P is for Promotional

You don't see real premiums these days, most people now buy own-brand products which owe some of their cheapness to a lack of promotional gimmicks, and while I know people like Topps do the odd set of animals, or Smarties occasionally add figurals to their tube tops, it's not something which is common or everyday, and while I guess Blind Bags, have filled that niche (at a cost), it was interesting to find these . . . 

 

. . . in an Italian flyer type thing. My Italian being poor it seemed they are plain figures (rather than stampers or something), and you have to visit the store on or after the given dates to get the specific figure, and from the way the flyer was laid-out, I suspect the Italian equivalent of Aldi or Lidl? Anyway it appeared to be called Eurospin, and now we're all on the Internet, it didn't take long to find a set of six, with a previous or future set of another six?

https://www.eurospin.it/kung-fu-panda/

And at €3.99, hardly a 'premium', rather a promotional! Thanks to Jan & Istfan for fetching the flyer back from Italy! And . . . Kung Fu Panda 4? I seem to have missed King Fu Panda 3 all together!

P is for Probably the Best Car-Park Barrier in the World!

Heineken don't do car-park barriers, but if they did . . . I know, we've had something similar before, but nostalgia includes crappy cultural references! I shot this, also in Guildford (see earlier post on dragon's teeth), but a few weeks earlier, only for the shots to turn out so poor (I tend to pass it at dusk each time), I had to go back and re-shoot most of it, a week later!

 

It's a train! About half-action-man scale, so 1:12th/16th, something like that? And it's towing a bunch of flatcars with local wildlife examples! Made out of stainless-steel plate or possibly a bronze-alloy, it's hard to tell as there's no rust, and I'm not a metallurgist!

 

Saddle-tank loco and four flats with an old style guards break-van at the back, I guess this is a sculpture, or 'public art'? I couldn't fine anything about it nearby, but it was getting dark both times, and it's a teeny car-park with about 15 spaces for dog-walkers at the far-end of the now one-way Woodbridge Meadows, and this barrier is almost underneath the real rail-bridge!

 

LBSC 105 is the Fat Controller's locomotive from Thomas the Tank Engine, but it's a red-oxide, not green! The LSWR Bison class had a 105, likewise the class 395's, but they didn't look like this, however the M7's did! So I guess it's a real loco' depiction?

https://www.brdatabase.info/locoqry.php?action=locodata&id=304453077&type=S&loco=105

The break-van, children of a certain age know these go at the back of a goods train, as sure as similarly aged American and Canadian kids know where the Caboose goes, but I wonder how many people under forty even know what this is called, let alone where it goes?

 

The reverse of the goods wagons, showing how the wildlife is done like theatrical scenery! Now, you can get phosphor-bronze sheet-plate, and I wonder if that is what we have here, it looks a bit brassy, but without the verdigris you'd expect with a purer brass or copper, and I've mentioned the lack of rust spots, which even stainless will get eventually, so it's some corrosion-resistant metal, which is also pretty vandal-proof?

Snail, Grebe (crested, great), Dragonfly and Kingfisher.

Fish, Newt (crested, great!) and Otter.

Coot, or Moorhen, I never get them two right!

Bumble Bee and Snake, generic!

Butterfly, Bat, Water Beetle (vicious buggers) and a Water Rat/Vole

I like that even as our entire political class descends into a naval-gazing madness of seeking power for power's sake with absolutely no solutions on offer, someone somewhere is still doing this kind of stuff, for the hell of it!

I is for Instant Gratification!

Probably the only time we will ever visit these, because the company has gone, the US parent also seems to have gone, the products are still out there in number, now China imports, and they are very definitely infant-fodder, indeed, the delay in getting them into Europe was the possibility of infants using them AS fodder and choking on a circus performer . . . Well, you would, wouldn't you, especially a whole one!

Originally the US company Instant Products line, at one time called Magic Grow, these were introduced to the UK and Europe at the London Toy Fair back in 2001, which I attended as One Inch Warrior magazine's 'roving reporter' (I think there were three of us, but I was specifically tasked with keeping my eye out for the small scale stuff), by a CCL, who seem to have been a phantom-brand for Europa Consultants UK?

 

Modern generic Chinese ones

The trick with them was they came in a gelatine capsule, like those bead-drugs, which was designed to melt in water, at which point the contents burst open with a florish and revealed very, very small, novelty bath sponges, about the right size for Action man to lather himself up!

