Y is for You Can't Hold a Candle to Them!

Chris Smith sent me the most incredible link a while ago, and I was so amazed, I didn't even look at the price as I hit the buy-it-now (BIN) button! It wasn't terribly clear how many were whole or - indeed - how many were damaged, but then they still had an ocean to cross, so it was cross-fingers-and-see-what-turns-up time!

And this is what turned up, miraculously a good more than half, were passably 'complete', and I say "passably" as we shall see in a second or two, playwear has rendered a lot of them even more blobby than they were when minty fresh, which would have been pretty blobby, as they are basically made of crayon wax!

There are four simple poses of generic WWII/Early Cold War types, which, clockwise from the green pair are; Sentry with slung rifle on right shoulder, holding SMG across body, water-cooled Maxim/Browning MG and a bazooka/ATR. And the SMG (where discernible) is more Soviet Bloc than NATO, so really generic!

Colour variation would suggest they were actually made from wax crayons - one of the Crayola big 64-caryon sets maybe? Bottom left is the broken ones, but I've kept them for some of the colour variations!

Equally, how they came about is a mystery to me, but I'm assuming some kind of home-moulding kit? They came from the 'States which is home to the Mattel Thing Maker (1962?),  which had many mould- or accurately mold-sets (were they for fighting the monsters?), the Kenner Presto (1972?), the Mold-a-Rama coin-op's (1962 to the present day) and more recently the Toymax metal molder (which could take wax) among others (did Hasbro have one?), but the closest I could find was Emenee's Formex 7 sets with the Dyna-Cast which was another wax moulder, and they did do a military set, sadly with four larger scale figures?

Size comparisons; above with the early war, under-armed, cash-only thank you Mr. Churchill Flying Fortress (from Adrian Little), also in wax and below with an Airfix USAAF pilot, you can see the wax figures are a pretty perfect HO-gauge compatible 18mm.

Many thanks to Chris for finding them, and does anyone know where they came from, other than America, which I just told you! A brand; we're looking for a brand! They could even be something more commercial and pre-manufactured, or cast from home-casting metal war-gaming figure moulds?

Later - Correction on the numbers - counting the two images - at this late stage! - It's about 82 good ones to 100 broken, so just under half, some of which have been given away already!

Later still - might be Kenner's 'reusable plastic' Mold master set from 1963? Also found the Rapco - Plasticast and Gabriel - Monster Machine! but putting Kenner in the Tags . . . for now!

A teeny bit later . . . yeah! That's it- 1963 Kenner's Electric Mold Master toy maker No. 1410, now I've got to track down all the AFV's!