H is for Happy Birthday to Me!

Yeah, it was a while ago, but before I get into the other April/May donations and show stuff, Adrian gave me a nice parcel for my Birthday, so I'm Blogging that first!

Having already supplied several of the missing Circus M's (M-Toy, Marty, Maysun & May Moon), along with the poodle (see previous posts), Adrian had found another lot of the Circus stuff, and look what that monkey in a vest - previously seen from Chris Smith - sits on...

A Unicycle! Which leaves, as far as I know, the rearing version of the Britains Baby Giraffe as the only item in the line, still to be found loose, but it may not be that simple? The lot also contained a Festival clown and a teeny-tiny 'styrene clown, which may have been an early Christmas cracker or gum-ball capsule-machine charm?

The clown is - I think - the first I've found with the Maysun mark, usually, but not always found on the Ringmaster. While the wheel seems to be an odd one from something else, the stub-axles having a square cross-section, which I suspect are meant to lock into a heavy metal object, allowing the monkey to balance on a 'high-wire'?

The reason I'm not sure what's still to be found in the line, is because these were also in the lot, and while they look like Blue Box (or Holly), I suspect they may be part of the M's sample, and there's nothing to place the zoo fencing with the figures, beyond the fact that they were all in the same 'mixed' lot? A family of three different sizes of the same ex-Britains sculpt crocodile.

These semi-flats were added to the tub, when I picked it up at the BMSS show, the two Brits are a mystery, seemingly being die-cast and quite crude sculpts, they aren't known to be home-cast mouldings, and are relatively unique poses? The German or 'Euro' gunner is a more common home-cast piece.

 

A lovely art-deco take on a 'Greek' war horse (?) cocktail glass decorative ornamental in blood-red, transparent polystyrene, originally credited to the industrial designer Don Manning, and they (a range of between 8-12 sculpts) were first produced in the USA, in larger sizes as Lucite ornaments, before NOSCO reproduced them, smaller (in several sizes) as novelty cocktail-glass/cheeseboard/finger-buffet decorations, in cheaper materials, as we see here.

 

Again probably Blue Box, but could be Holly Toys, New Maries or another maker altogether, what's interesting is the goose family (common in the Blue Box and Sunshine Series sets) is joined by copies of Britains hens from both the hollow-cast and Herald eras, of the British donor's production. Indeed, Britians ran the central ex-Hollow-cast mould in plastic themselves.

 

The nearer sculpt is quite common, but the rather chewed one behind it is my frst sample I think? It has the raked-bow of the WWI-era 'Dreadnought' classes, and I suspect is from another source to the commoner one, possibly from a board game, but more likely a budget-price, cracker prize.

 

The de rigueur handful of Hong Kong, post-Giant, hollow-horsed Wild West mounted figures, we will dig down into all these on the Giant Blog eventually, but this seems to be quite a clean sample, with just a couple of interlopers from another source?

 

Bag of bits! Two useful Lone Star rockets and some hand weapons are joined by the radio ariel from Airfix's Comet tank (I think?), a Corgi sack, and a lovely hand-saw, in an early polymer, probably from a toy truck/van's tool box?

 

The brown cat is from a set of early learning things which could be placed on one of those mini-whiteboard/peg-boards you could get for the playroom, Merit or Bell, Raphael Lipkin maybe? The little kitten looks modern'ish, but the other might (and it's a big 'might', I'm not calling it!) be Gem or Festival?

 

This was an interesting find by Adrian, it's the 20mm composition pilot, from Zang (for Timpo), but aping the Skybirds lead pilots, in having a white suit . . . for 'civilian'? Although, probably painted over the more common khaki (broken one lying at his feet), it appears to have been done in the factory, as the pink face matches my other samples?

 

I think the flocked puppy is probably Polly Pocket from Bluebird Toys, while the teeny chick has a W GERMANY mark on it's base, so small you need a magnifying glass, or jeweller's loupe, to read it! While the Mini Mouse is of unknown origin?

 

A collection of railway and die-cast accessory figures brings this eclectic little gift to a close. I got quite excited by the figure on the left, thinking it was one of those celluloid figures from Japan, until I realised it was an over-painted Hornby figure!

 

PVC chap on the right was Corgi, and the silver boy/driver is probably Dinky or Spot On? My gratitude to Adrian for a lovely suprise, which came between shows, and gave up all sorts of new bits!

