F is for Follow-up . . . "Bestest follow-up ever, Mr Gruber!"

So, I posted the soaps and the Cherilea tank, quite close together, went off to work, came home to a cryptic comment and these in my inbox! It's only the US take on our Peruvian friend Paddington and his jar of marmalade, courtesy of Brian Berke in New York!

 

Three main views.

 

A somewhat pro-washing propagandist piece, obviously written by grown-ups!

 

Brian tells us Eden Toys held the US merchandising licence for the BBC series, so Bioessamce might be the maker, although only describing themselves as 'distributor'?

 

"Careful, you could damage a chap's nose with that!"

 

A much better sculpt than the British one we looked at earlier.

I hope Brain doesn't mind, but I've tried to get a better colour balance into the photographs, they had that slightly yellowish tinge you get with indoor digital photography sometimes, I've been getting it with my new camera, and while I took the blue of the box as the best guide, they now all look a little washed-out, but I think the colours are truer?

 

Best bear soap ever!

C is for Cleaning Up!

Having seen the guardsman the other day, I thought I'd dig these out of the David Pomeroy folder, not sure if he was involved in the sculpting of them or just had them for reference, but we have two more soaps to look at, and no convoluted plots, which require watching the extended episode on Friday!

 

The better of the two soaps, in the poorer box is Mrs Cobbit from Camberwick Green manufactured by Wright, Layman & Umney Ltd., of London (apparently still making Wright’s Traditional Soap for Smith & Nephew), and I have a vague recollection we might have had a pair from this set one Christmas, probably in our Stockings?

 

While the better box came with a slightly battered Paddington Bear, who wasn't the best of likenesses before his hat got so simplified, and dented! Made by Richard's & Appleby of Jermyn Street, they seem to be still trading, and still making novelty cosmetics.

F is for Follow-up - Deep Sea Divers

Mine wasn't Tresco, although looking through past posts on the Divers - Deep Tag, I do have one, however, by then I'd shot the ones I have here, and Brian had sent me a bunch of shots of his, so I raided the Divers & Submarines folder for a few carded sets off of that evilBay, and we have a quick post!

Two Tresco's from Brian Berke, old and new, with the Tobar one, still on the card, and which I know you could also find in Hawkin's Bazaar, as I saw it before I was collecting all scales, so at least 15-odd-years ago?

 

What seems to set them apart as two groups, whether copies or originals, Tresco versus Hong Kong, is that those from or after Tresco have a small 'pouch' like a binoculars case, on the chest, while the Hong Kong lifts have a longer, thinner case-like object you might find spare machine-gun-barrels in!

 

In the centre is what must be Tresco's last production, in bright yellow, while to either side are the ones with the tubelike piece of equipment marked-up to Imperial and Kingsway, a quick check-back to Brian's image, and you'll see all three are the same Tresco design, with the packet/parcel.

 

While all three of the ones I have here are the tube-design, which I'm calling Hong Kong, to which I added the giant 5" one we saw a while back, so you could see how giant he is! From the apparent age of the paler two, I suspect they may be earlier and the origin of the tube-design, changed from the parcel of the Tresco they were aping?

 

I should have shot that fish-tank one from Chris again too, but . . . next time! Divers are a bit of a favourite here, and we do return to them regularly! Brain also sent three individual shots, but as we've seen the subjects before, and they are in the above line-up, I put them in the folder to replace the three carded ones, against another of those re-visits!

 

There are some very interesting things in that folder, but I need to find more in context to Blog them with, and I have a feeling there's some on the old 'unknown' dongle? So we may return to divers sooner rather than later?

G is for Giants, Galaxy Giants!

Could have been 'T is for Two - Scales!'! We're box-ticking the Tim Mee Space Patrol / Galaxy Lazer Team figures here today, still available from Jeff Imel under his Victory Buy / Timmee labels, and have been in production now, as several entities, since at least 2012, in various new colours, but we're looking at the originals here.

 

These are the original 54mm set, there is clearly more than a hint of Star Wars about them, but a bit of Star Trek too I feel, in the lady with the machine that goes ping! The more conventional pair of astronauts are lifting from MPC's set I suspect, with Darth Tim waving a sword about, and a Buck Roger's chap on the far left . . . box-ticking some serious box ticking!

