H is for Hong Kong Hounds?

The reason I was digging out old images of Dorset hounds was because I was raiding the unused 'Dogs' folder, for the Hong Kong dog images, which tie-in to those Adrian gifted the Blog, a few weeks ago, and of which I mentioned at the time, a follow-up was in the queue, this is that follow-up!

However, first I'll raise a few points over this shot, which I took as a load of stuff headed-off to storage, back in 2021, and which were mostly - then - recent acquisitions, also including some of the attic stuff, but not the storage stuff from Berkshire, which was somewhere else!

 

Those starred in yellow are the Kellogg's premiums, issued more than once, and probably manufactured by Crescent, their other production for Kellogg's neatly bracketing the issues of these, but that is speculative, and the only point to note is the variations of caramel or butterscotch, one being a darker orange, the other a paler yellow. 

The five starred in white, however, raise several questions, not least who made them and how many sets are they from? The two boxer-dogs in creamy-white are most likely to be Marx, Swansea, the smaller (which I used to think might be a Bulldog, to the larger boxer, I know, legs are too long!) is a dead-ringer for the US/Hong Kong productions of Boxer dog, from several Marx sets, while the Pekinese also resembles the Marx version, but is not the same, while the short-tailed setter/spaniel type doesn't equate to any of Marx's as far as I can tell, and the Dachshund, smaller than the Kellogg's one, is, like the Peke', not exactly the same as the Marx one.

Obviously, Marx wouldn't issue two different sized Boxers in one set, while the lack of sculpt-similarities with the other three suggest three or more origins for the five, and any help from readers would be welcomed. I think the slightly smaller Corgi on the Cereal Offers page may go with some of these five?

Below them is five-of-six of the Airfix dogs, from their early days, fully covered on the Airfix Blog now, here (mostly toward the bottom of the post/page), these had slowly revealed themselves to the hobby, on these pages while I was in Fleet, but with the final one coming-in after this 'conversational' shot was taken - added below.

Below them are two of interest; the inner pair, one of which is a perfect scale-down of the Airfix fox-hound, the other - an Alsatian type - being little alike the Airfix sculpt. They may be Christmas cracker prizes? While the outer pair are from of the Hong Kong set, we saw the other day, and are about to look at fully below.

Quickly though, a reminder of the sixth Airfix sculpt, a Spaniel, seen before here, but clearing Picasa and getting all six together for only the second time, it is intended to shoot all six together, properly, in the not-to-distant future!

These cards seem to be aping another set of larger dogs, made in the US by Ajax (Blue Ribbon Canine Pals, as Joy Toy), and titled Blue Ribbon Kennel Club [now added at the end of this post], not to be confused with Marx's Blue Ribbon Dogs which are smaller, usually hard polystyrene and factory painted in Hong Kong.

 

The actual dogs are copies of Tim Mee and are reported to be slightly smaller. As I have no definite Tim Mee ones, I can only go on sight, and, well, they look alike, with the quality of the two sets being so similar as to suggest the tool may have made its way to Hong Kong?

 

And I say this, not to stoke controversy, but because a UK seller has a whole bunch of these, and I bought a set a while ago, and shot them before the six came in from Adrian They are lacking the caramel ones of the Hong Kong cards, but have additional black plastic examples*, and knowing there was Tim Mee European production, I wonder if these are in fact the Tim Mee versions, the colours - apart from the lack of caramel - are the same.

 

And, until I can compare them to the six from Adrian, the two I shot a while back, and any others in the stash  (and there WILL be more in the stash, there's a whole 'really useful box' just of domestic dogs, somewhere!), I can't say whether there's any size differential between any of them!

 

*To further confuse, Adrian's six includes black and caramel, along with two shades of the oxide-red!

 

A slightly washier white version of the Alsatian was kicking around at the time, so I managed to shoot a comparison with him and a duplicate Boxer. Whether they are all from the Tim Mee tool, or from two sets of moulds, they are not rare!

I can say there's a size differential here, though! The one on the left being a clear copy, probably from gum-ball capsule machines or, again; Christmas crackers, and I know there are plenty of these in the stash, we've seen a fair few here over the years, particularly sheepdogs, but others too.

 

The kind of Hong Kong sets the above yellow jobbie appeared in, they also tended to be found in the previously mentioned crackers and as capsule toys. Quality is usually pretty poor, with deformation, flash, miss-moulding or short shots getting past the - non-existent - quality control!

 

This is actually a better set, again there are probably a few in the main stash, and when everything is brought back together, we'll have a revisit of all this stuff, if I live long enough! I'm not sure who's sculpts they are copying, but they will be copying someone's!