S is for Still Unknown, but More Clues?

Posted here before, once or twice I think, I won't link back as there's probably more information in this one, unknown spacemen, and they're still unknown, but a few clues and the missing pose, with extra colours, might jog someone's memory?

 

This is the current 'here' sample, actually shot weeks ago and off to storage in a day or two, I think the older post used a different sample, and the two can be brought together (with a third lot?) at some point for a more definitive post, if we get a brand or set-title, at some point!

I shot them all twice as the colours were a bit 'fluid' under different light conditions/flash, but there are two reds, one pinkish/heliotrope, the other more fire-engine! And three distinct greys, one blueish, along with a caramel version of the toffee!

But these came with them, in the same blue as some of the figures, I think Shaun associated the figures with a 'space tank', from hearsay/without pictures, could they be the ones Chris sent which we looked-at here, the grey is similar, underside is similar, but they have revolving turrets? It would certainly allow two 'sides' to have vehicles? There's probably a play-mat and some palm-trees missing! Shades of Y-Wing fighter to one of them?

These are some 'suggested' names I gave them, as they seem to tick the boxes, making them maybe mid/late 1990's and the new Star Wars trilogy pushing Buck Rogers repeats off cable?

While I was PlayPlax'ing the other day!

Y is for ♫♪♪♪ "You Spin Me Right Round, Injun', Right 'Round, Like a Ranch Raid, Right 'Round, 'Round-Round!" ♫♪♫

One of the best things I got at the recent (a month and a half ago already!) Plastic Warrior show in South West London was this spinning top, which Michael Mordant-Smith had found and saved for me, some of the riders had come loose, so I had to take it all apart and renovate it with a bit of glue and a duster, phases which I either forgot to photograph, or might have actually delated the photographs from!

Fully restored and put back together, there are no marks on it, not even in the hidden areas I could look at while it was all in pieces, but Google reveals similar tops by Chad Valley, Fuchs, LBZ/KSM (very similar handles and contents; trains, circus performers &etc), Schilling and RedBox, so there are a few out there!

 

Of course, the attraction was the little Native American Indians charging round the rancher's place a'whoopin' and a'yellin' their war cries, and a'firin' their ar'ers! Years of centrifugal charging had broken two off, at the horses fetlocks, and third came away as I was taking it apart, so once I'd matched them back with the hooves - still firmly glued to the tin-plate - I also gave the fourth a collar of glue on each ankle, to hopefully reinforce them through capillary-action?

 

Only the three poses, with a duplicate of the white one on the opposite side, they look a bit Comansi-like, but the horses are different, and I guess they would have been manufactured by some small, unsung, local plastics fabricator, commissioned to knock-up a small tool with the three poses and possibly, three horse cavities?

 

The first time I put it back together, I got the smaller gear-cog in the wrong place, and it wouldn't spin properly. As I had realised by that point, that I hadn't shot the earlier strip-down, or had lost the images, I took this shot of the parts, after glueing.

 

The lower dome and the spinning plate are tin, the two washers and the twisted-shaft, steel, everything else is in a polystyrene polymer.

Close-up of one of the riders after mending, the horse's feet are glued with dobs of PVA wood-glue, by the looks of it? Anyone recognise the origins of the horse or riders.

The central shaft goes through/is partially hidden by this rancher's hovel, with the shaft exiting the chimney! The main gear-wheel is under the raised plinth of the building.

 

Many thanks to Michael for saving this for me.

An hour later - Peter Evans has identified the horse pose as Dulcop along with two of the riders, the other (archer) being originally a Marx sculpt!

T is for Toys in the Media, Part the . . . God Knows!

A trio of Hestair Kiddybrick related adverts from the archive tonight, call it a Lazy Post with a bit of a tangential rant, and realise things will get better here again, shortly!

Advert for Intel, now rapidly being eclipsed by nvidia, they were the market leader for a couple of decades! And an actual Lego tie-in, so presumably the Evil Empire paid some of the marketing campaign fees?

 

One of the few Building Societies to survive the Capitalists' demutualisation frenzy which ruined not just British, but global banking back in the 1990's (made a small number, of mostly white men, very rich!), the YBS are still going, their blocks are artistic renders, I think?