 

My original five, as used in the subsequent show report, of little use to toy-soldier or model figure collectors, but nevertheless, if someone give you a freebie you owe them the courtesy of a mention, and thanks to Darnel Penrose (whom I hope went on to better things, with a better-lasting company!) for supplying the samples all those years ago!

 

An old evilBay image, you can see robots, a monster or two, a ghost and skeleton and teddy bear, among the more usual animals, dinosaurs and sea-life. I thought the over printed ones were interesting, I have memories of full sized novelty sponges over-printed with designs or slogans which would leave you with little bits of black or white print stuck to your skin after the bath, and which - as designs - only lasted a few bath times on the sponge!

 

And while the choking was a very real concern this side of the pond, resulting in packaging which was designed to be fully immersed without being opened, they were clearly slow to take off, and have now been totally replaced with this Chinese stuff, probably from the same factory/ies supplying the originals?

D is for Defence Works & Dragons Teeth!

I shot these the other evening in Guildford. When I was going to collage there in the 1980's they were hidden in the undergrowth either side of the old sort-cut path, but, in the 1980's the population of the UK was half what it is now, and the necessary development which has filled the years between has lead to them being revealed, as more formal paths were arranged through them, and in 1998 they are formally recognised with a plaque (bolted to one of them) and are watched-over of not actually looked after! They are yards from the London Road railway station in the centre of town.

One or two are still overgrown in the background, and a better-surviving example was seen here on Small Scale World, many years ago, about a mile to the south, which would all have been part of the same defence plan - to prevent German invasion forces coming up from the South East corner of Britain, getting though the Downs at the  'Golden Ford' and having a clear-run across Surrey Heath toward London.

 

When you realise how many gargantuan flack-towers (Flaktürme) are still blotting the landscape around Germany and Austria, a few Dragoons teeth look quite innocuous! These, unlike the ones down by the river, don't seem to have any pattern to them and may have been individually cast on a Monday morning, or Friday night?!! Built by 578 Army Field Company of the Royal Engineers in February 1942 . . . a bit late really!

Q is for Quiralux

I have to go out before work today, so here's a quick 'L is for Lazy Post'! Seen elsewhere, it's a scan of a not oft-seen Quiralux flyer, it got me thinking I've probably mixed-up Quiralux and Cofalu in the past and probably need to check both Tags, to make sure they are pertaining to the right maker!

If you click on it, then left-click again it should blow-up to a useable image, and if printed on A3 or larger, will be a useful addition to a paper archive. 60mm modern infantry and Wild West, 54mm mediaevals and farm, I think, mixed plastics.

P is for Plasty's Plastic Pole!

Just a quickie, I found Plasty's Totem Poles from Germany a while ago, and got one, there are several colourways I think, and while cursorily like Timpo's, they are actually plug-together, rather than over-moulded.

I was back on the original totem-pole post again the other night, getting frustrated by the inability to correct or add anything, due to its conflict with subsequent rule changes on Tag-limits, and I think I'll break-it down to three posts, but I will leave them on the same date, which is a bit of a cheat, but one we can legitimately call an 'edit'!

W is for William Britains & W. Horton

Who may well be another William, but could also be something else entirely, Wally, or Walt, Warren or Wesley . . . yeah, it's probably William! Confusing, because there's nothing in Garratt, while Grace's has two, the novelty maker (probably our man!) in Middlesex (W.) and the gunsmiths in Birmingham, who ARE William and are still going, while another William played Cricket for Middlesex, around the same time as the toy producer set-up, but while the toy maker moved to Middlesborough, he died in Sussex?

 

Anywhoos, a quick box-ticker as we close-up on the railway figure posts, and with more comparison images to come in the round-up, and some other stuff in the past, linked-to in the Tags, this is a couple of images from Jon Attwood (many thanks again) and three from me, one of which we've seen before, just to get them all up here.

Various packagings for both the Britains Lilliput and Trix TTR (Trix Twin Railway) ranges, both of which used the same figures, although the Lilliput range was enhanced with vehicles in a larger HO-gauge (Half-O-gauge) compatible size, which couldn't be passed-off so easily as TT-gauge (Table Top/1:120), while little people are just little people!

 

I slipped this in to a post years ago with a casual note, and didn't admit to my sin, but as I get older, I seem more amenable to expunging my guilty secrets in public, if only to spread the guilt around and lighten the load on my own conscience, as we've all done similar things.