As a full stop to the post, this strange combo' is a doll's clothes set from Germany, out of Hong Kong, and included is a charm-looped dog, very similar to the copies of Thomas's dogs, as we saw back here, and may very well be part of a larger set, catalogued by a Hong Kong producer for various end-users to chuck in crackers, gum-ball machines, or, indeed, doll's outfit sets!

 

There was a follow-up to the Thomas post, here.

 

As a 'Brucey Bonus', the Ajax dogs mentioned above, from old evilBay lots, you can see the similarities with the Hong Kong cards. These are much larger though, and one of the amusing things about researching toy dogs, is that Marx, Ajax and Kellogg's all did almost identical Poodle sculpts, which were then copied endlessly, and there are so many variations out there (also saw a few here once), from the huge blow-mould infant/beach toys down to direct copies!

V is for Variations on a Theme

Nothing earth-shattering or definitive, so much as a few bricks in the wall, on the subject of the two robots seen in the previous post, which I picked-up at Plastic Warrior's show back in May, these are from a number of image folders I have with lots of pulp-era 'dimestore' stuff in, and were probably all shot on Mercator Tradeing's stall over the years.

 

We did have a look at them here before, as well, and some of those in this post may have since joined my sample in the older post, to which the other two will be joined, when everything gets sorted at the other end, where-ever and when-even that is!

 

I shot these on Adrian's table, this Saturday just gone, the reason being I thought it was interesting to show, that while there are some differences between the early and late runs of the old tool, here we have two originals (blue and copper-bronze), and a Glencoe re-issue (turquoise) who all have the same PAT. PEND. (C) mark on the rear of their torsos, latter Glencoe issues had a larger set of marks for some reason, but I've yet to shoot one, I have a sealed set, which I'll open on here one day, and see what marks that's got!

 

While these silver ones have no markings at all, and must be copies? You can tell they're not from the same tool by the lack of a collar/washer on the rivets compared to the Archer originals. I'm pretty sure the one in the two comparison shots is now in my stash, while the top left image of the back was taken at Sandown, at the weekend, and shows a more gunmetal/aluminium coloured moulding. The green one I picked up in May is the same moulding.

Suggesting these (bottom image) are clones too (Ajax, Banner, Dillon or Empire? Maybe Tudor Rose or Kleeware over here? Nobody seems to be 100% sure! Indeed, one source states no one else produced them, which is patently false.), while in the upper shot, I compared them to a few other spacemen from Marx, Manurba (et al) and Torgano., that were available on the day! Really only musing on the robot, I have rather neglected all these dime store era space figures, but soon hope to have the time to play catch-up with all of it.

G is for Glow-in-the-Dark Space Troopers

A real "Bloody Hell, this thing's taking off, find something we can put out there NOW!" moment, as Toy Box rushed to exploit the excitement being generated by events far, far away and long, long ago, back in 1977!

This auction was brought to my attention by someone on Brian Heiler's Faceplant group three or four years ago, and I was pretty sure they looked familiar (beyond obviously being the old Archer sculpts), so I grabbed the images, against one day blogging them.

 

Then, when I was up the storage unit in Jan. '22, putting space-stuff away, which had been in the garage, I spotted these in a tub, so shot them poorly, in a confined space, better than nothing, and you should have seen the shots I deleted!

 

I think they are from the old soft-ethylene Hong Kong copies rather than the proper Archer moulds which Glencoe cleaned-up/repaired a few years ago, well, a while-ago now. Although they do claim to be 'American Made'?

Finally, last year, these were up on feebleBay and I nearly bought them but the BIN-price was a bit steep for loose, seventies, rack-toys! They do seem to suffer from brittleness, but it may just be the tool, and I'm missing the chap with the longer ray-gun. Only the six poses seem to have been produced, with only two armed, and they are helmetless, but glow in the dark!

 

Space Trooper Action Team, from Toy Box Inc., absolutely nothing to do with Star Wars!

Not Archer . . . Ajax sculpts . . . Doh!

I is for In Space No One Can Hear You Blow Out Your Candles!

Cake decorations, not rack-toys, but the price-points and ephemeral nature of the products are pretty similar, and as I say most years, a few days in, RTM isn't just for RT's! Wilton today, and their quite eclectic output of Space Toys over the years, and probably not all of them but the ones I've been made aware of.

 

These are all generics, in that the rocket also comes as a stand-alone cap-bomb, and while I think I have one now (might be on the Blog?), it wasn't here when this post started to take shape.

 

Likewise the MPC copies are pretty common, these seem to be not the best copies, but not the worst, and from the colours (which I like) may be the same ones issued in rack-toy bags by . . . errr . . . Payton? Someone like that!

