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?

D is for Donation - Chris - [Not] Paratroops!

The exception which proves the rule! As we saw Chris's most recent parachute toy finds/donation in a post at the end of April, I thought we'd look at the civilian vehicular portion of the last parcel, and there haven't been any in the three recent tranches from Peter, so it all sort of balances out!

 

Vessels, and we have an all new - to me - sailing ship, possibly a game-playing piece, or just a novelty? A variation of Hong Kong mini bath-toy to its right, both versions of cereal premium baking soda submarine, and  Marx Miniature Masterpiece rubber boat, all good stuff!

 

Five of the Quaker cereal premiums at the back, two of the commoner Hong Kong Minic knock-offs. but in the less common blueish-sea green, and another of the forward sloping prow vessels, which were new to me, when we saw a silver one recently (probably also from Chris), this pink suggesting the bottom-end of rack toys, such as those parachutists who would come in a bag with a couple of aeroplanes and a cyclist or something . . . something like this ship?!

 

Another pair of cereal premiums, this time the R&L plastic-kit types of US locomotives, from different sets I think, and a similar Hong Kong effort in black, all three are in polystyrene.

 

A couple of Kinder or Kinder-like racers in the foreground, with something more interesting behind, it's in the style of a blow-mould, but is actually PE mouldings, plugged-together, however, what Chris would like to know (as I would), is . . . 

 

. . . who made it? It's clearly marked 'Made in Finland', and there can't be that many Finnish toy makers; we've heard of one or two, in the Space Toy business, courtesy of a loyal reader, on the Blog passim, but does anyone know who made this?

 

Micro-stuff included a Star Wars Micro-Machine, and one of the MPC 'minis' copies, out of Hong Kong, all useful grist-to-the-mill, and one day we will look at all the Micro-Machine stuff in better detail.

 

Vehicular jalopies aplenty! Game-playing piece, back left, I think (one of those car-park/traffic jam puzzle-games?), bits of some Kinder or similar model railway vehicles, a soft-plastic copy of the old dime store 'Morris Mini-Minor', the die-cast is a Hong Kong take on a Marx or Tootsie Toys mini, I suspect, while the charm-looped actual 'jalopy' is probably a cracker toy.

 

It's funny ironic too, as it's probably taken from those Japanese slush-cast minis carried by Shackman and others, while it is also aping the actual silver, or plate charm objects, of the sort well-to-do young ladies collected on a bracelet?

 

Back, centre is an interesting, all-plastic American muscle-car type (or Japanese sports type?), marked 280 ZX Fairlady, which Google revealed is a Japanese model - the eponymous Datsun-Nissan to be accurate, I don't know anything about the maker of the toy version though, do you?

 

Interesting, but very large, and will probably end-up on the swaps page, this is a Play Craft [sic - usually Playcraft] large-scale ('Big', G-gauge or LGB) hopper-car, for an all plastic floor/garden railway, the wheel-base however seems to match the soft ethylene infant railway, which shared the gauge of Brio wooden sets!

Heading to the card and paper tub (a Really Useful Box 35lt job), these are a pleasant mystery! Not apparently configured for slotted-wooden stands, but having clearly had the home-cut fragments of magnetised rubber sheet added by an owner, I don't recognise the characters, but they would seem to be recognisable comic creations? Can anyone add anything that might serve as a further clue? Batman?

 

A 1968 Japanese anime; Speed Racer, with Chim-Chim the monkey, see comments. 

 

Thanks again to Chris for all these, the highlights, for me, are probably the pink vessel and the card bits, it's always nice to see things you've never seen before! Although a racing car from Finland is pretty special!

M is for Memories of the Old Toy Shop

If we've had Scully & Sully, we must be into the festive season, but there's another box to tick, before we can consider the season complete, if you know what I mean, and so, earlier than some years, here's the display in Fleet Library of the annual toy-related exhibition by the Fleet & Crookham Local historical Society.

