C is for Crazy Cartoon Kids

Yeah, I'm giving that K a battering! This set came in back in January, but I didn't get to shoot it until February, It's funny, 'cos Bushy keeps asking his readers to send him their 'LP' lists, while I keep posting the LB lists! We've had the Dinosaurs and Cavemen, did the Gygax knock-offs and skirted round the farm sets (and musicians); not quite ready to do the definitive on them or the other Funimals yet, but I thought I'd better do the Wild West, which will leave the Christmas cake decorations for another day!

 

The box had seen better days, and there is at least one item missing, but otherwise this seems to be a complete rendition of the Wild West line, a similar 'circus village' was seen on Faceplant a couple of years ago, with all, or most of the Funimals, if only we could find something similar for the fishermen . . . throw them in with the divers, and a boat!

 

Cowboys!

 

Mexican!

 

Only five foot cowboys and the missing Mexican (he'll be in the next post), for a six-count (the Indians get eight), I love how some enterprising out-worker has painted the skin of the flesh-coloured figure ashen-grey, for a contrast . . . so he looks like a zombie cowboy kid!

 

The Stage Coach

 

I suspect it should have the sticker on both sides, not least than because the box shows it on the other side! But, like the Mexican it's been lost somewhere between Hong Kong, Italy (from whence I purchased it) and here, so I'll have to keep an eye out for a damaged one going cheap, with at least one sticker I can transfer!

The horses are in the same arrangement on both wagons, as per colour distribution (it's a single moulding), as they are on the box-art, but a different pattern, so, I guess each out-worker got into a different rhythm, but all got one of each colour! Wagoner is the same moulding on both, increasing the cowboys to seven sculpts.

 

Boys!

 

But the cowboys are outnumbered by the Indians who have eight foot figures, four each boys, and girls, while there are no cowgirls? Fluorescent pink is probably not quite historically accurate, and you may be noticing a similarity between some of these poses, both cowboys and Indians, and the Britains Deetail range, not that they are direct piracies, but some of the poses have been used as a guide, which means these can't be older than around 1972?

 

 Girls!

 

Not so with the girls, and I have to apologise to a mate of mine, as I sent him one of these as a 'Little Plumb', a few years ago, and it turns out she was a Little Plumbette! You know who you are, and I'll sort out some boys as soon as I have some duplicates! For reasons I can't begin to explain, these four seem to be far easier to find, loose, at shows, or on-line, than either the Indian boys or the cowboys?

Raising the count to ten!

Looking similar at first glance, these are completely different sculpts, although they have reused the body from the neck down. But a lot of effort went into the whole set, as shown with these two. Opposite arm sculpts to match, and it's clear the body tool and arm tools were different as the plastic-colours don't match, which happens if you're adding the pigment by hand, to neutral granules at the final stage.
 

Final count 9/11

The demented horse is different from the wagon animal, but was used for both riders.

 

Three buildings are included, which are half-Timpo/half-Atlantic in execution, with a shallow rear assembly (identical for all three) attached to different facades, this is the Silver City Bank, but when you're outnumbered by the locals you haven't got time to rob a bank!

 

Construction follows the Timpo model, but as shallow 'theatrical scenery' in heavy polyethylene blocks, which is more like the Atlantic 'Abilene West City' buildings, from Italy?

 

Frisco Bar

City Office - Land Claims / City Jail

 

All the free-swinging doors are factory fitted, but the back 'box' requires assembly.

Another Britains copy, this one Herald, and an umteenth-generation one though, with many better ones coming before it, including the hard-plastic one we saw as part of a cake decoration set a while back.

 

The distinctive LB fence sections, you get six in two bags of three, presumably because three was the number added to other sets, like the My Farm sets we saw, or the Animal Fun Fair set?

 

As far as I know, the two cactus vignettes are unique, rather than copies of anything else, and while I'd previously ID'd the righthand one and listed it in the Lik Be master list, the left-hand one here, was a revelation, when I got hold of it earlier this year.

 

The tree is a common Hong Kong item, and while carrying an LB A-code, is a fourth-or-more-generation copy, as is the ex-Crescent monkey-puzzle tree.

 

Two scenic vignettes, both taken from Britains Deetail, which nicely pulls it all together, re my comment above, and the well! We looked at various versions of the well a while ago, and I don't remember even looking for marks in the roofs!

