P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Sci-Fi and TV

We find ourselves looking at another favourite subsection of mine, the Sci-Fi/ & Fantasy stuff, although there's some media-related in here, there's also some in the final 'mixed' post.

 

Both seen before, I suspect, a Poundland Pterodactyl and an old novelty skeleton.

 

Ger'Nomes! A probably Euro-premium or Wundertüte, with a thick layer of paint to be removed and what I think might be the Tobar John Major jobbie in the middle, but either side is some even-more interesting fellows, if more pixy'ish! A multipart PVC one to the left which I suspect is another Xandria piece from the Netherlands, and, on the right, an ex-keyring chappie, who may have been a Leprechaun, but he's not really green enough?

 

Among the small-scale stuff were two totally new to me/Blog/Hobby astro-alien types (red and green on the left) which are probably small 1 or 2 ¢/p type gum-ball machine's capsule prizes? The 12-wheeled micro-rover is in the style of Micromachines, but from somewhere else I think (anyone know?), and the blue chap is another premium/gumball prize type, being a reduced-scale version of the old Manurba sculpts,

 

A handful of post-Giant stuff includes a red alien from the big bags issued by Novelty Headquarters Inc., and is a useful find! While we have one of the blow-moulded derivatives of them behind, the eyes are everything with these, and he has both! Strangely, despite being on the blog lots of times now, some people were struggling to ID them the other day despite being followers of-, and [occasional] commenters on- the Blog, almost . . . deliberate amnesia!

 

When they are that desperate to post the same thing days later, they are feeling threatened by you, plagiarism, even of ideas, themes or subjects is the sincerest form of flattery!

 

I know, but this was a half-full folder! Two modern takes on cavemen, and another of the small ones in polystyrene which turn up from time to time, I now believe they came as scenic accessories, with an Aurora type range of model-kits from Life-Like, which were actually inherited from Pyro, so could be either?

 

The mini blue 'superhero' came as companion pieces to larger ones on Pound Shop cards a few years ago (probably still a few out there somewhere), a Cylon Warrior from Mattel's 1978 Battlestar Galactica line, I have the Earth pilot somewhere I think, a lovely Terminator, sans arm, but possibly an unlicensed rip-off piece, and an MB Games piece courtesy of the Nottingham Mafia!

 

The Superman keyring was a very generous inclusion in the package from Chris, as I think I know guys on Podstalions who would swap an arm for something both vintage and DC! In the middle is . . . a dough/cookie cutter? Something like that, infant crafts of some kind, but figural, and apparently glowing with radiation! The Orange guy may be a racing driver, and I vaguely remember doing a show-repot on a company at Kensington Olympia who had a bunch of similar figures?

 

As well as the Giant knock-offs, there was a smattering of the Lik Be (still LB, for obvious reasons) robot/alien types, always useful, and in this early, clean/sharp state, possibly HG Buck Rogers fayre? Many thanks again, to Chris Smith, for sending these, for me to share with the rest of you.
 

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!

F is for Follow-up - Koho Wild West

I lied! When I said I'd found some other Koho's in the sort-out after taking the shots the other day I think I stated it was another of the larger and two of the smaller which had turned-up, but it was the other way round; with two of the 70mm and a 40mm coming out of the pile!

So, sorry for that clear attempt to deceive with a wild invention, but anyway, and in the meantime reader Theo van der Weerden found a few figures and something even more interesting, so let's have a check back at 'chez' Koch und Hofmockel's Wild West figures now . . .

Two 70mm figures to accompany my painted Calamity Jane; both native Americans and one armed with a Winchester, so she won't be getting her lebensraum with any ease! They are both slightly flat in sculpting, which probably has more to do with the ease of production than any deleiberate look back at earlier 'flats'; Calamity herself had both hands pushed forward, so although she has a similar base, she lacks the more-obvious two-dimensionality.

Theo provides a third pose of Indian and the larger version of the smaller cowboy we saw the other day and - in the right hand pair - a new plastic colour. There is more detail to the larger figures, with finer etched detail on the cowboy's hems and scarf, but the large mould release-pin mark mars the figure slightly, visible on the chest of the Indian, there is almost certainly one on the back of the cowboys, as all mine - in both sizes - suffer from them.