 

A coincidence, I'm sure!

 

Loved Fuzzy felt when we were younger!

 

Seen on the Blog, in three colours? Rosebud - bought by/swallowed by Mattel.

Rushden has its own Local History group;

 

https://rushdenheartsandsoles.co.uk/commerce/rosebud-mattel.html 

 

They're just very expensive Gonks for a generation who never had Gonks!

 

Mon'Kay! He has a very complicated history, involving two brands!

 

I've noticed that while Johnny Vegas can mention the monkey, he has 'lost' him,

and apparently can't legally discuss anything else about him!

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_(character) 

 

Our gyroscope had a metal 'Eifel Tower'!

 

The tin-plate racing car looks modern?

 

New to me.

 

Nope! That Dinosaur isn't 48-months old, and never sold for shillings!

 

Stegosaurus in a generic (department store Christmas stock?) Triceratops' box?

 

Solido behind, don't recognise the one in front?

 

Not quite half-way through the month, and that's me done for the year! Sixth-best year ever for posts, despite two and a half months off, in April-May, and July, but don't worry, there's too much in the short queue to quit now, maybe I'll have a quiet January!

N is for November's Sandown Park - Vehicles

As always, I picked-up a fair few vehicles a month ago (where does it go, this time which is already so limited to us!), and a pretty eclectic bunch at that, but Sandown Park was originally a train and die-cast show! Anyway, let's look at 'em!

A bit pricey, at a tenner; I like mine around the five-quid mark, but it does have one of the MPC-copy astronauts, which are harder to find. I may already have one, but unlike my MPC sample (Golden Astronauts), I can never remember which Spacex ones I have and which ones I need, so there's a tendency to just buy them! Not that the MPC situation is any better, I know I have all bar one, but can never remember which one, so don't buy!

 

Couldn't resist this Hot Wheels model, it's the basic 110 'Defender' as we took delivery of, back in '86/87, ahead of the rest of the British Army, because the Berlin Brigade had a separate procurement / purchasing system! Although most of ours were soft-tops, and the CO got a windowed 'Safari' hard-top 'limo' with foot-steps and roof-rack!

 

Nice - probably copies of a Western novelty - all plastic, Hong Kong made, road rollers, two in one colour, the other - bagged - in another and many thanks to Adrian Little, who found these and put them to one side for me. They'll make a nice line-up with the Blue Box, Blue Bow and others, alongside the Montaplex ones!

 

Eldon, no, Elmont, a mistake I always make! An early British maker of road transport models in plastic, rival to Wells-Brimtoy, with similar fly-wheel, push-and-go motors, they are manufactured in an early, soapy plastic, similar to the French cart in Chris's last parcel, but less stable and prone to warping.

 

It's in a hell of a state, but . . . I have a red one with . . . green (?) cable drums, which is so badly deformed, I will cannibalise it to get this one ship-shape. This has a slight shrinkage dip in the cab-roof, which will need hot water, a wooden wedge and some super-glue to straighten again (for a decade or two?), but my existing one has warping through the cab, body and cable drums, so there was method in the madness, and it was barely any money!

 

A lovely French motorcycle, possibly Cofalux, and probably a team-support vehicle from a Tour de France boxed set, alongside the Matchbox scrambler one, but not the common yellow plastic, number '8', this red, number '10', was from a gift-set.

 

Baby in a boat . . . it's a boat, with a baby!

 

Seen before, but another sample, cheap!

Kamley/Kwong Shing

 

Magneto, a German firm which actually produced a few of the dancers and ethnic dressed figures seen here before, and there's a post in the pipeline, but for now - missing its propulsion wand, this is a magnetic push-novelty, where negative magnetism is used to propel the car.

 

Zero-Hour / Code Zero plane, someone had glued the broken tail stabiliser back-on, but back-to-front, which I've fixed, but it made it dirt-cheap! These have passed their silly-money point now, and there was a lot of Zero Hour stuff around the halls, most of it very reasonable, compared to evilBay prices of only a few years ago!

