Three quickies tonight, long day and I need a shower!
About Me
- Hugh Walter
- 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.
Monday, February 3, 2025
D is for Deinos Sauros
Sunday, February 2, 2025
P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Historical & Ceremonial
Arguably my favourite 'grouping' in these mixed-lot sort-out's, as the breadth of the subject and vast quantities of tourist keepsakes issued over the years, means there's so much to find, and there are some real pearls in this latest lot from Chris Smith.
Starting at the beginning; early city-state dwellers from the Fertile Crescent! These 60mm'ish, PVC, biblical figures are similar to those BibleToys Inc., sets Brian sent to the blog a few years ago, but not quite as cartoony, but still styled for infant play, they will be from some kind of bible-related play-set I guess?
Perfectly illustrating my 'tourist' comment above, despite seeing over half a dozen on the blog, and possibly having more in the stash, both these Welsh national dress ladies are new to me. The one on the left probably 1960's and hard polystyrene, while the PVC one is likely 1970/80's and was a key-ring ornament.
I love finding these with their loops cut, not because I still cut them myself; I used to when I was more of a Philistine. But because they tell me other people were finding and converting esoteric figures to join their Toy Solders & Model Figures (where key-rings have always been a source of unusual subjects), as I was, way back when I was a silent, solo/lone collector!
A tad damaged, his horse will need a hoof and a tail, but I think this is one of those French MDM figures, and they are so nice, even a damaged one is a joy . . . And a sample!
And on the subject of damaged samples, these two are both a bit on the battle-casualty side of things, but both useful additions. If you've been following the development of the KT story here, you'll have worked out/seen that there are more damaged than whole Beefeaters and Guardsmen (similar story with the HK Cavendish!), but, they are polystyrene so easy to glue, mend, convert etc, therefore maybe a future project, while the more samples, the easier to see paint variation between batches or over time.
The resin Highlander with be a gift-shop special! Unfortunate that he looks a bit like Prince Andrew! Similar to the Sculptures UK figures we've seen previously, but a different maker and tartan treatment, which I think is very effective. Until a better one turns-up, he's very welcome here!
RP issue of the old CoMa Roman signifier, we may have seen him here before, more than once or twice, I can't possibly recall how or why, but people like to see them from time to time!
This is brilliant because it's a second sample of the 4M knights, clearly these were/are a heritage-site gift-shop thing, and I'm tempted to take myself to Windsor and see what's available there, but something which was free (as a national asset and educational destination) when I was a kid is now 25-quid or more, plus parking! So I may just hope Chris and charity shops continue to send them my way, occasionally - current rhythm is one every eight years!
A few pirates which aren't worth hiding until September, a PVC generic in the ELC style, a Soma, the Black Chine mascot and a Poplar pirate in a new colour for that pose!
These two are resin, and while I suspect the one on the left is another gift-shop/touristy piece (very ECW), the one on the right looks like he;'s from a Christmas village, and I couldn't tell you which range, as there are many, I recently acquired/inherited a Hong Kong/Netherlands Edelman B.V. 'Luville' catalogue, and there is tons of this kind of stuff out there, although, very little in the collection!
The small scale is a gang of Shreddies/Tom Smith gladiators putting the jump on a smaller squad of non-Giant 'Romans', from two or even three sources! They'll be sorted into their rightful samples at a later date.
Thanks again to Chris for all these, some lovely additions to the collection, and they will all enhance future posts on all sorts of things.
BJ is for Bagged Jobbies
These were in some corner-shop a while ago, and I grabbed one of each, I dare say there are more in the set, and there are so many Dinosaurs out there, you never know if you're looking at all new stuff, or just re-branded stuff you've seen before?
To be fair, there aren't that many actually re-issues, as with the old 'army men' rack toys, most people seem to source something original, but one or two lines get more numerous clients. Equally, with these new (ish, they've been around for over a decade now) hollow, softish polyethylene figures, in two halves, they all look the same until you compare them, when they often turn-out to be new sculpts.
A reduced-scale sauropod and a nobbly kerthunkersaurus, BJ include a bog-standard palm tree, and the now almost de rigueur egg! The fact that any dinosaur in-scale with the two presented, trying to carry or pass that egg, would die, is apparently lost on the Toymen of China!
Saturday, February 1, 2025
P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Civilians
OK, we're out of the gates and away, civilian stuff now, and again there are all sorts of interesting things here, not least a corporate-looking St. Mary of the Little Baby Jesus, Elon Musk (not!) and some magnetic policemen!
As with the previous lot, these loaded in an order other than I intended,so I just ran with it, I don't know what Blogger's playing at these days, but it randomly reverses the order sometimes or - occasionally - just re-assorts them!