Nothing exciting; a new colour, he seems to match Theo's cowboy in being a slightly heliotrope red, but I can't say for sure, mine is sun-faded and photography can play havoc with true-colour! Again; the larger manufacturing mark on his back, and I feel this figure is more central or South-American in detailing?

This - also from Theo - is lovely! It's a blow-moulded Teepee (Tipi)! The flap of the entrance being cleverly contrived along the join line, but with the pole-bundle reduced to a decorative finial, by the limitations of the technique. If anyone has a spare one of these, it's gone to the top of my 'wants' list, despite the 'infant toy' look . . . or - perhaps - because if it!

Reverses of all mine, just to get another image up here . . . quite an unsung maker; Koho, despite being in there with the whole Jean-Big-Dom-Manurba-Heinerle band of Wundertüten suppliers, and possibly sharing a sculptor with Leyla?

And many thanks to Theo for the new information.

J is for Jean Höffler - 3: Wild West Bits & Pieces

Also written Jean Hoeffler for those who can't handle umlauts (like Google search-bots!), this is the bits which wouldn't easily fit into the other two parts of what was going to be one post!

As mentioned there are a lot of poor sub-piracies I will subject you too some other time, most between 40 and 50mm and you may know them, ugly little things with hollowed out bases from the bottom-end of the rack-toy market, but having suggested the main HK production may be from the Jean tools, these  - above trio - are proper copies.

The rifleman a third, fourth or fifth-generation copy (via Kwong Wah) of the old Lone Star 'Metallions', the Red Cloud still readable, but lacking the chromium coating and having the same mark as the two archers he came with; a very small HONG KONG.

Brian Berke sent me this from New York, and I can assure you both pictures are full-colour! It just happens that he's a grey-plastic figure on a white horse with white background and he looks to be a poorer-quality copy in a smaller size . . .

. . . as we can see; comparison shots with a Toyway-Timpo anti-insurgency cavalryman and the Crescent standing rifleman.

This was also sent in by a loyal reader who I won't name (I've thanked him privately as I hadn't seen it before) as I think it may be someone else's and probably active somewhere online? If it's yours - please email me for full credit and I'll happily remove it and replace it with a link to the original editorial site/page. (It's a current feeBay lot if you want one; but the link won't last forever!)

The interesting thing about this Peruvian Trioplast blister-card is that although it claims to be made in Peru, it seems to have the same figures I got at Sandown last year and which we saw in part two . . . well-travelled tools? It's hard to tell from the image, but the bases appear blank and the split-lines are a little more flashy?

 

08/10/2020 - They were also issued by the US 'Jobber' Imperial Toy Corp., from counter displey/stock boxes as Heroe of the Golden West (not sure what was 'golden' about anarchic mayhem and native genocide but . . . !).

Finally; this chap is an ex-Elastolin sculpt (6808-6808/4), but has several of the attributes of the Hong Kong 'versions' of the Jean figures even to the base marking, but the raised rim of the base is slightly wider and a bit wobbly compared to the Jean sculpts, as he was mixed in with a bunch of other stuff I can't say ouwt-about'im other than that he sort of looks similar to the others, but is definitely a poorer copy of the German original!

He is supposed to be holding his spear, at waist-height, under his cloak, but the poorly rendered tuft of feathers at the lance-head has left him looking like he has two left-arms, the other stretched-up gripping the top of the pole!

J is for Jean Höffler - 1: Wild West Jean Originals

I don't have a very good sample of Jean originals, a few odds and sods which have come-in with mixed lots and a bunch of mounted which I think came as a single lot? As a result I shot all the copies and things, but then ended-up with too many images for a post, so broke it into three, leaving the rathey-crappy sample of Jean originals as an intro'!

The samples we will be looking at - with a few additions - there are smaller copies, lots of them, but they are of little merit and poor quality so can wait for another day! The trouble with the originals (as far as my acquiring them goes) is that there are loads of them and the best place for a check-list/images is Kent's page.

My cowboys; the two prone ones seem to be additional poses, less easy to find and mine look to have never been painted, I also think they were on another tool, while scale wise they are a little larger too, but probably the same sculptor? The white horse has no signs of paint either.

Foot Indians; hardly worth showing and no prone figure, but I have the female with papoose which is another less common sculpt so you win some, you lose some!

