C is for Comet: Comet-Authenticast and Comet-Gaeltacht

A play in two acts, opening in New York and closing in Eire! That's Eire with a 'F'!! I won't bore you with the history today, that's one for the A-Z entry one day, but there is a book which deals well with most of it, and we're really box-ticking here, although with a lovely set from Jon Attwood to start us off!

Their HO scale figure set, as produced and carded in the Republic of Ireland, there are a few lifts from other makers not least Hornby's pre-war sets, while some others have the unmistakeable signature of Holgar Eriksson's sculpting style about them, one wonders though, if he had been happy to know (if he knew) or would have been happy to know they were side-by-side with piracies?

 

A gatefold flyer, with the O-gauge on the front, a mix of both scales in the middle, and a plug for the Authenticast soldiers and sports sets on the back. Jon's set can be seen middle-right on the opened centre pages.

 

Reminds me I have some of the shrubs, and they work for either size, at about 2cm high, they are actually very crude and look like home-painted Skytrex! For all the hype about centrifugal casting, the 'authenticast' process, the railway stuff was mostly pretty basic in the paint finish?

The box Jon's card came in, it's the standard artwork for the time fitted to a smaller, squarer area, to the more normal long-thin toy soldier boxes, but a lot of the railway range had similar dimensions, as one can see in the flyer above.

 

The obvious lifts include two figures from Hornby, flanking a Horton-Trix-Britains Lilliput passenger in the middle, and, given the era and subject-matter, it was more likely laziness than any idea of fakery, which led to these three?

Copies of copies of old Xerox or 'Electrofax' sheets, from the James Chase collection, again the O-gauge leading with HO on the second page, now with vehicles, but all really aimed at the parent company's US market.

 

Probably Eriksson's, but could be the work of Frank Rogers, who was clearly influenced by the master. Those O-gauge which are Eriksson's are often marked HE, as the male in the recent show-plunder post was, but in the HO, it's not so clear, and we have the piracies to contend with, which I don't think he would have countenanced?

 

I have posted some before, both O and HO I think, but under which Tag I can't remember, it was quite early in the blog's history I think? Many thanks to Jon, again, for the rare card and box. We are slowly coming to the end of these, but there's still a few to come!