C is for Confirmatory Combat Canon!

This is one of those useful pieces, which consolidate that which we know, but seem unable to prove, and should come as a relief to those of us who have developed a tendency to mutter 'could be one or the other', when dealing with unknown plastics, on the understanding we are referring to Rosedale/Tudor Rose and/or Kleeman/Kleeware.

 

Speaking as someone who was a younger member of the follow-on force in the hobby, but who is now looking at himself as an older (or ageing!) member of the next generation, watching younger people come into the hobby with weird notions on the intrinsic value of Lego or WWF action figures, I don't know why I just 'trust' the older guards insistence in a relationship, beyond, that they said so, and that the one, Rose-, bought the other, Klee-, but finding things like this underline the closeness of the two, as fact! Especially as those insistences were always about mould-tool sharing.

 

We previously saw this M55 post-war US self-propelled gun (SPG), three years ago;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/05/afv-is-for-absolutely-feckin-vast.html

 

Clearly marked with a full set of Tudor Rose markings, and, in fact, have seen this Kleeware version before, as a show 'shelfie' nine years ago, so I was already pretty confident of the cast-iron connection, but still needed some introductory blurbiage!

 

The central mark above the reinforcing bulkhead is the same on both AFV's, but where the T*R model has two more ID discs either side of it, the Kleeware has a longer, untypical (for either make) mark, parallel to the discs, but below the bulkhead. However, and unlike some of the space crossovers from these two makes, there is no sign of the missing marks as faint, blanked discs, which you often find on the spaceships.

 

It may point to a rule - marked T*R is IS T*R, unmarked; probably Kleeman? It'll be worth a post one day comparing all the marks, as there are other marks, Kleeware having a small disc mark, and Tudor Rose having a longer written mark.

 

Anyway, I now have enough ammunition for both guns, and given that the Rosedale 25lbr came green with silver shells, it's likely some Tudor Rose M55's got them too? That's it, short and sweet, another chapter in a story which still has the odd question mark!

V is for Valkyries, The Ride of the Valkyries

Or, if you haven't got loudspeaker-equipped Huey 'Slicks' to hand, Colonel Bogey on the two-tone 'dixie horns' might suffice! It's the Jimson Land Rover, much bigger than the transporter we looked at last, at about 1:24/25th, and a rather nice Series III, except it's ruined by the white cab-roof, and what I'm guessing might have been circus horns on another version of the toy; model number 115.

 

That's it, it's clean, it needs the surgical removal of the sir horns, and a repaint wouldn't go amiss, but would obviously ruin its resale value, there's not a lot else to add, so I won't, and it's a Jimson, push-and-go, carpet-toy 'Lanny'! ♫♪♪♫ Paar-paar-paar-paaaarp-parp ♪♫♪♪!!

AFV is for Absolutely Feckin' Vast!

Well, they're not THAT big, but pretty-much the next size-up is Action Man/GI Joe, so they are about as big as I'm ever going to go! We're talking Tudor Rose here, although we've previously seen one of them marked-up as Kleeware, and I'm pretty sure I've seen the same SPG (an M55) under Ideal branding in the 'States?

 

There was a lot of Tudor Rose showing at PW's show a fortnight or so ago, and some of it got a second outing at Sandown Park the following weekend, and I did buy some, but that was all civilian and will be seen in those forthcoming show-reports, in the meantime, this truck came in a while ago now . . .

 

. . . and I shot this quick shot; at an odd angle, seen elsewhere I think, to show off the Blue Box box of Blue Box BB boxes, which Chris had sent in one of his lots, along with a Blue Box four-inch figure, or just under, he's actually 95mm. Well, you'd need a military escort for that load, it's almost a cupboard-full of Blue Box toys!

 

Then these big babies came-in, not that long ago, and while they did go through to storage at the time, I found them the other day while looking for something else, and knowing the truck was still in the flat thought "Well, OK, we can cobble something together here I think!" As you can see they are almost as grubby as the truck, so cleaning as well as photographing was the order of the day.

The M55 got a spray with TFR (traffic film remover) watered-down at about 50/50, and then a drying with kitchen-paper, and I took the opportunity to strip it down to its constituent parts . . . I meant to do a 'parts-shot' for all of them, but kept getting too-keen to reassemble them after I had a pile of dry parts, so forgot to do the others!

 

Apart from the wear to the 'fighting compartment' deck, it came up pretty mint, but I knew it would as the underside looked like it was made yesterday, so it was mostly surface dust. I also re-cut the tab of the firing 'pin' and the furred edges of its receiving slot, as they had had enough play, in the past, to round-off slightly, making it hard to fire without a two-handed faff!