However I can chase down Mr. Custer and give him a good spanking, as I have  a decent load of mounted Natives, albeit rather tatty on the paint front, but rather like Crescent or late Cherilea (&etc!) the later, shiny polyethylene meant the paint stayed on long enough to get them to the shops, and little else! It's fair to say these are play worn, and some of the horses have silver manes!

I shot this on John Begg's stand at Plastic Warrior a couple of years ago, and the horses are of note as we'll see some similar ones soon with a question-mark over them. Similar to the Cofalux one, but with a really naff slot-base system for the horse-team.

Variations on a theme; A Hong Kong version in pink (next post) stands with the Manurba-Big swivel-waist and a 30mm figure (another 'left-hooker'), both also used (like the set we're looking at here) as various premiums and in the Wundertüten 'sweetie' bags.

So that's a bit of a box-ticker, but it gets them out there and we'll look at the Hong Kong marked ones next.

M is for Manurba's Miniature Military Men

Or; T is for Tallon's Terribly Tiny Toy Troops!

Depending upon the order all these 'stockpiled' articles get published, you may by now have realised that I shot some of the German plastic over the last few weeks, among which was these intermediate scale chaps, in a sort of NATO/generic 'army man' US-G.I. style.

Eight poses including two baseless figures, one kneeling, one prone and not much fighting being done . . . but then there's only four M1 carbines and three [holstered] pistols between them. A sign of the genuine unpopularity of 'war toys' in the post-war Germany; although not quite earning - the rumoured - full ban, it was nevertheless an unpopular subject.

Sharing base designs quite similar to what little I know of Koho's output, these have been attributed to Manurba (so BIG-branded play sets and Wundertüten too?), while over here, in the UK, they appeared in Tallon packaging, as a small-bagged, pocket-money, rack-toy line.

Possibly an early painted version, but I suspect home-painting; those headphones are drawn-in too finely! Commonest in green, the second most common are the grey ones, with other-colour versions also out there - as seen above.

About 20% or one-in-five of all found examples are marked 'Made in west Germany' and the lack of marking on same-poses suggests a multiple cavity mould-tool, at least three of each with no marked kneeling or prone figures. You can also see that while the grey is pretty constant (there are a few darker ones) the green can vary considerably from a yellow-olive to a dark olive-drab.

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!

P is for Prehistoric Animals

And rather anachronistic, cave-dwelling, humanoid types! Each of which is marked HONG KONG on the handle/shaft of his axe, spear or club. Kent Sprecher credits some to Tim-Mee via either Sinclair gas stations in the 'States or Cracker Jack, but all mine were sourced 'over here'.

I picked this little lot (right-hand image) up over many years in one's and two's and a couple of larger lots that came with the plants, I'm pretty sure that at some point they were issued with the plants (copies of Marx Miniature Masterpiece accessories) but it may be a weird co-incidence? And with the paint and HK mark must be assumed to be Tim Mee copies - a safe assumption!

From the artwork I think we are looking at - clockwise from; Labradoodle Rex, Penguinman, Dimetropuma and Kuthunkacow! They certainly didn't come with plants when issued in the little header-carded (left-hand image), rack toy Prehistoric Animals poly-bags, of which I have . . .

. . . two examples, the contents of each are separately shown in the two images above. You get the three poses of caveman (around 32mm) and six dinosaurs/pterosaurs drawn from a known list of seven sculpts (Kent shows nine from Tim Mee), but with each set adding a new sculpt to my loose sample - there may be more?

They reappear as slightly smaller (30mm), gum-ball machine's capsule prizes (upper row) or Christmas cracker novelties, unmarked, unpainted and with sub-scale animals including something more mammalian (a unicorn-gazelle-goat!) for the cavemen to hunt!

While the lower row are smaller-copies still (28mm) and were all bought in Germany over a couple of years, so were probably wundertüten, or something similar from elsewhere in Europe; sobres/kiosko (Spain), bazaar (France)?

These were bough at the same times as the five smaller ones and from the same sellers, but may not/probably don’t go with them, the figures are a soft polyethylene (as the other two types were), while these animals are a harder polypropylene or ABS type material.

Finished to a better standard and with finer engraving, they are larger as well; the plesiosaur is around 60mm, but I suspect they are some kind of premium, or perhaps an early blind-bag collectable? The dimetrodon though is a distorted moulding, probably from too-early removal from the tool, causing shrinkage-fattening and a blister.