While the Ajax-Archer copies seem to be the soft-plastic with paint, Hong Kong figures also issued as both rack toys and bagged parachute-toys, in which guise the later, unpainted mouldings, are quite common. But the helmets would seem to be unique to the Wilton issue copies?

I can't find these in the catalogues I have, so they must have been a short-lived item, if they were Wilton, I was told they were but can't find anything definitive, I believe there's a second pose, I only have the one at the moment, but note, on his back; the same KT in an oval cartouche, as the firm which issued all those statuettes and pencil sharpeners, stationary stands etc . . . we've been looking at here at Small Scale World in the last few years !

 

He (previous shots) may even (with his mate) have been the production versions of the two in this catalogue image, with the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM) or lander, as I don't think I've seen these either? Revell scale-ups? Behind them is the Gemini craft with two larger scale astronauts.

 

Here's the three of them, what do you think, could he be contemporary with the other two, having replaced the 'mock-up' press figures, or am I still looking for three other astronauts? And the bigger guys served to ID others in the 'unknown seated pilots' zone! the KT is about 45mm (50 with the domed stand), the other two 60+mm

We have also looked at the loose candle-holder figures here, not that long ago, but there was a second set with a UFO and one each of the two figures, so Junior could have space-cakes until he was eight, on two purchases! Then, if he makes it, the nursing-home staff could get them out for his eightieth!

 

The collection, as it stands, minus my loose UFO figures. The catalogue image above seems to show a transparent red-nose, mine is a totally opaque, flat red. And I'm not sure if the figures are even in the bag? I think they're stuffed into the ship, but I can't check as it's gone to storage.

 

 

I think I nicked this off evilBay to remind us of the figures without opening (or having to find) my bagged set!

B is for Best Show on Earth! 2. Airfix and Related

I had some luck with early Airfix at the show, and there were some related bits, so I shoved them all in one post, except the two early motorcycles which ended-up in a mixed shot in the Civilian Vehicles post!

Two of the Airfix mounted figures after Bergan/Beton, both mounted on soft polyethylene horses (with the correct bent tail and cavity mark), although being a hard polystyrene themselves. The lefthand shot is missing the hunter, who turned up later, hence the rethink on how to do the posts!

 

As a result that image also has two probable Argentine figures a ceremonial type (top right, integral moulding) and a Native American (bottom left, separate rider) along with two other 'styrene riders, one of whom seems to belong with the marked-Ajax horse, the other is from the Magnetic 'Bucking Bronco' novelty act - the third I've picked-up in a few months, typical; isn't it, like buses; you wait ages for one, then three turn-up together!

A mixed bunch of the early 'eight figure set', being, from the left; Airfix Paratrooper, possible pair of BR Moulds Japanese and three of Peter Evans' home-casts. The first having the clear mould-release pin-mark which seems to differentiate the Airfix originals, the two Jap's missing an obvious mark, hence the possibility they are BR and the trio being a sharper, rigid resin to the softer pink one we looked at last year?

 

In the last lot from Chris Smith, I held over a bunch of these from the plunder posts, and I picked up a few more the other day, so a major re-hash/addition to that page will be forthcoming, as are similar changes to the mounted 'Bergan Beton' page where an awful lot have come in recently, in addition to the two above.

This is a fun shot, or at least the upper one is, the lower one is a closer look at the five Gulliver Japanese infantry, one of which is based squarely on an Atlantic 'Sendai' sculpt (Gulliver's go-to for piracies when they weren't copying Reamsa, Comansi or Jecsan!), the other figures being four old Airfix Sculpts.

The upper shot has, in addition, two rather wreaked Airfix originals for a not-very-useful comparison (they've both had their feet mucked-about with), suffice to say the Gulliver are a little smaller, but well sculpted. And in the foreground, a gloss-painted 'Toy Soldier' style home-cast piracy in lead/whitemetal with a wire bipod.

Not Airfix but of the same era, the same rarity value as the 'eight' and the same esoteric range, are two on the left from BR Moulds, a Lifeguard which is almost certainly from the Trojan set (post coming) and an Indian who doesn't seem to conform to any of the known BR mould-tool catalogue descriptions, and has something of the Sacul guards in his plastic colour, but seems to be from hollow-cast, so got included here!

 

These were mixed in with everything else! They go in a big bag which gets sorted into the master-collection/future stock every few years! I actually found a Prussian advancing from the Waterloo sets the other day, trod into someone's lawn, so Airfix 'HO-OO' have become a standard feature of the Anthropocene geological layer, along with crisp packets, chocolate wrappers, drinks bottles & cans, cigarette filters and vehicle parts/metal or rubber fixings!