All back together and it's looking like the beast it was, briefly in the 1950'60's, The shells which just sit in the rack on the engine deck were mostly missing; there was only one! And it may be missing stickers (see below), but it's a 1950's beach/garden toy survivor, so I think it's looking good!

The 25lbr, as it's described when you see it in its box (there's one on feebleBay as I write), doesn't look much like a 25lbr! And is a very different beast altogether, not least that while the SPG is 100% soft polyethylene, this is mostly hard 'kit' polystyrene, this to hold a more powerful firing mechanism with metal trigger, securely in the moulding, by having it sealed round the trigger and spring. Wheels are 'ethylene though, with steel axles. It's actually a breach-loader, with a pull-back slotted-tray to take the shell, as the trigger is cocked.

The two, together with their ammunition, there's a bagful for the 25lbr, but only the one for the M55 . . . sniff! However, I can report - after extensive testing against the end of the bed - that both will take each other's rounds, the 25lbr's are snug in the SPG's barrel but fire efficiently, while the smaller rounds of the M55 roll-about a bit in the breach tray of the howitzer which could affect accuracy over garden ranges!

The Jeep completed the trio, and we're back to all-polystyrene, with the exception of two steel axles. Not the best rendition of a jeep, but not the worst either, it gets the 'look' right, but is a bit boxy or square, and lacks the rear quarter-bumpers/fenders/foot-steps, which help with the distinctive lines of a Jeep.

 

Mine is missing it's spare, and like an idiot, in order to shoot one in situ, I took the back one, instead of a front one, so had to prop it up with my fingers! Yes, I could have quickly sorted it out and re-shot it, but what fun is there in such sensible conformity?

Then it was go fetch the truck, and give it the same treatment, with this I didn't remove the rear cargo-bed from the frame, as it looked like I might damage it if I forced the six clips, but the cab came off and the seats came out, while tail-gate and headlight bar both popped-off.

 

It's not a recognisable mark, but more of a generic . . . Bedford? And scale-wise, sits between the larger Jeep and smaller M55. It has a towing hook, but isn't as happy taking the 25lbr as the Jeep is (tighter space), so I may be looking for a smaller gun, or trailer for it?

 

The other obvious difference is the two-tone colouring and I think I've seen civilian versions with red, yellow or blue superstructures as 'tipper-trucks', was there a builder's/road worker's generator trailer or cement-mixer, maybe?

You can see the PVC door stickers didn't survive cleaning, one is lost forever (down the plughole I fear), the other fell off while drying, they were both time expired, the stars however (being a separate contract/print run) survived much better, and leave the question, should they all have/did they all have stickers, or were they added from other toys/models, to this truck? Stickers aren't normally a feature of Tudor Rose, nor did the Kleeware version M55 have any.

Still cleaned-up nicely. It's slightly bent, which is more of a construction thing than an age thing; as the frame gets heavier (as in a heavier moulding) under the cab, where the front wheel-arches begin, the frame has curved slightly and could do with a bit of hot water on the long spars with a press-down at the cab-end of the bed to get it all parallel with the road surface, but it's not bad enough to worry about really!

 

Interestingly, there seems to be a missing steering-wheel, well, that's not interesting, that's annoying, but there are two receiving holes (that's the interesting bit!), so an export version must have been sold with left-hand-drive? Across the Channel or across The Pond?

All cleaned and reassembled, if I had to scale them off the top of my head I'd say about 1:20 for the Jeep, 1:24/25 for the truck and 1:30/32 for the M55, it's about the same size as the Airfix Abbot SPG.

 

Hopefully if I find a cheap, maybe knackered Jeep (perhaps missing its windscreen, or chewed-up), I'll be able to take a wheel as spare for mine, and use the steering wheel for the truck - it looks like it would fit? Trouble is, one knackered-enough to be cheap is likely to be missing its steering wheel too!

The marking is clear on all four items, with 'Tudor Rose' repeated on some, if you recall (or followed the link just now) the Kleeware 'Howitzer Tank' retains the central 'Made in England' disc, but looses the other two, having a heavy KLEEWARE raised on the underside of the deck floor/rear step, aft of the bulkhead.

 

Which conforms to the fact that after they had taken them over and as Tudor Rose concentrated on more trade-related matters (raw materials and machine tools), they handed production of some of their old models to their [Tudor Rose's] new Kleeware 'brand mark/division'.

