F is for Follow-up - Wild West Plunder

A couple of things in the archive pertaining to this morning's post;

 

On the subject of pencil sharpeners, I caught this on feeBay last year sometime, very 1950's, so quite a quick cloning! The die-cast mazac/zamak tourist trinket, a copy of Britains Herald's campfire chap in full war bonnet, probably came from Hong Kong, and the headdress looks sharp-enough to open a finger while you're honing your pencil - these days you'd get a recall notice from 'Health & Safety!

 

From 2023, is this colour-sample of the Torgano archer, not really clear if it's a boy or a girl, and all of them missing their bow, I don't know if they were always a short-shot, or if they just snapped off? Below them is a yellow chap, who looks to be a Tyrolean in lederhosen, along with four of the Lucky Bag pod-foot Indians and, bottom left, an unknown flat of similar ilk, but on a more standard base.

L is for Lazy Lizard Lounges in Lucky Bag!

So, I said in the shelfie-post the other day, that I'd bought a test one, and I dare say those of you who know me well enough, might guess which one it would be, farm? Unicorn? Noooooowh! Dinosaurs, of course! But it turned out to be doubly disappointing!

 

The first disappointment, it was mostly flat, paper product, and yes, I know kids love colouring, kids love stickers, kids love puzzles, but in my day it would have been a plastic or rubber dinosaur, some sweets, and something which made a noise! We buy this shit so you don't have to!

 

One small surprise was that the stated eight items, were in fact nine; they clearly think coloured-pencils and a colouring sheet count as one item? And it was also interesting to see some of the contents branded to both Playwrite (WH Cornelius, ex-WHC / Success) and Henbrandt, who are rivals in the same pocket-money, novelty field.

 

The second disappointment though, was that the otherwise, kitsch, but cool-looking inflatable dinosaur, was so cheaply made, it leaked air from a half-welded seam, and I had to try and carefully close the cap (no valve) without pushing so much air out, it wouldn't stand up! You win some, you lose some, and now we have half-an-idea what all the bags contain . . . no figures, no sweets, no whistles, rattles or blowers, except a blown blow-up!

S is for Season's Shelfie Summery

Recently shot shelfies, nothing exceptional, just a few things shot over the spring/summer, which either missed other shelfie posts, or have only been taken recently, and typically after a couple of weeks of behaving itself, Blogger just unloaded them in reverse-order, so the less interesting ones are at the end now!

 

Shot in Poundland about a week ago, as with all similar shots, it's against future ID's, although they look familiar, and are probably under several brands already going back a decade or so, here 'Gear Box' with a Maisto/Jada style 'die-cast' cartouche!

 

I don't think I've had the Peppa Pig 'Busy Book' from Phidal here yet, but knowing these Tattle Tales are only half a set or less, I wasn't about to start now. Interestingly, I think this was in Morrisons, up at Elvetham Heath, near the DVD's!

 

The Works, thematic Lucky Bags, I did get a test purchase, which will get a post, but it was disappointing, as these things always are these days, human progress disappeared in a miasma of disinterest and rip-offery, years ago!

 

Currently, or still (I shot this in April) in B&M, and again, it's to ID insects in mixed lots years form now, and not something which came home with me, although, it's nice to see old favourites like fake poo, whoopee-cushions and snapping-gum are still of interest to modern kids!

 

Also April, TKMaxx, and it's a bunch of hares and rabbits (arbitrary ear-length!) in ceramic, got shot in passing, and should have been in one of the Easter posts, really!

 

The rest, all figurals, were shot with the cats we saw the other day, all in TKMaxx, all in the catering section, with bag-clips, bag-ties, tea-diffusers, a banana-tree and a fun potato-peeler!

L is for Late Show Report - Ceremonial and Historical

Not much in this section from May, and I was going to combine it with the Ancient/Medieval images, but decided to move the images around instead, and add one from the archive at the end, so it'll do, it's only bragging on odd & sods, when all's said and done!

 

Small scale guards; a very broken Airfix was in the bottom of one of the bags! Running back up from him we have a Hong Kong swivel-head, a Zang composition with brown base (I think my existing sample have green bases?) and two of the 1990's Luck Bag/Christmas cracker ones.