 

I was getting stuff from the horses-mouth on this Bluebird line, a while ago, but then he started sending it to other Blogs, so it lost it's exclusivity, and I realised it was more about promoting his site, than supporting mine, or contributing to fandom, so I dropped out, and have stuff I'll probably never publish, and which subsequently appeared elsewhere, anyway. I'll promote your site if I chose to, or because it's the right thing to do, not because you ask me to, or it becomes conditional! 

 

I tried to pay Steve Vicker's for this unmarked 'British' generic novelty, on Saturday just-gone, as he'd given it to me at Sandown Park, and I felt he'd given it to me because I'd told him the vessel was a German premium and didn't belong in the box, but he wouldn't take money for it, so I filled my boots with French, Canadian and American plastic, to even things up a bit!

 

Technically, it IS a German premium, it still has Sanella on the hull, but it must be clearance or some kind of unused-stock sell-through, and once I'd found the little cellulose sheet (bottom left image), and read the instructions at home, it became obvious, from the faint traces of dark-brown glue (Evostick as was - evo' for evil!) on the sheet, that it was the correct ship.

 

The set of premiums (Manurba, Siku, someone like that) can be found unbranded, usually in brighter colours as later rack-toys (Tallon like), or with branding, like the Sanella here (a German margarine for baking, still going), in a number of configurations, but all on the same hull, there’s a liner, tramp steamer, small tanker and this . . . exploration vessel/mail packet?

 

It says "Gives hours of fun", but I suspect it was minutes of misery, trying to get it to work, against a very sensitive chemical reaction that's too easy to muck up, and where would you get small camphor tablets these days? The threat of banning moth-balls was enough for the industry to withdraw them, and while the EU never passed the rule, they've never returned, and most of the ones you might find on evilBay or Amazon are fakes . . . another missed 'Brwreakshit benefit"!

P is for Philanthropic Polymer Pile

I haven't been as quick or often through the Charity Shops, this last eighteen months or so, work commitments, eBay bottom-feeders and a couple of store closures making it a less lucrative quest these days, but I did manage two quick tours of Farnham and Fleet's charity shops last week, while I had some time off, and I found these.

 

This was a quick round-up in Fleet

 

Box tickers for the tubs of generic play-set accessories, but also a new figure, funny how, despite forty-odd serious years of this, there's still new figures, in every bunch of plunder, every donantion, even a random bag of charity stuff! Jame's Opie always asks - primarily of lead hollow-casts and solids - how many figures (actual pose mouldings/sculpting) have there been, and the answer, from where I'm sitting, is millions - one is including copies and colour or paint variations.

 

A couple of slip-cast kittens, with slightly 'Disney' or 'doe eyes', but a rather interesting glaze technique, I thought? And mostly because they are often in mixed lots of cats, or pets, I now have quite a side-collection of china, bisque or chalkware cats. These are priced 3/6 each (three shillings and sixpence, 42 old pence, about 16p in new money, at the time?).

 

A pair of Toy Major Dino's.

 

A right old mix here, with the Ray marked Smartstudy and Viacom 2021, I assume not a Finding Nemo thing, but some other franchise, maybe Baby Shark?

 

And then, the next day - to Farnham!

 

Given the cost of these new, or 2nd-hand with box, I'm guessing a tenner for the three, while a swallow, was also the best I was going to get for what, to me, are box-tickers, to compare with plastics in the future? Not 'Britians' but W'britian from the US.

 

Simply marked 'China' and probably from some toob, or tub type thing, but a nice sample of ocean or shore-dwelling mammals, from the left; a Sea-lion, Mantee, Seal and Walrus.

 

It's Christmas! A nicely executed bit of poured-resin, possibly from Italy, but I don't know, as they are unmarked where visible, and have green-baize discs on their undersides, hiding any clues which might be there?