About Me

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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, October 20, 2025

S is for Supersonic Set!

Starting to wind-up the Sandown plunder posts, and we have this interesting little carded set of - probably - 1950's plastic, bought from the same vendor as the Poplar Plastic canoe-race set, we have three small aircraft in two designs but raising more questions than they answer!
 


 
Two sort of 'Shooting Star's, and something with the lines of a Hawker Hunter or Sabre, but the nose of neither! We saw an unmarked version of the 'Hunter' here, from Andreas in Germany;
 
 
and, many years ago, a green one, marked Tudor Rose, with a more substantial pair of tail-planes, and lower wheels;
 
 
. . . all suggesting this was one of those early designs and/or tools which 'did the rounds' of early plastics manufacturers, at the small toy/novelty end of the market.
 
And, while the odd thing turns up (like this unidentifiable card) on evilBay or at shows, the fact is, we have mostly lost that information forever. We don't know who companies like Codeg (Cowan de Groot) or Chad Valley were commissioning things from, what people like Rosebud were making to produce cashflow while they developed their dolls, who supplied Tom Smith, where old moulds went, when Kleeware or Bell were finished with them, add the international aspect, and a bit of tax-driven mould swapping or greed-driven piracy, and this stuff is likely to remain 'unknown' forever?

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