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2020/09/d-is-for-ding-dong-bell-pussys-in-well.html 

 

But I bet it'll turn out that the slightly smaller ones are all LB cake decorations, that chromed one is similar to the spacemen from Culpitt, while the slightly larger one (on the left of the two shots) will be a donor, from someone else? But it's nice to be slowly pulling all this stuff together, I got a lot of help with those well-posts from Chris Smith and Barney Brown.

 

Finally, a unique, but very childish design of Totem pole, to add to that oeuvre! Apart from the base sticking out, it's a slab-flat with a smooth, blank reverse.

 

Nearly everything in the set carries a standard Lik Be A-code, which, with a few exceptions among the scenics, and with the addition of two Rhinoceroses, are in several blocks toward the end of the main LB A-prefix numbering, as known to this author. But there are a few 3, 4, 5 and even 600's before the B-codes, with probably more to discover, much of the below was only added a few weeks ago.

Listing

Wild West

≈

No. A149 - Wishing Well (two-part, marked in roof only)

[unmarked] - Farm Fence Section (x6 in large set) 

≈

No. A153 - Tree/Shrub with Clump of Grass 

≈

No. A219 - Teepee / Tipi / Wigwam (ex-Britains Herald, polypropylene, might be bought-in, but has LB code) 
No. A220 - Totem Pole (unique, but juvenile design) 
No. A221 - ‘Clancy Claim’ Sign (Britains Deetail piracy) 
No. A222 - ‘Dead Mans Gulch’ Sign (Britains Deetail piracy) 
No. A223 - Stage Coach (Multi part kit with 4x A225, marked on one half of body only) 
No. A224 - Cowboy Waggoner (for stage-coach [A223] and Wild West Wagon [A234]) 
No. A225 - Cart Horse / Wild West Coach-Wagon Horse (MADE IN . . HONG KONG .)

[unmarked] - Horse-Trace/Furniture

[unmarked] - Base for Four Horses

[unmarked] - Small Wheel/Axle Assembly

[unmarked] - Large Wheel/Axle Assembly

No. A226 - Native American Canoe (hard polystyrene) 
No. A227 - Indian Girl Canoeist (one feather in headband, earrings, pigtails) 
No. A228 - Indian Girl Canoeist (two feathers in headband) 
[unmarked] - Canoeists Arms (dipping oar to left) 

[unmarked] - Canoeists Arms (dipping oar to right)
No. A229 - 
No. A230 - 
No. A231 - 
No. A232 - Rhinoceros (very male!)
No. A233 - Rhinoceros (female?)
No. A234 - Wild West Wagon (Multi part kit with 4x A225, marked on underside of wagon-box) 
No. A235 - Silver City Bank (three part building frontage) 
No. A236 - Frisco Bar (three part building frontage) 
No. A237 - Land Claim Office / City Jail (three part building frontage) 
[unmarked] - Building Roof Piece 
[unmarked] - Building Rear Wall 
[unmarked] - Building, Left Side 
[unmarked] - Building, Right Side 
No. A238 - Monkey Puzzle Tree (Crescent copy, x2 in large set) 
No. A239 - Group of Cacti & Succulents (x2 in large set) 
No. A240 - Prickly Pears (x2 in large set) 
No. A241 - Indian Girl with Tomahawk (pirated by SK as No. 194) 
No. A242 - Indian Girl Dancing 
No. A243 - Indian Girl with Tom-Tom Drum 
No. A244 - Indian Girl with Bow & Arrow (shooting up) 
No. A245 - Cowboy with Lasso/Lariat 
No. A246 - [Mexican Boy with Six Guns] (should prove to be A246?) 
No. A247 - Cowboy with Six-guns, One Pulled, One Holstered 
No. A248 - Cowboy Boy with Rifle

≈
No. A263 - Mounted Indian Boy, Lance & Rifle 
No. A264 - (Possibly unused horse code, replaced by No. A267?) 
No. A265 - Mounted Cowboy, Two Six-guns, One Pulled, One Holstered 
No. A266 - (Possibly unused horse code, replaced by No. A267?) 
No. A267 - Wild West Horse (for both riders)
≈
No. A280 - Cowboy with Six-guns (right level) 
No. A281 - Cowboy with Six-guns (right high) 
No. A282 - Indian Boy ‘Little Bear’ with Lance 
No. A283 - Indian Boy with Tomahawk & Rifle 
No. A284 - Indian Boy with Bow & Arrow (shooting parallel) 
No. A285 - Indian Boy with Tomahawk and Shield (pirated by SK as No. 195)
≈
Sets
No. 1104 - Cowboy & Indian (large set containing one each of everything, with multiples of scenics, building parts, and draft-horses, along with six pieces of farm fencing)

