I is for If I Have To!

Not really in the mood, so expect an intermittent service in January! In case anyone else hasn't noticed, the World's going to hell in a hand-cart, and there's no sword-based baby to save us. And who had Putler turning out to be the mere Mussolini to Trump's Hitler, on the card for 2026?

 

Happy New Year!

I know from my job, this was generally, a crap Christmas, the most telling sign of which, was that all the fairy-light shit and illuminated/inflated, technicolour bollocks in peoples front gardens (hey, you can do it tastefully, or you can do it as half-arsed shit, or OTT classless excess, most chose one of the latter two options!) had gone by the 5th. Last year many were up through the second week of Jan', and we weren't swamped, at work, like last year.

 

Anyway, plenty more to say, and I'll keep saying it; those who pretend it's not happening deserve everything that's coming, for never getting involved! Getting back into the saddle with a simple box-ticker, this is from the UPC scans folder, and follows-up, or follows-on from the previous posts on the subject - Monograms many copyists.

 

I was promised a load of stuff on the subject back when we looked at them on one of the other occasions, but I've heard nothing more, and suspect Covid may have changed those plans? We looked at them, in no particular order, here:

 

Revell/Roco-Minitanks - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/07/m-is-for-monograms-many-mates.html

 

UPC (1st post!) - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2010/05/u-is-for-universal-powermaster.html

 

Fujimi - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/07/us-army-is-for-more-clones.html 

 

Model Power - https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/08/r-is-for-roco-as-rack-toys.html

 

Hong Kong's finest! Still needs a lot of work, but this was a reasonable primer! https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2016/08/m-is-for-monograms-men-made-much_10.html

 

You'll also find Past the Post and ABC, and others, on the Monogram Tag, but this is the UPC supporting stuff:

 

Box art from the HO set (3034), copied from Roco.

 

Rather dodgy early photocopy of the instruction sheet from the James Chase collection. 

Catalogue image, 1968/9.

From the same catalogue, the image (and box art?) for the "1:40"th set (5149), actually the same vaguely 1:35th of all the other versions which aren't reduced to HO/OO.

An instruction sheet I happen to have, and which may sort the question over some of my polystyrene samples, which seems to hint at an alternate box-art, closer to the Revell 'convoy ambush' artwork, of one of the larger sets. In fact, that's a clue as to Roco's being copies of Revell, as the Patton Figure was only in that large 4-kit set, he being the Sherman tank commander?!

 

That's it, just a box ticker!

O is for Old-fashioned Odd & Sods!

The finale post in this hexapartite mini-season on old fashioned cars, brings us back to the Americans, even though one's a British brand! Yes - of course I Googled synonyms of 'sixth', I'm not that bright!

We looked at this years ago, but on that occasion we looked mostly at the figures, with a quick look at a car I had removed from the game-mechanism . . . this time we're concentrating on the car, as I found another going cheap in a charity shop and took photographs as I went about the vandalism! Love the artwork!

Made for Parker by Tonka, but as everything, box and components is CE marked, they must be recent enough to be from the Tonka-Hasbro-Funrise era, which - these days - also includes Parker Games, among many others! Hasbro's tentacles are very-much like the old Lines Brothers!

The spinning cars are easily removed with a sharp ker'nighff, and because there is a 'curb' running along the . . . err . . . running-boards, it's easy to get a nice straight line! I actually did the job without the driver in the way, proving that these shots are posed 'fake news'!

Which leaves us with a nice, if rather simplified 'ready-made' hoodlum's runabout, a mid/late-20's, prohibition-era, sports-convertible with the roof down. Would I be way-off to suggest Buick lines? And quite large, maybe around 1:40th in scale?

Last time we looked at this I think I may have said something about the small, simplified driver, but I've realised that as an American Mafioso 'drive-by' car, the non-modelled steering-wheel would be the same side as the shooter ("Get your hands on the wheel dude! Jesus!"), and what's actually modelled isn't a shrunken driver, but the violin-case associated with hiding Mr Thomson's famous, fully-automatic firearm!

These three are actually Disney! And a really nasty PVC which sweats an oily/greasy liquid, like a damp, chewy-sweet - they all had to be washed twice before they could be photographed! The wheels are non-turning, but are on a rigid - probably polypropylene - chassis which is clipped to the PVC body. Somewhere between my vague 'mini and 'micro' designations, they might suit 15mm figures?

I think they were made for the UK Disney Stores (most of which seem to have gone now, Reading's might still be in situ?) by Rainbow Toys, however, Rainbow (also connnnected to Toy Options) worked with LJN in the 'States, so it might have been that they are wider-known toys, possibly sold through actual Disneyland shops in the US or near Paris? Equally, Rainbow supplied Argos the UK catalogue shop, so there could have been several ways of getting your hands on a set?

'The Set' being a re-hash of the old 1960/70'sDisneyland play set from Louis Marx in America, which did have a car similar to the middle one above. It also had an omnibus, but a single-decked affair rather than this double-decker  . . . ♪♪ Big four-wheeler, scarlet-painted, London Transport, diesel-engined, Ninety-seven horsepower om-ni-bus! ♫

Did/do they have a red double-decked jobbie at the Paris Disneyland? I've ever been, something I'm quite proud of, almost as proud-of as the fact I've never watched the Kardashians! That's Old Fashioned Cars for a while, but we will return I'm sure, I found another couple of Hong Kong carded ones taking everything to to the storage unit, and we haven't done the Micro-ones yet!