Last minute checks before setting-off, a runner is sent up from the back to speak to the convoy packet-commander, who looks ready to shoot him, if he says anything too stupid!

 

The figures used are all about 95mm, or just short of the full four-inches, and are an earlier painted Blue Box, a later unpainted Blue Box, both with the same mark as the soft ethylene issue of the 25mm GI's, and the third, unmarked is almost certainly a Rado Industries (Ri-Toys) issue, from the same ex-Blue Box (or ex-Tai Sang!) mould tool.

"Gentlemen! Start. Your. Engines!"

W is for Well Now! That's Interesting!

It's nice to put a question to bed, even when it was more of a mystery than a full question-mark, but in this case it probably should have been flagged-up as more of a full question-mark to begin with!

We looked at the - technically - Air Force, cold-war figures from Deluxe Reading/Topper Toys just over two years ago here, at which time I mused that the orange ones might be Politoys output in Italy (who apparently handled the sculpts), but it turns out . . .

. . . they were Thomas Toys! I'm not getting it out of the bag until I find a second one, but I can assure you it's the same figures, with a Jeep which is also not the well-known Thomas-Taffy-Poplar design, but neither do I believe it's Deluxe Reading? If nothing else it's a better sculpt than the hiddeosity which accompanies the Deluxe Reading GI's!

There are no visible marks on the Jeep (which is way over-scale at about 1:24th) to help ID the supplier, or to suggest it might have been a late design of Thomas themselves - which nevertheless remains a possibility?

The suspicion is that Deluxe Reading here in the UK ran the tool in orange polymer as the contract manufacturer for the figures, while - possibly - a third party provided the Jeep, the whole being a typical beach toy; sandcastles; for the use of, as marketed by Thomas?

The card looks old, but the figures - as Deluxe - soldiered-on into the 1970's long after Alden Industries took over Thomas's US operation (if they [the figures] were even available when Thomas were around?), meaning either that Thomas UK carried on for a while (I don't have the relevant Plastic Warrior guide in front of me!) or Poplar (who did a lot of this sea-side stuff) continued to use the brand-mark?

Note that the TNT mark reads;

NTT

While I've had the Deluxe Reading's out, it struck me that the Blue Box 'Secret Missiles Base' figures are also copies of or based on the Deluxe' figures, but being (above) more like the navy guys from the smaller scale range, although this set on Moonbase Central had closer copies of the Air Force ones, also with the flesh painted-in.

The Singapore mark would tie them into one of at least two Blue Box factories in the island nation, but a lot of the Redbox farm and zoo sets tend to carry a Singapore mark, so using the Tai Sang parent for attribution might be safer . . . now we know they all shared the same chairman for over fifty years despite the best efforts of the PSTSM to say otherwise by inventing a whole port/facility!

F is for Fairy Snow

Not the preferred 'powder of relaxation' and social-intercourse employed by - it seems - most Tory leadership campaigners (which is most Tories!) but rather a domestic washing/laundry powder; I thought probably from the Lever Brothers/Unilever combine, but it turns out Fairy Liquid and the earlier Fairy Snow are Procter & Gamble brands, 'non-bio' and originally produced in their factories at West Thurrock and the [now] Republic of Ireland.

I had no idea these existed, although I think I may have a baksheesh axle and tyres combo' in the spares box somewhere, so when Adrian Little sent me images I was very interested and managed to grab some more shots at a subsequent Toy Show.

Jaguar MkII 3.4 litre

We had a maroon one of these when we were kids (it even gets a mention in Charlie Beckwith's Delta Force memoirs!)* and Dad used to screech the tyres on every roundabout between the North Circular and Retford on the old A1 'Great North Road'! Back in the day - there were a lot of roundabouts!

It ended its life as a glider-tug at Farnborough, sans roof. I don't know if it was cut off as a safety measure or ripped-off by the slipstream on the runway after rust set in, but I like to imagine the latter - the roof skidding away into the mown-grass like a demented umbrella!

You could still see it down the back of the water treatment works, behind the old hangers' until only a few years ago, where - if visual-memory serves - it had a Scammell wreaker and an old AEC tanker as companions!

Kit is simple, with white rubber (not plastic-melting PVC) tyres to be fitted over the wheel-stubs of two clip-in axles which are placed in a belly-pan already attached to the upper-bodywork. All found in a heat-sealed polyethylene bag.