 

When doing these temporary 'to be further sorted' sorts, I tend to put pirates or Zorro stuff with this class, so he's here! Those who have followed the Blog for any length of time will know there are a lot of these Kinder 'bits' bags now, with pirates, cowboys and Indians, Samurai, medievals etc . . . and he will join them for the final big sort! Missing his small parts but otherwise all there.

This was funny, a seller had a decent sample of the Colorado Argentines, and knowing I had a few, and fearing the price, I'd tried to ignore them all day, at the end of the day a mate came over and bought a sample of the foot figures (which I have), and I overheard the price, and quickly descended on the mounted pair, which I didn't already have!

 

In the course of the day I also picked up an arm in white plastic, which could be another Colorado, another Argentinian make or the Spanish Torres Maltas; I won't know (the pennant's different) until I can compare with an original or match-up with an 'armless guy!

 

I pick these up all the time, as part of my attempts to get them all sorted-out once and for all, and while I think these are all Airfix, I'm not sure on the academy cadet, he's had paint added I think, and won't fit on either horse without falling off, so may be a mucked-about-with Frazer & Glass, or a Bergan/Beton original, or another?

Horses are both 'bent-tail' Airfix, with a hard-plastic on the left and a soft plastic on the right, Lifeguard is definitely Airfix too, which would have been the end of this post (except it was originally the first image!), but I added this . . .

 . . . which was taken just over a year ago, and excluded the master collection, which was back in storage already (as all the above now is!), but includes that which had come in over the previous two years or so (on the left) and a lot from SAS Auctions on the right, with some sorting of horses and consolidation going-on in front.

 

Two posts were produced over a few moths for 'elsewhere', and it's intended to fully update the relevant page on the Airfix Blog, but I haven't got round to it, and may wait until everything's in one place, to try for the definitive narrative? You may recall there were several of these in Chris's last parcel, and the sample grows continually . . . and yes, there's an Airfix fireman hiding in there somewhere!

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.

P is for Potpourri of Plastic Peeps! Wild West

Nearing the end of the surprise box from Chris, and we find a Sobre, but more on that at the end of the post! Wild West, large scale, small scale, plastic, metal, cowboys, Native American Indians, horses, premiums and cartoony stuff . . . let's see what was in the box;

 

All interesting; the one on the left seems to be a soft plastic version of an earlier hard polystyrene premium, it's not the first time we seen them, Betterware used some (Mayer-Lippenhausen and Commonwealth) for their little salesman's envelope gifts, the Australian (and others) Nabisco Dinosaurs are another. This chap is from the Siku sculpts/set, supplied in two sizes, painted and unpainted, and various plastic colours to various European premium issuers, so, here, is probably via . . .

 

. . .  the Dutch DS Plastics, they show them in their catalogue - code 455, as some of the moulds they inherited from Siku.

The many Hong Kong copies of Timpo/Britains/Crescent swoppets are common as muck, two-a-penny and usually pretty poorly executed, although there are better ones, and whole ones attributable to their packaging are useful, these two in the middle are unusual for being among the better, and all-polyethylene, where usually some of the parts are PVC, the locating studs/holes have larger diameters too, while the chap on the end is from a US maker; Ideal, and is meant to be a Canadian trapper I think? I bet the trappers of both nations looked pretty similar and paid little heed to a line on the map!

Home-cast casting of an Indian on the left, probably a Schneider mould, what is likely a Lone Star Metallion in the middle (Pat Masterton), but other makers covered them and the paint throws you off, while the chap on the right is similar to others I have, but I don't think I've ever seen an attribution for them either as Western originals (Spain, France?) or as Hong Kong copies.

I know the one in the middle is from the Crazy Clown Circus of Frazer & Glass (F&G) now, but he got shot with his extended family, which included on the left a horse which was marked, but I can't remember if it was LIDO (I think so) or AJAX?, while the metallised 'standard' horse of the family, is new on me?

 

Obviously we have seen metallised foot figures from the 'set', in different sizes, so I guess he went with them, but I haven't found metallised riders yet? I'm guessing it should be Tudor Rose or at a stretch Kleeware, and one of the earlier iterations of them?