F is for Fireman Pat, the Paw Patrol Builder

There's a ton of this infant oriented stuff out there, and in scanning the shelves I tend to filter it out, what with the American knock-off of Tomas the Tank engine starting to make inroads to British shelves, and Postman Pat now joined by similarly-cloned builders and firefighters (still called 'firemen', shock-horror!), even if you could argue Pugwash or Mr. Ben came first!

 

But luckily, Brian Berke spotted these in the 'States a while ago, and they've been in edit since . . . checks images . . . 2024, in fact, June, so two years ago, and well overdue for an outing here. Also, while flat erasers aren't necessarily a thing, we have had similar robots and dinosaurs, so by default, they are part of the Small Scale World oeuvre now! The law of unintended consequences!

 

 

Apparently direct-from-Turkey imports, or is that a version of Arabic? Zaini (LZ) are well known as a Kinder rival, and we've seen a few figural efforts or vehicles from them over the years, the likely prizes as illustrated on the box, weren't in the box! But do include two figures who may turn-up in mixed lots someday?

 

Instead you got flat-slab erasers with water-slide transfer-printed images of the characters from Fireman Sam on them, credited to a Prism Art & Design Ltd.* Many thanks to roving reporter Brian, for roving, and reporting!

 

*According to the Fireman Sam wiki - "Prism Art & Design Limited is a Welsh entertainment company currently owned by HiT Entertainment, itself a subsidiary of Mattel" - so, wheels within wheels! 

M is for Moon Scout

That's Moon Scout, Google, it might be Moonscout or Moon-Scout, what do the bot's think? Moon. Scout. There's quite a few Moon Scout's out there, this one is from the New Bright Industrial Co., Ltd., of Kowloon City Road, Hong Kong, purveyors of the finest Moon Scouts, and the latest addition to Operation Wind-up Russet Twig!

 

I bought it without really looking at it, as it was obviously in excellent condition, however, there was one disappointment; the driver, so obvious in the artwork, and who would have rendered the whole thing a Jeep sized 1:32nd'ish vehicle, was not actually there, the clear-red cab hiding the mechanism of the walkers! Boo!

 

Which means you can drop the scale, to a four or six-man mobile office/command centre or 'people-carrier', around the 30-40mm mark, something which is reinforced by the scale of the safari-ladder on the rear of the vehicle, which also makes it around the same scale as the Soviet walker we looked at here

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/04/p-is-for-popovs-patented-plastic.html

 

Which, obviously calls for a fuller comparison when they are brought together, but which makes the Soviet toy the reconnaissance 'Scout' to this follow-up bruiser! I've seen white-bodied versions of this, as per the box-art, on evilBay, but frankly, the silver-chrome effect is 'spacier'!

 

Unlike the clockwork of the referenced one above, this one is packing batteries, and with more 'up and down' movement in the legs, I'm confident it will outperform the Russian effort, as our tanks are outperforming theirs, in Ukraine, right now!

 

Both are quite common, I've passed-up two of the Soviet offerings in the last few years, unless I see one in the box, I don't need another, while I've been passing these, usually somewhere down the back-wall, at Sandown Park for over 30-years! Now I've a boxed one, box-ticked!

E is for Eye Candy - Tootsie Toys Boxed Set

I shot this at the Sandown Park show in September 2023, almost certainly on Adrian's table, when he was still Mercator Trading, and it's interesting for two reasons;

 

The first reason is that it ID's that funny little man, in die-cast alloy, who turns up infrequently at the older toy-soldier shows, in mixed rummage trays of lead and hollow-cast stuff, of whom I have a few in an 'unknown' bag, now known!

 

And secondly; it's got the same trucks as those Charbens ones we've seen (and did Johillco have some?), but as it represents the US Militor 3-ton truck, Ordnance Department Model 1918, or Mack AC, I think it's fair to say Tootsietoys were first, and the UK-produced examples are copies?

 

As you also see various versions of the 'plane (half eindekker, half Lindbergh) about the place, it can probably be assumed these sets were imported into the UK at the time - between the wars, making piracy of the elements easier?

