L is for Late Show Report - Odds & Sods

Getting towards the end of the plunder posts from May's Toy Solder show in Whitton/Twicker's, and it's the bits and pieces which didn't really belong in any of the other posts, but there's a few interesting things among the detritus, dingbats and doobries!

 

Vehicle parts and hand-tools; these will all go to the spares zone until needed/matched with their owners, although of course I know the searchlight mount is Airfix and the horse furniture is Lone Star. The larger machine-gun is actually a copy of the early Airfix one from the Attack Force APC.

I think the two hands are from a Koala bear stuffed toy, they could be from a similarly described mole, but there was a range of tourist keepsake Koala's back in the 1960's, where the Koala's were stuffed rigid; more like taxidermy, rather than 'cuddly', and I suspect these hands are from one of those? We looked at a similar Kiwi from across the straits, here.

Mostly Christmas cracker charms and similar novelties, probably from the very cheapest crackers, or the mini 'tree decoration' crackers. The blue thing I don't know, the khaki piece - some kind of removable hatch from a vehicle or building, with a couple of larger novelties and an old Toy Show badge.

 

I seem to have a large tub of toy show badges, both my own 'earned attendance' examples and a bagful from Brian Carrick, once, and there's a quandry as to what to do with them as they slowly gather in an ever growing pile, they have the nostalgia of past shows, but no real use?

This was in one of the donation bags, and is interesting for being an obviously early piece of plastic, clearly a dolls house item, and it will need careful paint-stipping, there is a sprung-loaded mechanism, which allows the baby chair to switch between rocker, low chair and high-chair, for meal times and has a built-in potty! It's un-marked, and obviously I don't collect this stuff, but it clearly has some historical value, which is probably why it was given to me?

 

Large, rigid, foamed-rubber (or a similar material) scenics, I think they are modern, possibly Early Learning Centre (ELC) or a similar source, and certainly scaled for the larger figurines, they will nevertheless prove useful as future photo-props or display back-drops.

A few more scenics, there's a whole box of the orange log-cabins somewhere, and a growing post on them in the queue, as they come with or without paint, in two sizes, and from several 'names' as well as many generic sets, we saw them here previously in a Pikit Toys set, I think?

 

Lego bush/shrub, a Hong Kong poplar tree which has been home-painted, a pond in need of a railing, and a railing from something else, a vehicle, I think?

 

In Brian C's bag were these glass-tablet WHW tokens, not military, they consist of two from a set of landmark buildings, and a pair of runes, from that set. Ironic, as, being runes they are of interest to lexicographers and etymologists, but, they - the runic symbols - were, by the time of the set, being bowdlerized to provide iconography for the Nazi party and it's war-machine, with various civil and paramilitary unit formation signs, logotypes and SS divisional/unit flashes being based upon the old Nordic runes!

 

Both sets seem to come in many colours of glass, and a couple of variations of paint/layout/final decoration, so we can assume several glassworks were involved, either over time, as separate//repeat issues, or just in providing the hundred's of thousands, or millions, necessary for such a promotion.

These - from Trevor - must be from those mini tree-crackers, they are officially the smallest-scale item in the collection now, I believe, and while I have obviously, and absent-mindedly, placed Admiralty Arch upside down (I initially thought it was a crude 'White Tower' I think!), the icons of London's skyline are pretty clear, with St. Paul's Cathedral, The clock-tower for Big Ben and Tower Bridge being included in a set of otherwise unknown number.

Obverse and reverse of the Lone Star horse furniture from the articulated draft-house we saw here, with my earlier (brown plastic), damaged, collar compared to the new, complete one, and the non-seating saddle for cart/wagon/implement poles.

Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.