To which, we can add four of the polystyrene foot figures! The painted Crescent/Lido chap may be from one of the West germen pencil shapeners, as he has  alayer of glue on his base underside?

 

The chap in the middle is my first, of a set I've been after for years, and have already missed-out on a boxed set of, coincidentally, the only reason I know what he is, which is an Exin Wild West figure. They are cartoon-styled, very-much like the Lucky Luke premiums, and I'm sure that was no accident, as Comansi handled the latter and both are Spanish companies, seeped in Spaghetti Western culture at the time?

Five more of the Lone Star shooting game figures, I think we may have all poses in both colours now, and a lot of them have come from Chris over the last few years, so when I get them all together we will have another, closer look.

A small sample of small scale Blue Box, it's all grist to the mill, with two of the foot figures and a horse from Britians Swoppet sculpts, along with a stockade-fort section, copied from the Marx Miniature Masterpiece fort.

Sub-Giant piracies from Hong Kong - always useful!

A small group of damaged Minimodels 25mm's, they will go in the tub with the rest of the damaged ones against the possibility of me having a conversion session one day, as being polystyrene (the reason so many are found damaged) they are easy to cut, glue, sand and fill!

The figures Brian Berke remembered were in Lucky Bags back in the day, and lucky he did, as no one else had! The colour scheme remains pretty constant, with the Indians in the warm/hot colours and the Cowboys in the cold colours. And I think this sample balances out the bigger sample somewhat, which was getting a bit Indian-heavy!

There are new cowboy poses here, and the pose-count keeps growing, I think we may well end-up with about fifty, five-each mounted and up to 20 foot figure sculpts, per. 'side'? Some of the Euro-premium sets ran to similar numbers.

While this was a lovely surprise, a bagged Sobre, from Sobreplast, a name new to the Blog and the archive, if not the Hobby, an old kiosk toy, of more substance than the Montaplex type envelopes we usually look at here.

 

The figures/horses look to be Comansi copies, but they may be actual Comansi, until I can compare with the real-deal's, I won't know, but the wagon is not the Comansi one, so I suspect copies. A really nice 'sopresa', cheers Chris!

F is for Follow-up - WH Cornelius / Success

This was supposed to be a follow-up to an August (Rack Toy Month) post . . . at the end of August! But things slide here at Small Scale World, and now's as good as any time! I found the catalogue the previous post's images were taken from, and there was a bunch more stuff of interest to Loyal Readers, if their interests are as eclectic as mine!

 

Lots of Gum Ball/Cracker fayre to be seen in these random contents, along with larger novelties, and we've seen most of the smaller stuff in one version or another here, at least once!

Trolls; somewhere there was a mountain of these, and all sorts of people issued them in all sorts of formats and sizes, usually credited in the first instance to Russ Berrie (and no, It wasn't a pun, he was Mr. Russell Berrie), the iconic Trolls, recently trashed by a movie which changed them all into multicolour-skinned, multi-shaped parodies of our little tanned/pink childhood friends.

Another source/set of the small PVC-vinyl animals, and some bendy-smilies, similar to those we've seen here from Henbrandt and messrs' Generic!

Oww! More to find than we have so far found!

Bigger animals, novelty animals and counter-box stuff.

More of the same!

Jon sent us a tailess version of the scorpion only the other day! 

This was actually shot on 35mm I think, by me at one of the first toy-fairs I ever went to, I think I met Paul Morhead there, who I already knew (he'd got me the 'press' ticket), Peter Evens for the first time, and someone else, whose name/face escapes me now?

 

The other three were obviously looking out for 54/60mm stuff or useful scenics for Plastic Warrior Magazine, I had been tasked with the first small-scale Toy Fair report for One Inch Warrior, and managed these, some Blue Box fort sets (the animated cartoon mini's - Cavalry, Knights and Pirates . . . were there Romans?) and a few other bits, I think I mentioned the Balsa boat-kits from Hobbies Annual and possibly the Great Gizmo's dime-store revival stuff, but some of them might have been another year, it was all over 20-years ago, where does it go to, all that time?

UFO is for Utterly Frivolous Objects!