 

Before I do, just a note that the figures were attached to the platform by being drilled between the feet or elsewhere on the base and held in place with brass cabinet-makers screws of the smallest size.

 

The truth is, I no longer have it, although I did save the figures, but, because I thought it was homemade - it was a car-boot purchase by a third party given to me, because of my then specialization in small scale, although 'specialization' itself is a bit cheeky, given I didn't know what this was, but model railways were very-much a side shoot then, anyway - it got burnt! There, I said it, I used it to light a fire, many years ago, well, it wouldn't fit in any of my storage containers, and looked a bit naff!

 

I now realise it's classic Horton, and classic Art Deco, in the style of Woking station, which I've always liked, despite the tons of haphazardly-added modern shite hiding the true nature of the original, but the - seemingly unused these days - signal-box between the two sets of up and down lines is still relatively untouched.

 

Although Woking's signal-box is bare brick for the most part, but it has the rounded corners and the flat roof, I have the Hornby station in aluminium, and it's the same style, and 'rendered' in cream/orange/green if memory serves, so this was probably depicting one of many, or a generic London suburban halt, from the inter-war building boom?

None of Salisbury's stations look anything like this, being all Victorian multicoloured brick wonders, but I dare say you got a sheet of station names and the posters? One of the reasons it looked home-made was the poor application of the paper elements!

I know, but I'm afraid to try straitening him! The difference between the Hotel Porter on the left and the railway station-staff Porter on the right, a similar trick was played with another figure, while a third railwayman got a cream jacket to become an ice-cream seller, rather than a platform refreshment vendor!

H is for Hamleys, or Harrods . . . ?

OK, I'm presenting these as they are, recolouring renders them pretty awful, and 'adjust contrast' has little effect as they are firmly in the all-orange-brown spectrum! Among the odder things in the archive, and I'm sure there are better quality versions in the Library of Congress, or the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building of the New York Public Library service, but I don't have either of them, here, in a file! While Google suggests, this 'Junior' supplement for 1939 isn't online in an easily visible fashion, while you need valid Library cards to read the originals held by the aforementioned bodies!

 

Also, I don't know how big they will present, until I've hit 'Publish', but I hope if you click and click again, you should get a pretty mahoosive image to track-around, and hopefully read the less than helpful blurb panels for yourselves?

 

A minute after publishing - yes, the detail is actually very good, find the Adrien helmets hiding behind the logs . . . I've never noticed them! Later still - She's a 'he' (now adjusted, Brylcreem has a lot to answer-for!) and it may all be one piece, still in the workshop? The ornamental elephants in one background (probably real ivory) suggest it could be Harrods?

 

For Junior! See what the crazy Europeans are doing this holiday!

 

If he is working on the back of the big cliff, bottom left, then it could be an in-store display, rather than a window display? I suspect it's several dioramas on a theme (rather the aesthetics of the last/previous war, with the 'sci-fi' Maginot Line and half-tracks!), probably running along a line of pavement-facing windows.

This one recoloured slightly! They almost look like old Egyptian papyrus, which adds to their charm! But they are as brittle as old papyrus, too, so I didn't dare bend-back the little nick in the join on the Ack-Ack gun picture.

 

Within the blurb, credited at one point to British Combine, presumably a forerunner of today's 'press pools', and cleared by the British Censor, the only real clue to where these might have been is in the title-line "Offered in West End Shops", clearly then, this is the myth of patriotism, being used, as it always is, to get people used to and ready for war, a war which was - at the time - still in it's 'phoney' phase.

The hype surrounding the Maginot Line, was so strong that articles with lovely little isometric cutaway drawings, and maps of it, were still a favourite of 'Boys Own' books and seasonal annuals when I was still a kid. It's faded now, and while still controversial, most have accepted the truth of history - it was a very, very expensive white elephant, and complete failure, which tied-up tens of thousands of troops badly needed in Belgium, who never launched a counter-attack, nor got to Dunkirk, to be taken-off, either!

It'll mostly be Britains and Astra Pharos (?) I think, with the small tank from Hornby/Dinky maybe? And you would imagine they were in Hamleys windows, but Harrods were equally famous for theirs, and this could have been tucked down one of the side streets, where the windows have to be sought out, leaving the well-known frontage for fashion and household gifts?