The two on the left here are the pair I shot in a car park years ago, like 12/15 years ago, they came with a very cheap 'Disney' castle facade and have hollow-backs, but it's nice to have them in the collection, as I seem to recall the car-park photo-exercise was because of instant discarding!
The skipper is Tim Mee, and adds to a slowly growing sample of them, I think we've seen the boy with dog in butterscotch plastic, and I think a few others are in the sample now. The chap on the right looks like a family of such figures in several sizes carried by several big-names, both sides of the Channel about 20+ years ago, They will get their own page, but Tesco, Woolworths/Chad Valley, Welly and others carried them with 'in-house' die-cast vehicle sets
The 'casualty' is probably a plug-in mechanic/fuel-attendant, from a play-set's petrol pumps? But new to me - new to the Blog!
I thought, at first glance that this was Our Lady, Hail Mary, Mother of God (you'd think I were't Catholic huh?!!), but she has an automobile in relife, on her cloak, so I'm guessing she may be a corporate (probably American) mascot, once seen as a hood ornament, possibly, and may well be an annual-conference, or sales giveaway of some kind?
A couple of figures after Commonwealth, but possibly neither actually by them, the figure on the left is the paint-your-own from an outfit called Doll Bodies Inc., and their 32 Dolls of Far Away Lands painting set, but the detail is more sharply cut (in a cruder or harsher fashion) and the figure is a bit flashy, around the join-line, so although it looks like unpainted Commonwealth, it may be licensed, or duplicate tools?
While the other is a clear copy, the smoother ones are a little smaller and must have come from Hong Kong or Mexico, from whence they found their way to the antipodes, where Sanitarium probably had no relationship with Commonwealth at all?
A trio of cake decoration dolls/brides, I have a fair few of these somewhere, all a bit tatty because of the delicate polystyrene nature of them, and I have them in different sizes and with or without plastic bows or fabric-ribbon bows, but I didn't have any with different headdresses until these showed-up! We have bare-head (most of mine I think?) a brides veil and a sort of inverted flower-hat?
Big babies, and little ones! Mostly Thomas I think, some looking more like Marx land-fill figures from the colours! But the green one on the end is a Hong Kong copy of the Britains Hospital merternity-set one by the looks of it, and along with the fat kid next to him, is new to me, Blog and stash!
Oh, it's Elon Musk! No . . . no-no-no, he did it, not me, and he did it twice in case anyone missed it the first time! Buy a Te-SS-ler Swastikar and be a true Nazi! Really, he's reaching for his - probably red and white flamenco-dressed - paramour/dance partner, still to be found And she will be found, sooner or later, as you can't have missed how these terracotta figurines keep coming-in!
Along with the Policeman, he is missing a hat, but all the examples I've seen have black cartridge-paper hats, and I have lots of black cartridge-paper somewhere, so a mend will be done on both, and you won't know they've been repaired!
Bits of a Marx Miniature Masterpiece farm set I may also be able to restore somewhat at some point in the future, but you will know to look at it, as you can't really hide the ripped paper scenic-base, only try to go over it with fine coloured pencils, to hide the worst!
A pair of firemen/firefighters from HTI (Teamsters) I think and a policeman from 'unknown', all grist to the mill, and one day there will be A-Z pages on these specific, recurring subjects to ID as many as possible in one place!
These are an odd lot, as they have all got magnets attached, and while most of them were added by the owner to what seem to be the unpainted Wiking civilians, which came on strips as we saw right back at the beginning of this Blog, while I think the two painted summer-uniform ones were also Wiking, and have the same added magnets, the other two are unknown to me (Dutch, Danish or French?) and may have come with their magnets as part of a magnetic play set.
There seem to have been a few of them in 1950/60's Europe, I have images somewhere of a large Swiss or Austrian set with magnetic street-signs, trees, micro-vehicles, animals and people, along with buildings and roadway sections etc . . .And obviously the way to expand such a set is to add more magnets! Remember all those 45/55mm magnetic civilians which I picked up at a PW show a few years ago, some commercial, some home magnetised? A mystery anyway, and help needed ID'ing the uniformed officers!
More of the ever-enlarging sample of small semi-flat race-horses, they can't be from board games, as there are too many subtle pose variations, and plastic colours now, but they are still a mystery too. Park the thought, as I'll be mentioning them again when we get to the Wild West post.
Another, with plugs, so if not a board-game piece, maybe from a spinning-top or something? The painted huntsman may be a food/margarine premium, but has also had a magnet added, so will have come with the others, above, And three die-cast or other accessory figures, the Corgi milkman, an ice cream seller (Dinky or Spot On?) and a Gondolier!