 

A&L demutualised in '97 and finally packed their bags in 2011 (about the same time mine, Halifax, began is slow decline to now, a mere brand of Lloyds!), this might be a GCI image, the bloke and ball probably are artworks, of some kind, but while the blocks are based on Duplo, or Megabloks 'biggies', if it is a photograph (this trio is from the 2000's), they are probably cheap own-brand generics from Toy R Us or Mothercare? Both of whom have also disappeared!

 

It's funny, since around 1979/80, it's been one, long, fire-sale, an absolute bonanza for a few public-school educated money-men and asset strippers, which has left a Chinese car dealership on the old A30 into Hook, which I noticed tonight, a couple of miles from the huge billboard for Ranil Jayawardena (local Tory candidate, who has decided the corporate colours for the Tories round here will be green and purple!), why do we even let this state-subsidised shit into the country?

 

I mean, I like to think I'm a liberal, but I also have a sense of justice and fair play, which some might claim is overdeveloped, I blame the Asperger's, but it leaves me quite intolerant of our Government's tolerance, which boarders on incompetent complacency. And how can fair play or justice be 'overdeveloped', it either is, or it isn't?

Yet these despots; China, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, &etc; they just don't play fair, even when they can't stand each-other, they will side together, get a few African kleptocrats and a couple of Central American nutters on-board and cause no end of trouble for the whole world, with a power-bloc that blocks any attempt to make the world a better place.

But the cars will be perfectly reliable, reasonably outfitted, with all the mod-cons and gizmos, and cheap, why would you pay three-times as much for a Volvo in a 'cost-of-living' crisis, created by those same landlord/landowning/speculative hedge-fund bwankers, who will now be importing these cars, using the money they don't seem to pay much tax on!

QAIMNS (R) is for Angels!

One of the more unusual things in my possession is this old kit bag, about twice the size of the one I was issued with in '84, but half the strength of material, being quite soft, compared to mine which is like a canvas belt material, only bags bigger!

 

The base is heavier though, to prevent wear on trains, mud-tracks and ferries! It's brown, I don't know if there's a colour code, but I think the Navy have always been white, ours were standard 'army green' and the RAF had theirs in the same blue as their best dress, so there maybe/may have been a code, with women's' forces or reserves in brown?

 

It's marked MK DALY - QAIMNSR - BEF, which is the name of the owner, the unit (Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service Reserve), these days you tend to put the 'R' in brackets, but back then they clearly didn't! And British Expeditionary Force, our troops in France.

A little non-arduous Googling quickly revealed some of her history, she seems to have served from at least 1916 sometime (one of some 10,000 women), probably earlier, with a war diary in the National Archive revealing;
 

"Recommendation for 1 months’ sick leave for Miss M. K. Daly, QAIMNSR, 1 General Hospital, suffering from neurasthenia."

A euphemism for what we later called shell-shock (see below), and now call PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), from Abbeville (the Somme) on the 15th October 1916, suggesting she had already seen more than most of our generation ever will, and most of it pretty bad.

However, they were made of sterner stock in Edwardian Britain, and the same diary's entry (I couldn't ascertain the name or sex of the author) for 15th June 1917 reveals;

"To Frevent (Frévent, about 18km NE of Abbeville, ed.), to 6 Stationary Hospital, arriving at 12.15 noon. Went round the hospital with Miss Daly, the A/Matron, and the CO, Lt. Col. Harding. All in excellent order – had been evacuating largely – about 350 cases in hospital at the time of the visit. Saw the new hut for officers suffering from shell shock – not yet in use, to be opened next week, which will greatly relieve the existing Officers’ Hospital, which was overcrowded on the day of my visit, owing to a large number of shell shock cases. 59 officers in hospital altogether. Had lunch in the Sisters’ Mess, most comfortable and well kept."

 

So, she had returned to work, and was helping officers recover from what she had herself suffered from a year earlier.

The third mention of her I could find was her gazetting in the King's birthday honours list for 1919, where the British Journal of Nursing reports on January 25th;

"The King has been pleased to award the Royal Red Cross, second class, to the following ladies in recognition of their valuable services : — . . . Miss M. K. Daly, Staff Nurse, Q.A.I. M. N. S. R. . . .  "

 

At no point was her Christian-name or middle-name revealed, there were at least two other Daly's, one seems to have spent her war in the hospitals at Colchester, the other gets a brief mention in Scotland (I think, it was 'in passing'?), and one wonders what happened to her, all three of them, or indeed, the many thousands who 'answered the call', after the war?