There is a figure missing from the above, I know I have him in 54mm (there is another sample with all colours somewhere? But for now . . . 

 . . . we'll have to look at the five-inch/120mm version instead! Not Chewbacca, oh no . . . no, no, no, not Chewbacca at all, who's he, indeed! He even has The Hulk's ripped shorts and a pair of antennae, so you don't draw that conclusion! This also shows a third colour, a very 'spacey' gunmetal gray.

Not Buck, Not Vader and Artoo-Timmeepio! The other colour of the originals was a screaming, electric pink. Issued in 1978 (as 54mm figures, Star Wars the film had been released the previous year) the upscales appeared in 1979, probably to try and compete with Kenner's phenomenal Star Wars action figure line which was changing the toy industry forever, at the same time? These are also the 120mm versions.

The Turtoise (or Tortle?) and one of the astronauts, you can see the MPC DNA as clear as day in the latter, but Crabster (or 'Lobbab') has no real or obvious influence I can think-of, besides a dozen 1950/60's pulp sci-fi novel covers!

This blog also covers them;

http://secretfunspot.blogspot.com/2012/07/return-of-galaxy-laser-team.html

 

 . . . with a very interesting Argentinian side to the story involving Anteojito magazine, which I think has been mentioned here before, but isn't in the Tag list!

 

*********************************

10 days later and Woodsey's found some more!

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2023/10/tim-work.html

N is for New Name in the Tag List!

Carrington's the Jewellers of Regent Street no less! Taken from the Illustrated London News, May 1986 'Number' as posh people title their periodicals! A sliver centre-piece, for dining tables or sideboards, you can have him guarding the cheese board and grapes, or staring-down some of your dinner-guests!

 

The obvious question being, is it a Stadden piece? The horse looks a little too smooth in my humble opinion, but the figure has some of the sharpness of folds one expects from the master, and sometimes 'figure chaps' will work with an 'animal chap' (or chapess), as they often specialise in one form of physiognomy? Looks to be about four-inches in scale/size, but he could be as much as six? I'd paint him as a Horse Guard!

L is for St. Labre Indian Catholic High School

Wikipedia suggests not all is rosy at this establishment, and I could dig deep and make a few more 'eemies' with my usual revisions of history toward a more accurate truth! But this is really only a quick box-ticker, while the eventual A-Z entry should have a better historical sketch.

We've seen some of this issuer's products before, quite recently with the canoe mini-season (thanks Brian) and ages ago with the semi-flat, relief tipi/tee-pee & children, as well as one of these totems, way back at the start of the blog, but here's a few more of the figural/toy figure output - an output which seems to have been quite prolific, due to the attachment of a Cheyenne Indian Museum & Gift Shop to the school, although there was clearly also a mail-away or direct-sales thing as well.

I've had the one on the left for years, and I have no idea how many there are now! Two lines, with the thinner more realistic ones being simple Totem poles, the other two seem more figural (legs and feet) and I wonder if they represent another type of 'totem', maybe dance costumes like the pueblo Indian clay heads, or stylised 'Welcome Poles'?

 

I could Google it for hours, but life's too short!

One of mine is missing its top-cap piece, so it was but a second's work to confirm you could stack these to infinity! I have seen one with black or green I think but the same design with the same three slip-in/slip-over, silhouette elements - 'Thunderbird', owl and wolf or bear? Beaver?.

I'm pretty sure I saw a third design of these too, on eBay at some point, so it looks like both lines ran to at least three variants, possibly more, and the construction of these is slightly more complicated than the straight poles, with no interchangeability. They also look like 3D forms of the designs you find on some of the rugs and blankets woven by Native Americans?

 

Additional to the Native American we saw with the canoes is the lady with papoose, this just plugs in to her back with two studs, and with the boy/chief makes three in the pile now. The figures are hollow polystyrene mouldings, the straight poles are polyethylene, while the 'totems' are a denser, possibly nylon polymer.

C is for Canoes - 5 - St. Labre School

We have seen the sub-scale, semi-relief Tee-Pee/Tipi from St Labre, and the Totem Pole (way back at the beginning of the blog and incorrectly tagged Labere School, which I can't edit due to rule changes!), so it's nice to be revisiting them in the canoe 'season', where they go big . . . really big!