Some real 'odds' here, with a homemade woollen doll, after or in the style of those Peruvian worry-dolls, a larger scale rider I've seen somewhere but can't place (she's about 60/65-mil) and a standard doll's house doll, of the knock-off Hong Kong variety.
T is for Two - Roarsome Rack-Toys
A couple of quickies here, as - for now - they both remain sealed, so it's the home-shot equivalent of shefies! And snuck between the Chris donation posts as I mentioned yesterday, the civilian element of his lot later today, or after work tonight?
BJ Toys, and yes, you can snigger each time, they've been a constant now for a few years, and seem to have about half the corner-shop market round Surrey Hills and Hampshire Villages. These are the same hollow, thin-walled clip/plug-together polyethylene lightweights we've seen a few times now, rather basic, but they would paint-up well.
While this was in Peter Evans's latest parcel, and is interesting to me for two reasons, firstly, it's the more fantastical element of the set of five, which I sort of didn't buy deliberately last time (it was budgetary, but one had to stay on the hook), and secondly, it's a new branding of that earlier set which, when we looked at it here at Small Scale World was Poundland, and is now a Generic under Gem Imports stickers - second customer here? Thanks to Peter for spotting and saving this.
Friday, January 31, 2025
P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Introduction
Well, so much has happened in the last few weeks, none of it of that much importance, except the meltdown of the United States of America, which is proving as morbidly entertaining as a crash video where real people are being vaporised by large trucks. But suffice to say, plans went south, and things got left on the shelf, and I won't be going for any posting-records this year!
But, there is a lot to post when I get the time, and I've had a lot of Dinosaur stuff come in recently, which I tried to clear over Christmas, but didn't really more than take the edge off, and have since added to, as have others, so I'm going to try and have a bit of a push to alternate between Chris Smith's Christmas donation of interesting, weird or quirky stuff to the blog, and dino-posts, for the next few days at least. Then a similar bunch of Peter Evans posts is in the pipeline, possibly interspersed with Toy Fair stuff?
One of the contenders for best thing in the parcel was this novelty, spring-loaded, perambulating dice-shaker, with a green-baize dice table in a UFO canopy, on jumpy feet! I mean, it's too cool for clown school! Less commonly, 'made in Taiwan'.
There's a rubber sucker, which may have produced a delayed action, or just be a buffer against rough use? Anyway it works with a flick of the finger, and if I have the time, in the future, I may try glueing the hairline crack in the foot, and resurfacing the sucker with cycle tyre-repair solution and see if it works as a delay/jumper toy.
This was nice, I knew of its existence, but still don't know which/what game's it comes from, but it will be a board game, and it will be Triang, Omnia or even Waddington's, designed by Dave Pomeroy, the reason I knew it existed was because . . .
. . . I'd come into possession of the original modelling-clay master, from the remnants of the Pomeroy estate. This is actually the picture sent by the seller, but I did pick it up with a bunch of other stuff a few weeks later. The figure's simplified/graphical arm bears something in common with other game playing pieces, including the godfather figures from Parker's Vendetta, and while the significance of that fact is lost on me, there must be a reason?
These were both interesting enough for Chris to recognise and save from the bin, the pirate lady is from the rack-toy sets we saw under the Webb's Supertoy label, but she's shrunk slightly after leaving the tool-cavity, too hot, and is now leaning to one side . . . after the pirates gave her a cut of Dutch courage before walking the plank, hic!
The other is a very rare Airfix short-shot, where the polymer hasn't reached all the extremities, the opposite problem, resin (or cavity) too cold! Given how tight the Quality Control was at Airfix, a rare bird indeed, who now looks like some stocking-headed Dr. Who villain army-man!
A couple of conversions which Chris passed to the parcel box, the amusing thing here was the glittery headdress on the Indian, made from a Tunnock's tea-cake wrapper!
The post office took their rent with these, the missing bits of the Rocco lifeguard had gone, possibly out of a very small hole in the corner of the box, the horse is most of a nice Elastolin 40mm, but may yet prove a useful donor of legs to another, so in the damaged tub he goes, while the larger Indian is from the same set as the two we saw in a PW show report (FFL and another) I think? Where the other arm is a plug-in and the leg inners transcribe a smooth curve?
Odds & Sods; the motorcyclist will be from a board game, and while he's missing his head, I have quite a few of these mostly in ones and twos, and he will join them in - hopefully - being a new colourway, they are usually tending to sets of four or six, like their cyclist and racing car brethren.
Likewise, the yacht is probably from a similar board game, but rather well-painted it could have some age, late Victorian even, certainly early Edwardian? The dolls' food, while not something I actively seek out, is all fascinating stuff, and they do have their own zones, the two to the left are hard polystyrene, and while not marked could be early Hong Kong production, while the fish-platter looks to be early British, maybe Charbens or Cherilea, or someone smaller like the Taylor's or Barratt's, or even someone like Trojan, Kentoy or maybe early Gem?