 

The blurb also hints at animatronics, such as the mentioned elevators, another standard of such statement, seasonal window-displays back then, hell, Fleet Toys still had busy displays in the 1980's, think - a bunch of woodland animals playing instruments in the snow, Santa popping out of a chimney, an ammunition-lift to supply the gun, to kill Germans, all good, clean, Crimbo' fun!

I know, I'm over-thinking it, but isn't that half the fun of archivism? The what-if's, or what-actually's!

T is for Toys In The Media - Part the somethingth . . .

 

I was reminded in the early hours of this morning, of the words of Jamie Delson, owner and CEO of The Toy Soldier Company, when he was interviewed by the New Yorker magazine back in May 1992 . . .

 

. . . which has me contemplating, as we've visited them about four times now! Above is one of the pairs the modern Culpitt carried, still available from a few sellers online, they were previously sold by various other brands, sometimes as a six (although only five poses remain), and have clearly been around for several decades! Are you a starving man in the desert, readers, do you know one?

This was illustrating an 'advertorial' puff-piece on watches in The Sunday Times, back in October 2002, and shows what are probably the Toyway reissues of the Lone Star Guard's Band, under the Timpo label.

This was a common ad' back in the . . . 1990's-early 2000's? Advertising an ISA producd for Egg (now the Yorkshire Building Society), and is obviously artwork, but drawing heavily on the Subbuteo footballers designed by Charle Stadden.

Launched on August 5, 2011, the Juno probe to the Jovian system has three crew! Origianlly designed to be crashed into Jupiter at the end of the mission (to protect the integrity of the moons we are hoping to visit in the future), its mission has now been extended (for a second time) until late 2025, so these three are still very-much up there, or out there! I don't know where the cutting came from?

 

Galileo found Jupiter, the other two are more obvious!

MPC is for Many Plastic Cosmonauts

As a continuation of the previous post (if you watched the Plaid Stallions video), and as a follow-on, off the back of the recent Blog donation from Brian Berke, we are going to have a first overview of the MPC astronauts and their clones, it's not the best, as I have more samples of the Hong Kong knock-off's in storage, but with the ones Brian sent, I have enough for now, and we can return to them another day for a look at the other examples.

MPC originals, the reason I was so happy to get these the other day, is that while I have a few, currently in storage, they are from the XL5 set, and are gold, silver, yellow, orange, and a dark red I think, and I didn't even photograph them properly when I did the set, concentrating on the accessories and character figures! While these are the iconic ones from the missile, rocket and space base sets, and the ones most copied, if this post is anything to go by.

 

Some of the earliest copies are among the poorer, being slightly smaller, less well detailed/moulded and marked with a simple Hong Kong, various versions exist, and it's they we will look at again, as it's the weakest part of today's post. These probably date from the mid 1960's and ran through to the early 1970's, although there seem to have been so many of them, some corner shops probably had a few into the early 1980's?

 

Better sized (in comparison with the originals) but very flashy ones here on the left, sold by Payton in the 'States, but probably other people, or as generics elsewhere, they have some nice colours though? While on the right, is an early example of the later, better copies, which might be late Ri Toys, early Hing Fat, or someone else?

Some of the older moulding hung-around until the 1990's at least (they're probably still out there somewhere, waiting for a client/buyer!), and here we see a generic with a gate-fold head, still folded for shipping, in a 'more' realistic colourway of white/silver.

Head up and over-printed to Henbrandt (HB, not D, not P), for some reason both my cameramen are a pale mint-blue, I say 'my', but this is the feableBay image, I think, although I did purchase the lot, it went off to storage a while ago!

 

A renaissance in the 1980's/90's led to new copies which were closer to the originals, with more substantial bases, so they stood-up on carpets a bit better than the previous ones, with their thin bases, and we got them unmarked (as in the image three-above) or marked Hong Kong, from the Hing Fat stable, and seen here with or without a code (No.433) and wearing three different logographies, the white eagle sets being the ones un-coded.

 

And I suspect the eagle came before the GI logo (which was still in shops in the 1990's, before the current, two kids logo, took over), which puts the silver/white combo' competing with the earlier copies, and the red/white/blue as later? Although this low-res (historical?) image from Hing Fat's catalogue shows both colour-ways, running together, with the late card, along with elements of the later 'fat NASA-nauts' sets.

While an Italian reseller/importer ('jobber'), A. Ronca SAS, carried sets with a smaller figure count, but an added flag, and stand, bargain! The company may still be going, now as a reseller of kitchen appliances, but they are in a different town, so I suspect an unconnected company with a similar name.