O is for Odd Ossuary

OK, so to the last post on the Gogo Crazy Bones from Magic Box which have been in Picasa for too long (as have lots of other things, and they're still there!), not least because they have limited pull for most Loyal Readers, beyond this box-ticking exercise!

 

So, I bought a final big lot which came with a Gogo's tin, I didn't shoot these as to a certain extent they were much of a muchness, both with the ones in the original post, and the first few of this sequence, But note, in answer to my comment in the preceding Crazy Bones post, here we have a decent number of dark greens in both opaque and transparent. Likewise with the blues and a bunch of candy-mice and bubblegum pinks.

 

There were also a lot of the glass-clear ones, with more transparent in the reds and oranges, but it was the odds which proved more interesting and are looked at below, by visible marking, the reason being, I didn't look so closely at the original post's figures/bones;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/10/c-is-for-crazy-bones.html

 

. . . but suspect a few of the undecorated ones in that lot were from the groups below. It should be noted that the link in that original post also talks of Coca-Cola premiums somewhere, but below are various issues/tranches of their offerings.

 

Apparently issued by Imperial, who pops-up here, regularly retailing novelty tat, and things which look like other people's things, those non-Brabo bendies, for instance, and here they have gone to Israel of all places, and found a Laor Toys, to make several tranches of their Jojo's, over three or more years in the mid-nineties.

 

A whole set of T-Shirts?

 

I assume Tim Foot is the 'designer', however, I don't know the significance of 'Haxey', but will put it separately in the Tag list for those who do! And these seem to predate Gogo's by a year at least, however the collector's wiki, seems to have various producers of these 'bones', before Magic Box blew the gaff wide open?

 

Metallics, China, not Israel, and not of the same quality as the later Magic Box ones; quickly worn away with play, likely a high shine spray, rather than a genuine heat-coating or dip-plating?

 

Don't know?

 

So, we have a kid's craze in the mid-1990's, major player is Magic Box, an unknown Spanish company who will become a global giant off the back of them, who call their product Gogo's Crazy Bones, and which are designed to be used like Roman or pre-Roman knuckles, in a variety of games, rules for which were included in the blind-bags they were purchased in.

 

Flat colours, Metaflek, clear, semi-transparent, metallised, decorated and undecorated, possibly used as premiums by Coke-cola, Hubba-Bubba and others, rival brands, unique sets per. Country, special issues for smaller organisations (UK's FIFA World Cup team), convention and swap-meet exclusives (usually an existing moulding in a special finish), there must be several thousand to find, I've picked up a couple of hundred or so now, and that's too many!

 

A couple of useful links for those who are really interested;

 

Fandom

https://crazybonespedia.fandom.com/wiki/Crazy_Bones_Pedia-Wiki

 

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gogo%27s_Crazy_Bones

C is for Charity's Colourful Carrion

This was a smaller purchase, around the same time as the others we've seen, i.e., more years ago than I care to remember, or have actually remembered! Nothing new with these, but the last post is interesting . . . ish!

 

Anodised metallics, with a transparent blue monkey on the left, it's actually one of the more realistic Crazy Bones so far, with the yellow tiger/cat (2nd post) a close, but demented, second, then I think we have a butterfly, a Hitler Dog (it's just the flash!), another animal and two pirate skulls.

 

Pastels and purples! See; not really a Hitler Dog!

 

Everything else Gogo! I quite like the ghost, bottom-right. Overall there haven't been many dark green ones from Magic Box, have there? The last post in this sequence will add further to the story, then we may have a more rambling post on all these blind-bag things, then there's more from Brian and some larger ones, before maybe some more Kinder and Lego?

D is for ♫♪♪ Dem Bones, Dem Bones, Dem . . . Crazy Bones! ♫♪♫

Another quick box-tick of colourful weirdos, this was a charity bag in 2018, I can't believe I've been threatening to post these on and off since 2016, I knew I'd put it off for a year or two (it's hardly high priority), but a decade? How fast has that gone!

 

Playing!

 

Blacks, whites and greys.

 

Some proper reds.

 

Greens.

 

Tart's nail-polish colours!

 

Camel dung!

 

Blues.

 

Oranges, yellows and caramels. 

 

Another factoid to add to the previous stuff, this was the first one with Metafleck type glitter inclusions, in a semi-transparent polymer, I have no idea if that has any significance beyond a new variant, but it might have!