The coke bottle will be from crates in a 'big box' delivery truck I suspect, while the metal frying-pan might be older than the cold-setting, modelling-dough 'full English' now being prepared in it?
The metal handful included some useful bits, the three smaller painted figures in the rear row are all from small carts or wagons, and thankfully people like Robert Newson have done all the work on them, so one day I'll sit down and have a session ID'ing them all, as I have dozens somewhere! Looks like two dairymen and a generic cheapie wagoner.
The Indian is from any one of many versions of the Schneider home-casting moulds, and the large cockerel might be French, or a copy of the Cherilea one? A homemade pirate of the Matchbox (or Lledo? I can never remember which lot faces which way!) fireman, from the old die-cast, horse-drawn appliance, the two seated figures look familiar and the pair of wargames chaps seem to be sort of Sci-Fi wild-west or Special Forces types?
A broken Skybirds German and some 5mm wargaming figures leaves a broken chauffeur, but he's very interesting as he may be the Timpo lead one which replaced Zang's composition one, although Kay's did similar figures, so for now he goes in the stash as an only/first sample/example.
The regular 'assorted, seated civilians' shot! Of interest this time is the third fireman from the left on the top row, who isn't from the Airfix kit, but one of several others, mostly American brands, and I won't embarrass myself by stating which one I think it might be, I've only seen them in passing. in the catalogue pile - AMT, Monogram, Pyro, Revell, someone like that, I think even Tamiya did a fire engine in the early days!
The near-naked green guy is also new to me, and I think he may be a waterskier, possibly from a cheap beach-toy, copying something more substantial, or a kit? And the guys I used to think were Napoleonic wagon-drivers (bottom, yellow) are probably also firefighters from cheap polyethylene vehicles, there is a sub-scale copy too, somewhere.
The last shot is the 'cereal premium' shot, even though they're not all cereal giveaways! The fascinating one is the blue baking-soda diver, as he's like the Shreddies 'Freddie Frogman' or the later two Nabisco ones, but they were all masked skin-divers, this chap is in trunks, and suggests a third set/issue?
Another early-learning Mad March Hare, and behind him, some kind of sci-fi mini, possibly a Ben 10 item, I thought I'd posted the watch-figures, but I can't find them, there were small wristwatch type 'bracelets' with clips or compartments which held about six/eight small-scale (20mm'ish) figures, two different assortments, some similar to this yellow-green one, but they had different bases?
The coach bits and penny-farthing rider will go in a large tub of similar R&L type parts, and every now and again I go through it seeing if enough wheels, tyres, or axles (mostly the very tiny pin-axles!) have been found to complete another one! HK copy of Dinky road worker in an unusual butterscotch plastic, and things we’ve seen before in the top right-hand corner, but all grist to the mill, or colour variations, or whatever!
As always, many, many thanks to Chris for putting this stuff to one side all through the year, and occasionally sending me a cornucopia of stuff to share with you, as I said to him in an eMail the other day, I would eventually, probably, hopefully find all this myself, I love a mixed bag of shite, but it would need three lifetimes, but because people like Chris (and the others) save this stuff for the Blog, we may get to the finish in one lifetime . . . we hope!
Monday, January 20, 2025
I is for Illumin' . . . with a Moomin!
I shouldn't be allowed, I know! Just a quickie here, I grabbed this in Waterstone's back in August as it was the last one, and went back a few times hoping they'd get a re-stock, and I could get others, but when eventually they did get some more, it was just a bunch of these, so generic early 'book' Moomin rather than later colour-coded TV character Moomin!
Labelled Temptation Gifts
Sunday, January 19, 2025
S is for Shelfload of Shelfies!
I shot these a few years ago, not long after the multi-part overview of Fontanini and musings on Fonplast, back in 2017, but they were put on hold, because as I said at the time, I knew someone else was working on the military range. That author was Peter Evans, and those articles with the sets/generations and original Military Modelling adverts were published in Plastic Warrior magazine (which you can subscribe to, details below) over a number of issues, back then, but these then got forgotten down in Picasa's 1950's!
I thought fifteen-quid each was a bit steep, especially for a charity shop, the mounted maybe, on a good day, but all of them? I like to pick these up for between two-fifty and seven-fifty at most, but they all sold, within a week or so, and that's good for the charity.
At the end of the day, Fleet may have a bit of poverty, round the back of the football club, or hidden at the margins of the Ancell's or Elvetham developments, in the single-mother blocks or starter maisonettes, but overall it's an upper-middle-class dormitory town for London commuters, and there are many smart homes with trophy-wife curated decors, and I'm sure they found a good display or two, for their hundred-odd quid!
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