The Quims (as they were 'affectionately' known), would become the Queen Alexandra's Royal Army Nursing Corps (QARANC), in 1949, commonly known as QA's. I briefly dated a QA after I'd left the Army, and once fell in love with a Captain, but she (along with two nurses, who were 'in on it') played a terrible trick on me and 'Snoz' Reed, which is another story for another day!

P is for Playplax Plastic Play Pieces by Patrick Rylands

This is one of those nostalgia hits for people of a certain age, as if you didn't have them yourselves, you knew someone who did! In our case we never had these, but various other friends did, and they tended to be kicking around, but didn't get that much play, as we were older, as friends, and these were leftovers from earlier childhood.

I can't remember the exact date of this Sunday-supplement cutting, or the title, but they were a batch from mostly 1969-74'ish. The toy had won it's designer a Duke of Edinburgh's Prize for Elegant Design in 1970, among a tranche of other toys he, the Patrick Rylands of the post's title, had designed for Trendon Toys. He would go on to work with Ambi Toys in Denmark, not in the Tags yet, but I think there is something in the files for the A-Z entries!

 

He was - and I believe remains - the youngest ever recipient of the award for which the citation, as published in the June edition of the Design Journal that year, reads;

 

"The Duke of Edinburgh's Prize for Elegant Design 1970 has been awarded to Patrick Rylands for a range of toys designed for Trendon Ltd. The judges were impressed by Mr Rylands's creative approach to the design of toys and by his sustained contribution to toy design in the development of this range. They particularly commended the abstract qualities of the toys, which encourage children to use their imagination and introduce them to ideas of structure, form, colour and balance.

The best known of Patrick Rylands's toys is Playplax and this illustrates all the features which the selection panel praised. Playplax consists of simple tubes and flat squares of transparent polystyrene slotted so that they can be constructed in a multitude of ways. Red, yellow, blue, green ond clear pieces are included in each set so that children learn about colour combinations while exploring the wide variety of constructions which can be achieved."

 

He had originally designed them in ceramics, which he read at University (Hull and the Royal Collage of Arts), before creating these for Trendon in ABS/Acrylic, which was quickly replaced with polystyrene. There's plenty more on the internet, under Patrick Rylands or PlayPlax!

My own memories of them are mixed, I did have a few plays, the friend's samples tended to have lots of broken and cracked pieces, it was, in fact, far too easy to break them, either by forcing, or just sliding them together or apart at slight angles, and equally - they cracked easily.

 

As you can see from this shot, they were also quite wobbly constructions, that needed a flat surface, and steady hands, if one was to produce anything lasting and/or memorable! And actually, they had a pretty limited spacial-geometry, the tubes being far better for constructing substantial things, than the plates, which tended to spread quickly in space, without producing much of practical application!

Colours varied over the years, or between sets, and the one thing you can say for them is that they were colourfully eye-catching, especially when new and shiny! One US licensor (or pirate?), added triangles at some point which you see on evilBay from time to time, but what would have really given the line 'legs' would have been square or triangular tubes, like the round ones, or . . . and why did nobody ever do it, small joining clips, which would have allowed for long, flat runs, or side-by-side mounting?

 

The stuff is apparently still made, by Portabello Games, in the original colours and the original factory, still polystyrene (still brittle!) but no further innovation since the 'flower' pieces were added, or, are they knock-offs?

Instruction sheets from the first two sets, I don't know when the flowers' hit, but it must have been quite late, as you don't often see them in feeBay lots? And they may be a piracy thing, but I do seem to remember some of our mates having them in the larger samples?

Where they come into their own however, is in futuristic settings, think: Logan's Run, Babarella, or some of the early alien city's in Dr. Who or Star Trek! Not to mention half the props in Blake's Seven! Here I've managed a garage for space car number five! But it is huge, and you still have a very low ceiling!

 

Slightly more success with a rocket tower, but the inspection platforms are breaking all the rules of Playplax, being half-set at an angle and not locked in! But not too shabby for what was basically an infant's hand/eye coordination, 'early learner' toy.

 

There were the inevitable knock-offs, here made for a US 'jobber' (The Toy house), in the British Crown Colony (should we call it the long-term lease, now?) of Hong Kong. Pluses were more colours or - at least - different shades, minus were that they sometimes had different dimensions which either made them looser, or more likely to jam and split/break the not so cheap UK production ones!