* "...Major Walter jumped into his flashy maroon Jaguar and took off for London..."

https://www.scribd.com/book/163581917/Delta-Force-A-Memoir-by-the-Founder-of-the-U-S-Military-s-Most-Secretive-Special-Operations-Unit

Citroen DS

Scale is largish; around 1:24/25th or 1:30th which would make them compatible with a lot of figures? And presumably it was a range of sporty types, or 'sports-saloons'?

That Jaguar had plenty of room in the back for two small boys, but the polished leather seats combined with those corduroy shorts which were de rigueur for small boys back in the 1960's meant that as Dad screeched the tyres, my brother and I would slid about like corks in a storm, the fold-down arm-rest saving us from each-other! We - of course - would over-emphasis the movements until giggling set-in and we were shouted-at to "Behave yourselves!" by some miserable 'grown-up' in the front!

So, there you go; plastic car premiums from Fairy Snow, blurb rather replaced by reminiscing, as the pictures tell you as much as I can, and thanks to Adrian for sharing them with the rest of us.

T is for Toy Fair 2019 Reports - Amerang - Jada (+?)

I think these are all Jada, but I'm not so sure about the last two shots! The trouble with the Toy Fair is you have several hundred stands to scope-out, several dozen to cover and only limited time and you're making lots of mental notes which might as well be written on the beach as the tide comes in for all the use they are weeks later, or even the next day!

However Amerang are a wholesaler, so whether Jada or not, they are here, in the UK, now'ish and to be looked out for if you fancy them.

Batmobiles, Bat-tanks, Bat-beasts, bat-bollocks! But they all come with a really nice die-cast and plastic 70mm-odd (1:24th scale) figure!

More of the same - in closer!

To cool for Bat School! This will be issued later in the year and it's lovely - look at it; I think it's nicer than the old Corgi one, but; at around 1:18th for this, miles off the 'original' and plenty of room for all the extra detailing.

Some other dude in a spandex body-suit, I wasn't pay any attention to who this chap was, but if you're a fan you'll know instantly, 'Livepond' . . . is he? Beyond him is a Transformers franchise in two sizes, I'm not sure on Jada for these but I think they were all the same section of the Amerang stand? Except . . . the flyer is for Transformers, the vehicles are from a Japanese anime series called Initial D!

Again two sizes; 1:24th and 1:32nd, how can you not like these. They perfectly illustrate how accuracy falls with scale-reduction; note the window bars/roll-cage uprights get larger (in scale) as the vehicle gets smaller - the limitations of die-casting alloys! Sadly the 54mm-compatable one doesn't have figures, well, actually - neither of them do - "Who yer gonna call?"!

The other one I'm not sure was Jada; and can't remember where (culturally) it came from - Halo, or some Vin Diesel thing? Nice-looking little hunter-killer APC, runabout thing anyway, although the road-wheels look a bit girly!

Q is for Question Time - Fire Chief

Can anyone help Theo's brother ID his Fire Chief with a little more definitiveness than 'British'?

The car is clearly marked on the box 'Made in Great Britain' and I believe the underside of the model has 'No. 909-2L (GB)', but other than those, there are no clues. The usual suspects are Thomas/Taffy, Kleeware/Tudor Rose or Raphael Lipkin, but there were others; Tri-ang/Mettoy experimented with plastics in the latter Minic's? I feel the wheels will be the best clue, does any toy car/vehicle collector recognise them from other - branded - toy vehicles?

I'm guessing it's a generic made for someone like Littlewoods or Kays' Christmas catalogues and hoping that someone will recognise it from a branded example in their collection, maybe as a taxi rather than a fire chief, or a police car . . . military vehicle?

Friction-drive with working headlights and siren; it's a lovely thing, box looks 1950's, and the end-closure follows a pattern you see with early Randall's (Merit) - among others? About 1:24th scale?

T is for Toy Fair '18 Reports - Jada

Another company being handled in the UK by Amerang is Jada, a Hong Kong based Chinese toy manufacturer, clearly with some clout as they are in the business of buying into licenses for franchises like Harry Potter and . . . The Bat Man!

A set of 1:24th scale Batmobiles, from the original TV series and running through the movies of recent years. Each model comes with a figure which technically should be around 75mm for 1:24th, but they didn't look that tall to me, closer to 60mm maybe (1:30th), but I'm very bad a judging size away from a measuring stick. Still, the catalogue states 2.75-inches, which is about 71-and-a-bit millimeters by my measuring stick, when I'm near it.

The TV Batmobile is a nice little model, and - unlike the NJCroce one, does run, as a freewheeler. The boy wonder who is fixed in a sitting position seems to be on the [orange] Batphone!