Approximately 5" figures with a boat to match, we have what are facially kids (with native features), but dressed as adults, with a full war bonnet on the boy, and the girl holding an Indian blanket. The boat may not belong with them, being from a set of action-figures, but they fit it, so it's here as we have St. Labre in the tag-list already!

 

I've mentioned before that I assume they were some kind of fundraising thing, but I used to think gift-shop or open day types, but you often see mailing boxes in their evilBay lots, so they must have been more of a fundraising catalogue thing?

 

I keep meaning to get the Indian tom-tom drum salt and pepper shakers, but haven't yet! However, I think this is mine (I vaguely recognise the background as a carpet tile I sometimes shoot on!), and she is the third figure of the set above, to which a baby in a stick-frame papoose is a forth human element.

 

Brian also sent a scaler, with a few other items on his desk-top, you can see it's a biggie! There's Timpo there, the Britains 'trapper' canoe copy and Tim Mee in the foreground. St. Labre did do a canoe, in birchbark with leather 'bootlace' stitching, but does anyone recognise this one?

 

And a big thanks to Brian for all the canoe stuff he sent to the Blog, we'll be posting it into June I think, and that's some St. Labre School stuff, box ticked!

B is for Bisque Basket-Bearing Bounty-Bringers from Bari

One of the towns associated with Saint Nicholas, who I think may be the central figure in these shots! Held over from last year, this is a quickie, the lights are up in town now, the crimbo stories are starting to creep into the news, and, heay, what the hell; let's get festive.

Bisque figures around 4½ inches, so a bit big for cake decoration, but also not the thing for a nativity, so I guess fairground fairings with a seasonal twist. Charity shop purchase and they had a whole box of them, the sort of box traveling showmen might have under the hoopla counter to replace those won, or damaged in the trying to win!

As I said, the chap in the middle has more the look of a Bishop, and while not a medieval one, certainly a historical one, so I guess it's meant to be St. Nick the Real, rather than the four minion santa's he's flanked by, each of whom has a basket full of gifts and are obviously St. Nick the Sintered Fictional!

They're nice, mint (I went through the whole box to make sure I had one of each available and that they were good) and were not many pennies!

B is for Box-ticking - Soviet Era Troops - Russia

I mentioned this chap when I looked at the other two (below) and thought I might as well cover him while I'm looking at all the other Russians, maybe TJF, or well; his mates - can show us more or tell us who made them?

Large blow-moulded Infant toy, as I said last time there are a whole bunch of these I and really like them, but I haven't tried hard enough to grab some more. This chap is supposed to be a naval officer or cadet I think, in 'Best' or 'shore leave'? And he's armed with a toy-like but more WWII looking SMG.

United with the newer acquisitions, he reveals himself to be the smaller size at only five inches!

F is for Frangible French Fancies and Feebly Fragile Fellows

The reason I've so much in Picasa is because I shoot a lot of stuff without much thought, and then either don't know what to do with it, get a sort of writers-block, or just wait for something else to come along, this post is one of the latter, in that something else came along, but it was one of the former in that I didn't know how to deal with it!

It's a ridged vac-form; but polystyrene rather than celluloid and French; rather than Japanese. Or - at least - those present at the time of the photographing were pretty-much agreed it was 'probably' French, and that included a couple of the Dutch antique toy dealers, so they knew their onions!

For a while it looked like we might get a manufacturer's name, no-one could come-up with one (another reason they sat in Picasa for a while - I was waiting for the following show to see if anyone had anything further to add!), while the designs are a bit space-age for actual cars I think (but happily stand to be corrected; I'm no expert or follower of 1940's (?) cars).

There was only the two designs (on show - I'm sure the range was larger), the above racer and these long, sleek sports coupes, again; more space-age than actual I feel, the sort of thing you'd expect in a Dick Tracy or Mask cartoon! Although . . . the sports-car might be a known 'concept car' from the 1930/40's; with the blue-racer being a rendition of a real vehicle?

Wooden wheels attached to steel-wire axles; it's impossible to see how the axles are attached to the belly-pan due to the flush fairings, but presumably some kind of half-tube is glued over the little trench in the delicate tray, indeed - both body and tray/belly-pan are less than a millimetre thick.

Colours are understated but nice, and one wonders how they ever survived in this state, someone must have loved them enough to keep them un-played-with in a sturdy box, or maybe they were old shop-stock forgotten in a shed or garage?