S is for the Super-Size of the Quest Ahead!

So, in case you haven't been reading the blurb for the last few months, the collection is out of storage, and I'm starting to pick-over it, a lot is still in a heap in the garage, and a few things don't seem to have surfaced at all yet, but they will . . . and there's plenty to keep the Blog going, take this as a case in point;

This is one of 9 identical boxes of 'unknown' flats (we looked at some of the 'Wild West' box a few weeks ago), to which you can add another, twice as long, with known margarine premiums, that is: they either have the issuer moulded on, or the little paper label saying ei-fein or whatever; four boxes of US 'comic flats' and all the Russian/East-European stuff, which is more spread around, and other stuff I've forgotten! There are also two crates of those A4 sheets of foam-board with the lead flats.

In front of it are the Christmas cracker 'Putti Orchestra' figurines which have come in over the last 7-years, in a little 4"x5½" self-seal bag, which is my standard size.

In the box are approximately 150 four-by-five-and-a-halves, each with an index card 'stiffener'. At an average of two posts a day there's nearly 3-months worth of posts there, technically, in the one box, but as you can see; some subjects have several bags, while lots of bags only have one or two examples in!

After sorting the new ones into the older sample, there are still several with only one! You can see it's the earlier 'Hong Kong' ones (1) which are building-up fastest, as there are more of them in the backs of hall 'phone drawers, or 'the' kitchen drawer, to end-up at car-boot sales, or in the hands of house-clearers and so slowly enter the secondary market.

I've numbered them as I think they were probably issued, but it's only a gestimate, with (1) in from the mid-late 1970's through to (5) being probably still current, the pink 'china' one being in a cheapie-cracker in a restaurant in Frimley a few years ago. I also added annotations to the cards as I was combining the two lots, makes it easier to sort into them next time.

Ignoring the base marks for a moment, these are all the poses and colours so far found, on these ephemeral, cartoony, seasonal, novelty figures, and with the exception of the red one, they are all so flimsy their bases tend to fold flat in the bags!

The next card in the box, and only added at the time these shots were taken, are these alien/clown orchestra figures, are they from 'down below'? We know the Devil has all the best tunes!

All figures of both types are about 30mm and soft polyethylene; the last three sculpted on both sides, the Putti are single-sided reliefs, smooth on the reverse. And they will probably be moved to a fantasy box, as they are hardly 'civilian', just non-military.

In the same box was something instantly recognisable . . . now! Clearly another Rundlutscher Spitztüte Wundertüten probably from Kuefa Kreisel, and I expect to find more as I dig-out the other boxes!

F is for Follow-up - Several Recent Posts

Feedback and files! Feedback from followers of the Blog, and stuff from the archive files have added a bit more to some of the items featured in recent posts, so a bitty post today, but hopefully interesting, especially if you like the shite from the bottom of the quality/value heap.

The bug-eyed aliens have a brand! Yick Fung (Metal & Plastic Manufacturing Company), from the New Territories; I doubt it's the manufacturer, but rather a wholesaler, and they were carrying them in 2006 which is about the time I got the footballers with the little bases, my version of these though, have a lot less paint (eyes and mouths only) and were party favours a couple of not-so-many-years ago.

I want cat pencil tops! Dinorasers, train-whistles, mini-animals including the Britains gorilla pose; is that v.28·5? All good stuff!

Meanwhile at the same time the A1 Company of Shatin, Hong Kong was pushing my old Berlin-acquired cocktail-glass mermaid or a copy of it, 20 years later! I actually remember the monkey and the donkey from the same time (1986/7) and possibly the elephant but the other three are new to me and/or my memories.

The whole set has shades of the animals passed-off as Nosco in the USA from the 1950/60's and also used in Europe as premiums, but simplified over time and from constant copying! Again, wholesale rather than manufacture I think, the name points to someone trying to get first-place on the trade-fair lists!

Note they also carry the Brüder knock-off construction vehicles and racing cars, and I know at least two other wholesalers who do.