 

Thanks to all for everything last month; Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith and Peter Evans,

Thanks to all for everything last month; Peter Evans, Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan and Micheal Mordant-Smith.

T is for Two - Carded Western Sets

Well, having split the Past the Post folder yesterday, these Indians might have languished for a while, but in looking to see if Brain had sent anything that might have gone in the previous post I found some Indians he sent last year, which reminded me I had an Ajax set which needs Blogging (I had posted it on a Faceplant group a while ago), so a quick search in the big folder and we have another T is for Two... !

This is the other Past the Post set I have, also from James Opie, but not dated, however it's safe to assume they were bought together and will have been available in July 1964.

A  mix of clones from Crescent and Britains (including another iteration of the running guy we've managed to see three or four times in the last few weeks here at Small Scale World!), along with an odd stumpy chap (far right of the left-hand - yellow - half) who also has several piracies, but I'm not sure I've ID'd his donor yet . . . if he has one? Hilco, some European make? There's some duplicates, so I don't know if this is all the poses available, there may have been more.

Base mark is not the same as the Monogram GI's we looked at in the previous post, and the base shape of the donors is copied, so increasing the likelihood of sorting loose figures into two separate groups?

As we can see I have done here in one of the unknown/TBS boxes! A few points to note, by the asterisks:

• ·         Yellow have similar bases to Chris Smith's UN Infantry (previous post)
• ·         Red are from the canoe we saw a few days ago
• ·         Blue are three, unrelated, unknowns who don't have their own bags yet
• ·         Green are a good lot (LH) and true fakes (RH) pretending to be the other lot!

And this is the sort of image where everyone who's ever saved stuff for me or the Blog needs to be thanked, as it's only by gathering and collating all this HK junk, that the tales - eventually - get told!

And note this is only the Britains/Crescent/Lone Star section, there is a big section of Airfix clones and quite a few Jean copies elsewhere (but they were both later (1980/90's) and I am having more success with brands/carriers for them), while these are mostly from the late 1950's and through the 1960's.

This came-in a while ago, and I posted it elsewhere with the joke "I'm still waiting for the 'Flower Arranging Indians' but in the meantime I guess this will have to do!". A small 'dime store' set from Ajax with ex-Bergan/Beton sculpts all in a hard polystyrene.

Brian had sent these a while ago, Ajax copies of Beton, with a nice selection of colours; I rather like the one on the right who appears to be mottled blue/yellow.

A sizer; while the mounted figures match the 50mil'ish of the originals and the Airfix/Reamsa/Reisler (and others) copies, the foot figures are heading for 70mm, nice big toys for little hands to grab!

I is for It's Not Rounders and It's Not French Cricket!

I picked up a small bag of mostly American Footballer's the other day, but there happened to be some nice, early-looking baseballers in the same bag. To be honest I wondered if they might be Commonwealth (right colour, but too glossy?) or Van Brode (semi-flat), but a quick Google revealed them to be Ajax, and not that uncommon.

These are they! Factory painted in a dark chocolate brown (and blue!) on a pinkish-fawn base material, it's a hard plastic; probably polystyrene, but some of the properties of a clean Bakelite, the sort used for visible electrical's in domestic settings, plugs and switches. They are smallish, about 50-mil - I didn't measure them and they've been put away now!

The three on the left were also in the bag, while I had the one on the right, all copies of Lido-made US originals. These are the poorer copies, unpainted and in two variations, smooth bases and hollowed bases with a HONG KONG mark; the smooth-based figures are marked on the body - see below.

The better copies are hand-painted and can be found in soft plastic or - as here, carried by Wilton's - in hard plastic, these are very similar to the American Football set we looked at the other day/will look at in the next few days (delete as applicable!) and might be from the same source. These also carry a small HONG KONG on the base - see below.

Loose odds include a soft plastic version of the previous figures, a figure who may or may not be a baseball player (he has some properties in-common with some novelty soldiers I have with separate clip-together belts and stuff), but I think he is, his heat-shrinkage damage making it hard to read the details!

The other two are probably gum-ball capsule-toy inserts, with a glossy 20-odd millimeter one and a larger, earlier looking chap who I like as he's  a catcher (?) preparing the 'secret hand signal' for the pitcher!

Markings, or lack of them left-to-right from the top, Ajax are blank, marked and smooth based Lido copies, the other marked, flat-base (Wilton) and the three smaller novelties.

The body-mark of the other Lido-copy, compared to the hollowed-base one; orange is another colour that's hard to photograph, but it is there! Like American Footballers they are not numerous this side of the pond; it's not our game!

Speaking of American Footballers - meet you here again in an hour-and-a-half!