The same sense of wonderment accompanied these, which were on Mercator Trading's stall at the last Sandown Park (the cars were on the same stand back in September) and may still be available from the website?

They are all different, also 'probably French' and full blow-moulds. They are all slightly different and seem to depict pre- or early-WWI French troops from before the move to Khaki, so could be well-over a hundred years old? I suspect only 'depicting' and probably from the inter-war or even immediate post-WWII periods, but still, how have they survived . . . and near-mint?

I know I shouldn't give the ammunition to my envious haters, but I'll have a guess at a mix of Alpine troops and Chasseurs? Rare as rocking-horse shit anyway! They were about five or six-inches tall (I didn't measure them), glued to 'plasticard' bases and unlike the string arrangements of similar Japanese-made figures they have plug-in arms like cheap dolls or the arms those Action Man clones used to have (except the officer who is a simpler, single-piece sculpt), again; they seem also to be polystyrene rather than the celluloid you'd expect of some Japanese equivalents.

27-07-2018 The Figures are now ID'd as Unis from the 1920s and copies of SFBJ metal sculpts - tags added

U is for Universal, Super-powerful, Superhero Heroes!

I don't normally carry Action figures here, but when we have them, and especially when they are contributions, they will find a place on Small Scale World as they have a place in the small-scale world. Sometimes that will be on the A-Z Blogs (which I've been working on in the background), and that was where these chaps - from Brian Berke - were headed until it seemed there was enough in the Spandex Leotards folder for a small season!

Also I can't be too snobbish about one aspect of the hobby 'tree' when I'm as likely to Blog Christmas-tree decorations or bubble-gum premiums the next day! Different strokes for different folks!

We have seen one of these before, in the Firefighter 'mini-season' back near the start of the year, but along with the firefighter was these Universal Hero figures, all of which could double for both Ninja warriors (with a can of black spray-paint) or Mexican Wrestlers!

Larger sets come with three figures and a helmet/mask, no prize for guessing who that's supposed to represent! Ten accessories include cats-claws, a kebab sword (?) a Katanga, three throwing stars, two odd-looking helmets and a truncheon with Arab-blade at one end and knuckle-duster at the other, which must be the oriental martial-arts equivalent of a Johnny Seven 'One Man Army'!

These two were donated to the Blog by Brian earlier in 2016, the fire fighter was mentioned above, but he came with another take on Captain Red-White-&-Blue! He gets to chose from a pair of swords or throwing stars.

Close-up of the same figure, there's not a lot to add, these are branded to OKK Trading and imported into the 'States by JPW International, I have seen them in the cheapie shops here, but not studied them closely.

LP/Lollipop Toys (who imported the Silvercorn sets) has upgraded theirs to 'Super Powerful' while having them made in a more Ninja-like colour of plastic! With those sandy breast 'plates' it's like they are trying to be heroes in a half-shell too!

That's because half of all brand-recognition is visual familiarity, the colouring of TMNT's being as distinctive a brand-mark as the name, or the shells! You'll notice from the box-art that these are available with a range of familiar-looking eye-masks and come in other shades of green (like TMN Turtles!).

A busy parent will see the colouring, the whacky bike, the two 'bad guys' on the other side of the card and buy these; then, when Junior kicks-off that they're not TMNT's, the parent (thinking on the hoof and lying like a banker) will tell them that maybe the Turtles were busy and recruited some humans to help!

You may have noticed that the first figure had light-up eyes? Well, so does this one and with the same card imagery is clearly from the same place, but is now a Samurai . . . yet looks like a Ninja! He also comes with a full set of accessories, a shield and two helmets - greedy!

T is for Two Large Mounted Figures

Continuing to look at the stuff I photographed at Plastic Warrior a week ago, and like yesterday - bigger stuff; as we had Hong Kong second yesterday, they can go first today!

How lovely is this? Possibly (probably) a copy of an American or Canadian touristy thing he's only about five inches, so he'd be a bit small next to Reliable or Marx 6" Indians, but still a fine figure, he has a separate plug-in tomahawk and is probably missing reins as well as his left hand!

Years ago when I worked for a dealer we had a whole boxful of these - foot and mounted - and they looked pretty bad in my memory; seeing one in the flesh did nothing to lessen the shock of the things!