 

And while the colours of the blues obviously vary in the above shots, in this one we see a very different shade again, a sort of sea-blue?!

 

At about the same time as the generic/Henbrandt and generic/Hing Fat sets were popular, Nasta Industries were carrying similar figures, with slightly lighter bases, alongside their LB (for Lik Be, obviously!)-supplied figures, also in a red, white & blue colourway.
 

 

Those early ones from the smaller rack-toy, pester-power cards, they are pretty poor quality, but probably date way back to when Hong Kong was first getting-going, and they may have been rushed out.

Comparison with MPC, the outer pair, obviously!

 

My current black & white sample is probably close to or actually the same ones as seen in the generic/Henbrandt sets above, mid-1980's, I think, and slightly better than the earlier knock-off's on those pocket-money toys. Also donated by Brian Berke, in a previous parcel!

Comparison with an MPC, on the left.

 

Now, I only have five of these here, six with the yellowish-one, and they are unmarked, so probably not actually Hing Fat, but rather from the fuzzy-pictured generic set, next to the Payton image above. Clearly a redesign, they ran into the 1990's and can be found in various packagings/sets. The yellowish chap could be either, but being baseless we don't know if he's from a marked or unmarked set, and if marked, whether it said 'China' or 'Hong Kong'!

Comparison with MPC, they are the pair in the middle.

Three odd's I have here (more in storage) and all interesting, the one on the left in yellow, has had a base added to the most annoying of the figures, both the baseless figures, by all makes/pirates keep falling over, so putting a base on it was long-overdue, except I don't know when this was made, or for what set!

 

In the middle is a solid'ish, subscale copy, which I was pleased to find, but I can't now remember if I found it in a Chris or Peter donation, or at a show, myself, but if it was either of the afore named, it should be in a plunder post, attributed to them with thanks. I also can't remember if there was more to it, such as Hungarian, Argentine, a Spanish sobre, or French premium, but I seem to recall it was something like that - a bit of a story?

And the third is another of the painted ones which turn up from time to time, we looked at a different pose when showing the Giant 'Space Paratrooper' here, and I think I have a third now, painting matches that para' apart from the gold helmets of the non-parachute toy ones, it could point to a carded set from Giant, or it could be a red herring, ultimately neither black nor flesh are surprising colours to find on boots or faces, while the gold could be screaming "Not related!".

These are both a bit rubbish, and could be from those early carded ones, or something else, base-mark is similar to others, but the melted-effect of the letters suggests the marks were pantographed with everything else, from someone else's product! The faded orange guy looks like he could be one of the Wilton ones?

 

Nasta Industries are looking like the real cheepies, but with better overall quality and a smaller, fainter, Hong Kong base mark. And again with the red, white and blue, ♫♪♫ "It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one" ♪♫♪

 

While the Nasta industries header-card artwork is taken from a movie still of the epic, operatic 2001 A Space Odessey by Stanly Kubrick, and - needless to say - they're nothing like the figures in the pack!

I had one or two here, to add to Brian's sample, and it's given me three shades of blue, two whites and a silver chap! Apart from the one guy with a space rifle and the other with a sidearm, they are really quite a peaceful/exploratory bunch, in suits similar to Lik Be (LB)'s Mercury/Gemini era suits, which is probably when MPC issued them, any Hong Kong clones (the strangely poor ones) coming a few months later? There were also re-issues in grey.

 

But, the story doesn't end back at the start with the MPC figures . . .

 

. . . as the 'goldfish-bowl' figures, sometimes issued as space paratroopers, are also the MPC sculpts but greatly scaled up to 80-odd millimetres (about 3½ banana stalks). I have plain coloured (red white and blue again?) in storage along with silver I think, but these three have come-in more recently, and they were available in various forms through the 1970's and possibly into the early 1980's?

 

While Theo van der Weerden sent this shot to the Blog. He got them, a bit bashed-up, in a mixed lot at a Dutch flea-market, and I don't know what marks they have, if any? So they might be Hong Kong, or something more local - Belgian, Dutch or French bazaar types. But they appear to be crude (hand-copied) versions, possibly taken from the bigger goldfish bowl figures, and maybe 70mm, or thereabouts?

Two similar versions were included in the later Galaxy Lazer Team, also by MPC.

 

So many thanks to Theo and Brian, and as I say, we'll return to these another day, as there's plenty more to say/look at, but for now, a decent-enough overview of the MPC astronauts and their many clones.