Michael Hüttmann from Germany came-up trumps with the 'wundertüten' Wild West, by discounting the possibility of them actually being wundertüten at all! They are in fact Rundlutscher (the things above) sticks or 'handles' and in Michael's own words;

"Rundlutscher (round lollipop) is one of those wonderful . . . German technical terms that you'd probably not bring in relation with a fancy piece of candy . . . [while] . . .  Wundertüte is a concept here, you go to a Kiosk, there they have a choice of such plastic tons full of different sweets, there is a plethora available here, everybody has a different portfolio on offer. These things were among the first ever to be available, they used to be classics but today kids go for different sweets, from the same little tons. You tell the guy in charge that you want 2 of these, 3 of these, 6 of those, you get the idea, he packs it in a small white paper Spitztüte (pointed bag), a wee thing shaped like a KKK hood but serving a much better purpose, and that is called a Wundertüte (bag o' miracles or wonders)."

The 'KKK hood' sounds like a smaller version of the chip-cone which has replaced newspaper in 'Fish & Chip' shops here in the UK.

Michael also pointed me in the right direction for finding them on the Wibbly Wobbly Way, which I did to obtain the above (and below) images which are all commercial sales images, if you fancy a tub, they are available in 20's or 100's except the site selling them in threes (!) and can be located here;

https://www.worldofsweets.de/Marke+Kuefa/Kuefa-Kola-Rundlutscher-100er.311322.html

https://www.worldofsweets.de/Marke+Kuefa/Kuefa-Rundlutscher-Frucht-20er.310982.html

https://www.rakuten.de/produkt/kuefa-kreisel-rund-lutscher-frucht-lolly-100-stueck-1024187595.html

https://www.adventskalender.shop/kreisel-lutscher-kuefa

https://www.bitterundzart.de/shop/rundlutscher-frucht/

The kola ones look just like little edible-turds . . . which is apt; as Michael and I were chatting about some of the shit I post here, although you know I prefer shite, rhymes with kite and is kinder on the ear! From the images found, we have;

Aeroplane

Bear

Cowboy Standing

Goose-girl with Geese

Gnome Miner

Hansel & Gretel and the Witch

Hunter Jumping Fence

Indian on Horseback

Princess & Fawn

Racing Car

Skier

Weightlifter

There seem also to be two variants; smoother, flatter 'cut-outs' (kola tub) and more heavily-etched sculptural ones (fruit flavour tub), which may be an aging 'over-time' thing, a second tool or outright piracy by a second manufacturer, and there's no clue as to which is the newer, I'd favour the flat, smooth ones as the/any 'replacements'?

How many other sculpts there are out there I don't know, but these seem pretty constant between one (or two?) apparent manufacturer/s (the main originator seems to be Kuefa brand) and at least four sellers and - with the earliest image dating from 2013 - clearly have been the same line-up for some time.

Presumably at the height of their popularity (1960/70's?) there would have been wider ranges of prize sticks/handles, with subjects/themes turning-over more frequently? So that's Rundlutscher sticks not Wundertüten! Cheers Tschau mit au Michael!

Meanwhile Brain Berke had remembered something of the Cowboys and Indians in the earlier post, and again, in his own words;

". . . the Indians are identical to the ones that used to be in "Lucky Bags".

In the 50's paper sealed Lucky Bags contained a toy, two sweets, usually a chew and one boiled, a printed slip of paper with a joke. I think the price was 1d.

I never collected the figures as they were rare in North London but I do remember collecting a train, one coach or box car at a time [they were ] 1" long hard plastic train cars. The loco and cars were obviously American in origin."

Thanks as always to Brian too, and I wonder if the rolling-stock were the Lido sculpts?

I actually thought I saw some Mr. Lucky bags the other day, but I didn't grab one, and can't remember where I saw them, if I see them again I'll get a couple and see what they are offering these days, otherwise; I haven't seen them since the mid-1990's.

A longer think (it was only two or three weeks ago) while this post moseys through edit and imaging leads me to think they may have been pink & purple/Disney type themed ones - if you know what I mean - which is why I left them; fairy-tale princess stickers and an elastic hair-band is rather where I draw the line!

Hilfe! Mine banane ist infestung mit Gunslingeren!

I couldn't resist it and succumbed to my inner-child Michael! Channelling a certain jolly, fat lady from the 1940's and massacring someone else's language at the same time, and why not; I massacre my own all the time!

Rundlutscher, Spitztüte and Wundertüten will be added to the Foreign Terms page, a veil will be drawn over Infestung and Gunslingerung! On the wider subject of languages, -tüte may be where 'tote'-bag comes from?