Landi-Xiloplasto-Nardi late-type mounted Roman, seems to have been sculpted by the same person who did Atlantic's Romans and painted by a Philistine on his day-off! What? What else do you want me to say? Expressive sculpting? . . . It's been modelled in pre-chewed bubble-gum with the blunt-end of a tooth-brush! Expressionist painting? . . . It's painted like the furniture in a bordello, fer-f's-sake! Still - If I'd had the budget I would have bought it!

And yes - the carpet at the Winning Post is a tad 1970's leery; almost as leery as the Nardi figure!

B is is for Big Buggers

Yes, you are right; we a in a phase of lazy-posts! This is due to technical issues with Hotmail-call-me-Outlook which is currently being addressed by Gmail! In the meantime I'm just throwing stuff up here in the hope it sticks!

A random sample of larger or 'over-scale' figures in a variety of formats and from various sources; left (4-inches) to right (8-inches):

• Poured-resin Egyptian god, from a charity shop, I bought six about twelve years ago and then found dozens of other sculpts on evilBay - possibly a part-work thing? But equally likely to be just tourist tat.
• Large Fireman, he looks vaguely French or German, but the helmet is wrong for both (given the era he was likely made in) so I suspect a Japanese tin-plate or Hong Kong plastic toy with their take on a British fireman?
• The HK blow-moulded GI we looked at last year.
• Russian blow-mould (actually I think 'rotational moulding' he's far more substantial) also been seen here recently, he's the larger of the sizes they issued these in.
• Hong Kong polystyrene statuette of a larger Greco-Roman marble original, mirroring and possibly a direct copy of Fontanini
• Carrara-marble sample with the aforementioned Fontanini's 'Rocco' or Regency lady atop it, polyethylene with colour-washes.
• Branded to Noki (www.nokiware.com) and imported by Paladone (www.paladone.com), this guardsman washing-up sponge is - lets face it - in design parameters; no more than a Roman arse-wipe! Like the fireman he's two halves of polystyrene moulding heat-welded together. Both the website Addresses seem to have been amalgamated. and there's disco-divas and a lovely egg-set with guardsman toast-cutter still on their books.

G is for Ginormous Jungle Man

He's ginormous, and he's a man, from the jungle! No making it up as I go along here! Shot this two or three years ago now, but as I try to steer-away from the army-man stuff at chritsmas i thought you'd be interested.

He's 'believed to be' Spanish or South American in origin, although he ticks all the Hong Kong boxes apart from being marked with anything. A blow-mould about 5 1/2-inches (bit smaller than Action Man/GI Joe) with the (probably slightly bulging) base removed to give him a flatter standing surface, that's it: Ginormous Jungle Man . . . with a monkey!

B is for Big Blow-Molded Boys

Biggest purchase at Sandown Park was these three, found on Steve Vickers table, I had to have them; A) because they are so different from the run-of-the-mill 54/60mm stuff, and B) because I need enemy for the commoner Soviet Era Russian toy soldiers in a similar style.

Made in Hong Kong, and presumably sold as beach-toys, probably with a large jeep or truck type thing, one of them is quite clearly General George C Scott . . . err . . . S Patton!

All around 135mm (just over 5") and blow-moulded to a reasonably substantial thickness, they nevertheless have a few thin areas at the boot-tips having been blown from the helmet end . . . Ooh-err missus!

 

Compared with 5 and 6½-inch Russians of the same era, the Russians are more solid mouldings, although also hollow, I suspect these are produced by what is known as rotary moulding, like large pieces of play-equipment, agricultural sprayer tanks or traffic barriers and such-like (road-side salt or sand boxes) the walls being much thicker and having no thin-spots. They also hold greater detail than yer'average blow-mould.

From behind; the Russian figures are from a much bigger range, with historical and naval subjects, and they come in gorgeous colours, rich reds, purples and greens, Chinese orange, and I have a sailor in storage in a nice shade of malachite green in the storage unit. There is a set of Russian ones in the same type of blow-moulding as these GI's, but they have funny little disc-bases on.

Three against three will do for now, and I have a large fireman in a similar style somewhere!

The one in the middle looks a bit like a young (Deer Hunter) Christopher Walken? Aren't they brilliant! Steve's got a couple left.