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.

Sunday, February 18, 2024

S is for Seen Elsewhere and Sharna Ware (Cherilea)

Posted these elsewhere a while back, the figure pages from a larger Sharna Ware catalogue, dated 1974, Sharna being the buyer of Cherilea. I nearly wrote 'buyer and last iteration', but the solids all reappeared in recent years (Marlborough-Dorset-Imperial, Monty and Rommel are now in metal, shock horror!) while some of the swoppets (not in this catalogue) went to Italy (Tibidabo) and others were pirated in Hong Kong!
 
Typically, they've loaded in reverse order and I can't be arsed to sort them out, these (top two) were bought-in from Timpo, while I have a similar triangular flag in white, very crude. I'm not sure if the fort even got issued, it looks to be an original design (if plastic) or routed-wood, probably a particle-board, but I'm not sure if I've seen one with walls that high, however I do stand to be corrected, I can't know everything?

The medieval fort was sometimes sold in a Sharna box, and the knight we saw here as one of my early 'star purchases' after I began collecting the larger scales (when the blog made it inevitable, we discovered with One Inch Warrior magazine, that once you've covered a few rarities and some smaller makes, you rapidly run out of sufficient copy to keep a small-scale thing going!), had the same dragon as the flags on the fort, hanging from his lance, and despite not being in the shot above, probably came with the fort as it's 'Lord and Master'?
 
Below it, is all Timpo product, presumably as they got into difficulties they looked to expand the range without the expence of production-costs, and Timpo would have been happy to shift more stock, even/especially to a rival! Note the gun team kept both their Timpo horses and riders.

I think I'm right in saying the Covered Wagon/Buckboard was an earlier all-Cherilea design, albeit quite similar to Timpo's, while the Stage Coach was later bought-in from Timpo, but given Cherilea's bigger horse team and driver?

I have a few of the ACW, and one or two Crusaders, but I've not sought-out the Mexicans, I always thought they looked a little silly, and will wait 'till they are part of a mixed-lot or bulk-purchase, one day, if ever? I might have some dodgy Hong Kong copies though, somewhere, all semitransparent cloaks/ponchos in purple and pink?

Love the 'Commandos', and have decent examples of all three generations now, while the space sample is growing, and I've a couple of the Union, on foot. The spacemen have been much copied over the years, but the others are stand-alone!

Love the knights and I almost can't stop buying them, but I do stop myself if they are plain silver, the other colours however . . . I'm a sucker for them! While the Wild West I'm not so enamoured of, they aren't the best anatomically, and while not as silly as the Mexicans, I'm in no hurry to fill a quota!

From Companies House;

Solarprior Leisure Limited 30 Dec1957 - 10 Jan 1992
 
T/A
 
Sharna Ware (Mfg.) Limited 30 Dec 1957 - 09 Jun 1983
Sharna Tri-Ang Limited 09 Jun 1983 - 20 Dec 1988
Tri-Ang Leisure Limited 20 Dec 1988 - 09 Oct 1990
Dissolved 17 Mar 1994
 
Liability/debt litigation carried on until at least 2020!

3 comments:

Pompey Dave said...

Thanks for reminding me of the space capsule. I owned one of those as a small boy (along with the obvious quantities of Timpo cowboys & knights) and had completely forgotten it until this round-up.

Hugh Walter said...

They're on the Blog Dave, or one is, and not that long ago, try the 'Cherilea' tag, or 'Dr. Who'

H

Hugh Walter said...

Err . . . I can't find it either! I may have posted it on a Faceplant Group, I'll dig my slightly incomplete one out and post it here!

H