shot for those posts, but here they all are together, except the paper Musketeer's outfit . . . and the frog's umbrella . . . and probably something else we'll see in a day or two - Doh!

The blue & orange monster is the last head type, missing from the post we had here at Small Scale World, not that long-ago, often how it works! The cartoon mini-Indian was one of very few victims of the Post Office's art, but I found the feather so it can be glued back on?

And the parts for the green hockey-player and the stickers for the red one are all both there (both-all?), while the pirate may be missing a hat, but has a spare pair of trousers - bargain! And I'm loving the red & blue medieval man-at-arms in the centre, my first.

I love this, I mean it's entirely homemade, crushed (post office again?) and seems to consist of the best half of an exercise-book cover, circa 1971 (I think History had the purply-grey in my school!*), but how charming, and what a survivor, only needs some reinforcing on the inside and it can go again!

While these could be military, historical or footballers? Anyone recognise any of the individuals, or are they generic after-market heads for probably WWII figures? I thought, Roman, Roman, Footballer, Rommel!

Many thanks to Chris for all this, only the intro, and we've all sorts of interesting things added to the pile!

* Maths was always red or pink, chemistry was yellow or buff, green was for geography, orange biology, what was blue? English? Lang or Lit? Latin was dark-grey in my first school, what colour was French, physics? More than 40-years ago was the last time I took mine out of the cupboard! What was your colour code?