Following-on from last night's post, I sort of went off down a quick flying saucer/eraser rabbit-hole, and here's the results, nothing too exciting, but it's all fun!

 

The Imperial saucers again, along with those polyethylene ones we looked at here, and the red one in the middle which is a newbie! Not sure if it's meant to be an eraser, or just a novelty, but it has a sucker-pad and is manufactured in more of a PVC-alike, than a pencil rubber material type?

On the left here are two combined erasers (outer, white portion) and pencil sharpeners; hidden within the coloured transparencies. They are still wrapped in a crisp film, but I can't decide which one to open!

Adding the two rounder ones from the previously blogged lot (and I forgot the Silvercorn saucer in that post, but I don't know where it is right now, to compare anyway!), and a mini UFO Frisbee, branded to Dick Turtle, who was the mascot/brandmark for one of the lucky-bags available in the late 1990's. He WAS a 'space' turtle, more normally depicted riding a rocket, than a UFO though!

Three more of the sucker set (there's a few in the post, so we should soon be returning to them briefly?), they are more generic in their sci-fi'edness, but shades of Star Wars and Star Trek I think? Even Alien, with that chunky, funky-green 'factory ship'!

They stick to windows!

A is for Araber aus Deutschland

These used to be simple; "Manurba" would say the German collectors, then they became Dom-Manurba (or Manurba-Dom), now you usually find them listed as Dom-Manurba-Heinerle! I'm not even going to try to pin that down, but suffice to say they are slightly sub-scale at around 50mm and rather charming!

My sample, bringing something nice from the East, to the West! Carpets? Spice? The heads of their vanquished enemies? they are all unarmed so can be used with Nativity scenes as background population, and it's a small sample.

The full set includes mounted figures (some of whom are armed), horses, several different loads for the camels and other colours, and while usually from a brown/fawn/cream/white palette, I have seen them in red, orange and yellow I think.

That's it, that's them; my little handful of Manfred Urban . . . or Domplast . . . or Heinerle Wundertüten Arabs!

L is for Lucky - A Lucky-bag from Lucky Dip not Mr. Lucky, Luckily that's Lucky!

Or; I is for I Knew I'd Seen Them Somewhere!

It's a Lucky Bag! An Olde Fashioned Lucky Bag 'Sweets and Toys for Boys' from Mr. Simms Olde Sweet Shoppe, contents put-together or supplied by Lucky Dip of Nottingham (parent - Crème d'Or).

I don't know if this is actually the one I thought I'd seen when I last mentioned it (err . . . a 'while ago'?), I thought that was a more colourful one, like the original Mr Lucky bags, but finding one's better than finding none, and it means they are still out there! Google revealed several including Mr. Lucky, now Mr. Sweets!

Quite a downbeat artwork compared to past lucky-bags, and particularly the aforementioned Mr. Lucky lucky-bags, but well in keeping with the corporate image of this mall and airport type 'upmarket' or 'precinct' sweet shop, and not cheap at four-quid, so I won't be buying another for a while, if only to give the supply-chain system time to change the contents' line-up!

The contents are disappointing, but only in so far as adult figure collectors go; no figures - no knock-off wrestlers, He-Man clones, Grandizer- or Transformer-erasers or dinosaurs, no Yolanda Ninja Turtles, ant-soldiers or Russ Berrie key-ring trolls . . . no poopa-troopers!

But, there are four 99p items - all from Henbrandt - and two 50p lollipops (which were bloody-nice!), along with the de rigueur 'activity book'! It's just nice to know that kids today can still enjoy a timeless little treat - the UK's version of a Spanish Sobre or the German Wundertüten.

And, let's be hopeful - Henbrandt do carry small dinosaurs, paratrooping-aliens, wild animals, frogs, and other figural toys, within their 99p lines (we've looked at some here), so they may turn-up in another tranche . . . I'll try again at Christmas; the chap in the shop said they shift loads then - kids buying them for each other, parents buying them for stocking-fillers, seniors buying them to 'have something in' when people go visiting and turn-up suddenly with three bored kids in tow!

By the way; 'lucky' is one of those words that by the time you've written it a dozen or so times, starts to look a bit weird; you think you must be misspelling it!