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 ♪♫♪♪!!

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.

HO is for Lone Star Germans

Just a box ticker to get something up here for this afternoon! The Lone Star Germans reduced somewhat!

This is the contents of a full set, almost certainly from the D-Day play-set with large vac-form, you get (got; 60+-years ago!) eight each of the six figure poses downscaled to an HO-gauge compatible 23-odd millimetre size along with two of the sub-scale (N-gauge) Land Rovers from the Treble-O-Trains range range, but in a dark olive, satin finish, rather than the bright, gloss red, black or British racing-green of the railway versions, giving a 50-piece count - 100 with the Paratrooper opo's; we'll look at another day.

The painting here has been restricted to a stab-and-hope dash of matt, flesh-pink in the vague areas of the face and hands - check-out the flame-thrower operators!

Later they seem to have done service as Chinese troops (probably referring to the Korean conflict) with an all-over gloss-red hat and while one might be tempted to imagine that this headgear embellishment was home painting; note that A) the flesh (better registered) is also now gloss and . . .

. . . B) another out-painter has gone with a more detailed attempt at the red-star, Chinese troops (and later the Vietcong) carried on their soft hats; both colours are also in a gloss-finish.

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?

A is for 'Alfa'!

Civilian/domestic cars rather leave me cold, and even though I pay attention to these plastic vehicles in order to build the bigger picture of the 15 or 20 brands and brand-marks involved, I can't get excited about them, especially this one which has no branding to speak of.

Box with car - there is no branding on the box other than an 'Empire Made'

Car with box, the only marking on the base plate is a 'No. R445 Made in Hong Kong' which is not related to Lucky's numbering system, so it'll be one of the others, which as they aren't linked with figures or military 'stuff'; can go hang!

Did I say it was an Alfa?

There may be more at Planet Die-cast, links for which were in the older posts, but my coldness toward cars means I can't even be bothered to go and look for likely targets to link to now! Also this is the forth post I've written in the last few hours and . . . blearh . . . whatever . . . you know the score; bruum-bruum-car; boxed; plastic; Hong Kong!

Better stuff tomorrow...

D is for Dennis

Although this has no moniker, it has the look of the Dennis Fire Appliance's I remember from my later childhood? Also I'm not that sure of scale (about 1:24th?) as there's none given and there never is with these Hong Kong vehicles; even when issued in 'sets', they were meant as stand-alone toys and scale wasn't an issue - it's one of the things that makes following them so hard, with three sizes of Jaguar (for instance) you're not always sure what you're looking at on-line!

Clifford carried a fair bit of Lucky's stuff, but they carried other stuff as well, so nothing definitive, but it all adds to the whole. The artwork shows the back door opening along with one of the side-shutters, and that's what you get, the other doors are all integral to the moulding except the crew door, which is absent on both the models below, although there are signs of it having been there.

The real reason for photographing it! Two figure sculpts, driver and sit-arounder! They are the best gauge of scale, being 70/80 mil, which gives a size between 1:22 and 1:25th scales. Made out of the same colour plastic as some of the smaller Lucky firemen, it's another clue both to this being lucky and to Clifford's relationship with Lucky being a further clue to the LP link.

Branded to neither Lucky nor Clifford though, it carries a base-plate for WS Toys! I'd like to think it's a made-up brand, but as I said above: nothing's definitive with these plastic vehicles, and has we've seen with both the figures and the London Bus, and base mark can change or dissapear!

H is for 'Howitzer Tank'

Yeah! Kids just don't feel the same about 'self-propelled' artillery; might as well just call it artillery and watch sales tank . . . heh-heh-heh! "Better add 'Tank' to the box Dave"

I shot this at the PW show on Adrian's stall, what a peach; and an interesting choice for a model as this M55 was part of a relatively short-lived family of post-WWII SPG's with common parts, quite quickly replaced by the M108/9 family.

The model's big too, around 1:24th, maybe 1:18th? - It's about a foot-long anyway, and all in a dense silver polyethylene, what I call beach-toy scale!

The more interesting aspect than it's age (as a toy) or good condition is the shell-rack over the engine compartment, just like the Taffy Toys 'Pershing/Patton' tank we looked at back at the beginnings of the blog which was of a similar size. There are differences, the Taffy has no moulded track-link detail on the inward-facing 'walls' of the moulding and its shells are blunter-ended, but the firing mechanism is near identical, even to the flat blade trigger.

It raises the question as to whether Taffy were part of the Thomas group (as previously suggested - by me, on advise) or part of the Tudor Rose group of equally interconnected companies/entities as evidenced by the similarities with this SPG?

We looked at the two very similar yet different 5.5-inch guns last time too [Just checked, looking for the above link - no we didn't but I have the photographs, so I'll do a follow-up in a day or two! Tuesday!], it's as if there were two parallel lines, possibly designed to be sold side-by-side or at least - to complement each other?

F is for Follow-up, to Lucky Toys; Flat-screen Beetle - Fire Chief!

We're going to look at a few of the vehicles I photographed at Sandown Park last month which may (or may not!) be from the Lucky Toy (or LP!) stable/s over the next few days, and we’re starting with a little peach!

It's a VW Beetle (raaayy!), flat screen (double-raaayy!) but not split (boooooh!), it's a fire vehicle (raaayy!), with push-and-go motor (raaayy!) and blue windows (cool!) hiding a lack of figures (boooooh!) and it's fitted with racing-slicks . . . on a Fire Chief !!!?

I used to be a big fan of VW Beetles and some of my friends still are, but I saw the light . . . here's the news; all vehicles even back in the 1950's have/had a built-in obsolescence, and while a 15 or even 20 year-old vehicle can be a cool conversation piece, a 30 or 40 year old bubble-car with a propensity to catch-fire on the motorway, is just an old piece of shit - isn't it?!

Same with old-series Land Rovers (aluminium rot), 1950's Harley Davidson's (noisy, gas-guzzling, rust-buckets), any pretty Citroens (hydraulic nightmare), Morris Traveller's and Mini-traveller's; they get woodworm in their bodywork FFS! Old vehicles look best (and last longer) in museums, period.

Clear base mark with the full Lucky horseshoe. Points to note are that the motor housing has bend-down tin flaps, and while there are two screw stations, only one is being used, suggesting other variations, probably for other/different customers with different wheel or bodywork arrangements or even different motor-types/configurations?

T is for Telecoms-Truck with Telegraph-Poles for Telephone-Line

Marx, dime-store style, hard polystyrene truck with two clip-in telegraph poles on the roof!

That's it . . . it's a Marx, dime-store style, hard polystyrene truck with two clip-in telegraph poles on the roof!

You want more? . . . I was saving this to compare with the Merit telegraph poles, but they're different, the ones I think might be copies are the Lone Star Trebble-O Trains ones in sub-N-gauge, but they're in storage, so the comparison can wait a year or two and these images can sod-off out of Picasa and go to the Marx dongle! Also - what's with the hole in the roof? Almost like it's been designed for action figures!