There is also, as can be seen; a smaller version, as there seem to be for all (five?) of them. I can't remember if a scale was given but it looks to be half-size, so around the 1:48th mark and there don't seem to be figures with the diminutive models.

The back of the box suggests five man-bats to collect at the moment, and note that while they don't have the bases of the Harry Potter figures we looked at earlier; there does appear to be one on the pre-production figure used for the box-art!

'Hollywood Rides' suggests that if not Batman's enemies, there will be further extensions of the range into other film franchise characters. I think it's about time we had Clint Eastwood and 'pal'with a Confederate Wagon-team! "Three-cheers for the Confederacy!" . . . Pat . . . pat . . . pat .

Or . . . how about "The Laaast of the vee-ate inn'tercep'tuz", now - that's a toy I'd like to see!

Meanwhile, the catalogue has photographed them better than I did, but their snappers are probably paid well for the task, so they should be better! And it's another version of Batman.

Jada are also marketing these . . . sort of super deforms; in die-cast? Let's be honest here, this stuff is purely for kidult's man-caves, I mean; who wouldn't want 4-inches (that's half a small foot!) of deformed Halo Space Marine die-cast metal falling on their glass-topped coffee-table, during cleaning or because they caught the sideboard with an elbow in passing! If you drop that Hulkbuster on your foot; you're off to A&E!

However - my cynicism aside, any move away from polymers is a good thing, no matter how much we might like our vintage plastic figures . . . let's get them all to that position - vintage.

And that's four-more licenses! If there was one stand-out point being made at the Toy Fair it was that licensing is everything and everything can be licensed. For instance Monopoly (as we will see in a future post) is no longer just a board game from Hasbro-Parker (or even Parker-Hasbro!), it's a licensable brand-mark to be hired, with conditions, for specific periods, to third parties, hence the literally hundreds of versions out there, some of which don't even use the original play-mechanisms . . . but many of which have nice figures!

A is for Abenteuer in Afrika . . . Mit dem Landrover auf Safari

Spidec Spielzeug provide us with today's post, and it's a real curates egg (he says; not for the first time, there are a lot of curates eggs in the toy basket, and a lot of them came from Hong Kong!), being at the same time both a copy of the Blue Box Land Rover AND at least one, possibly two Corgi Land Rovers! Spidec - presumably - being a German importer/jobber (?), I have a nice copy of the Britains-Herald totem pole marked to Spidec somewhere.

Nice boxed set with a reasonable afternoons-worth of play value which is all you would have been looking for in 1970-something having paid very little for this off the cheapie rack! Not sure about the artwork . . . He's got two live ones in the back but then gets a sudden urge to blow another away!

Unlike the Blue Box vehicle it's aping, this one doesn't have a trailer, but because it has copied the 'giraffe hole' in the cage (the Corgi Lions of Longleat one had it); both the big cats can escape - I hope they jump out and eat the driver before he gets a shot-off, although - the way he's holding that rifle he's going to hurt himself more than the fleeing lion anyway!

The door stickers are also falling back on the Corgi Gift Set 8 Lions of Longleat (but the Corgi cab had a hole for the guard) with further references to Corgi gift sets 31 (Safari Land Rover with Animal Trailer) and 36 (Tarzan' Rover was hard-top LWB in both sets), while I think the roof-horns are from a late Dinky breakdown truck? There are also shades of the Daktari set (GS14) in the mix.

The model differs from the Blue Box one in the 'ally rims' which although just as leery with their chromium-plated finish are to a different pattern and the radio-aerial which is found further forward on Blue Box models.

A more major difference between the two is that while the Blue Box version (quite common)* is a simple model with clip-in axles allowing for hand-powered motivation, the Spidec Lanny has a push-and-go 'friction motor' for more independent carpet safaris!

* Turns up at shows as ex-shop stock and on evilBay; found with two, one or no trailer/s in recent years; it's as if there's a warehouse full somewhere, they turn-up with French and German language consumer information panels and I think I've seen Spanish ones, so a 'Euro-importer' seems to have lost a batch at some point, or maybe it was just a popular and therefore numerous line at the time?

The lion and tiger . . . "A Tiger! In Africa?"! . . . are pretty common as generics from larger bagged/carded sets or early toobs (they were called tubs back then I think!); polyethylene sub-scale copies of Blue Box copies of Britains sculpts.

Thanks to Mercator Trading for the opportunity to shoot this.