A is for Again! Art Plastics

Now, Brian has sent me a load of Nativity stuff from the Big Apple, which I told him I would shove down in the Christmas 2024 folder, because, as you can see (it's the bloody 20th already!) I am running out of time, and still have some cake-dec' images I might get up here, however, as we looked at Art Plastics several times a year ago, and as Adrian gave me this as an early, unwrapped Christmas present last Friday, here's a nativity scene!

These are, as mentioned, the Art Plastics again, and as mentioned last year, very prolific with various sizes and finishes of this set, with alternate poses, hard and soft-edges versions, yada-yada . . . Here painted and glued into a little stable set-up, the lambs asking why there's a baby in their food tray?

 

Sphagnum moss, boy, they liked glueing sphagnum moss into their nativity-set roofs back in the day! It is the same set as the boxed one we looked at a couple of years ago, but I never took that one out and shot it separately, while with this one the box is a bit meah! Around 35 (Joseph)/40mm (Wise Man) and polystyrene, except for the sphagnum moss (I hope Brit's are saying that to themselves in Lenny Henry's David Bellamy voice!).

 

Mark on the base underside of the stable.

R is for Round-up! Art Plastics

So, our last visit to Art this year, but I'm sure we'll visit them again, as they seem to have been as prolific - as knock-off pirates - out of Hong Kong as Fontanini were back in the home territory of Europe, and - of course - the USA!

I picked these up a few weeks ago, for this 'mini season' on Art, they are the same set we started last year's small-scale post with, but naked as the day they left the injector head! The carry/storage case is different, both in layout and lacking the pull-out dividers, it's all one moulding, so maybe a bit later - more sophisticated technology, as the higher shelves of the smaller compartments are now moulded-in?

I'm not sure on the missing components, as the count is different from last years, and we have all the kings, but I suspect the lamb belongs in the empty shallow shelf, leaving room for a second sheep? Joseph is missing (but the kneeling shepherd with stick can stand-in) and that a couple of shepherds are the other two empty tall ones?

The survivors! Why I'm, sure we'll re-visitArt Plastics, I hate question marks, so I'll track down a better one! The Donkey is suffering from mould-heat induced rickets, and won't stand up!

A couple of shots of off that evilBay; on the right a small scale variation of the other set we've been looking at, marked Art, on the left what I suspect is the 60mm set in a much larger tray (which may be polyethylene? The tray, not the figures), and you can do a quick comparison, one set is 'Art Deco'y with sharp edged sculpting, the other softer and more Fontanini-like.

With standing animals in one set, laying animals in the other, a choice of up to three standing shepherds, a second laying sheep with reverse head-sculpt, different baby Jesus's and several angels, in at least four sizes, and having realistic or stylised painting, on white, dun or cream plastic, or left undecorated, they could produce workable Nativities for most budgets from a basic 8-figures, up to 18+ items, and they were copied by some of their neighbours in Hong Kong!

And, while one or two of the sculpts in the more-realistic set are straight-lifts from Fontanini, others seem more original, with the 'Art deco' sculpted set, I'm not so sure if they are original, or a complete copy of a Euro-set, but I'll find out over time, and as I've said, we'll return to them with more, because there is more, not least a side-by-side comparison between the various figures/sizes and two set, which are currently in three places!

B is for Biggies - Art's Five Inch Figures

So, the reason I asked you to note the mostly undecorated Joseph with his touches of gold (and the brown 'wash' cloak), in the earlier post, was because he was channeling this whole set, which at 150mm is the biggest of the Art Plastics sets I've found so far. This one an import (into the United States) by Similegno;

Similegno seem to be a smaller version of somebody like Shackman, with other nativitie sets and household goods or novelties under their brand. A 12 piece set, which - as I've said - seems to be the average, you can go as low as 8, or upwards beyound 15, the Santons and Fontanini 'ranges' being almost limitless in the former case and well over 40-items in the latter's 35/40mm and 54/60mm lines.

Mentioning Fontanini, we have another of their shepherd sculpts in this set, albeit finessed I think, either by Art, or someone in-between? Also, note that at this size we get a separate Jesus, still in a rather truncated 'Moses basket', but the two items counting as one-piece for the total.

Produced in a faux ivory or 'Ivorene' plastic with simple gold highlights, mostly to clothing hems and the Wise Men's presents, the only colour is a semi-transparent/smokey-opaque red 'brick' of plastic making-up Joseph's (very anachronistic - medieval or post medieval) storm-lantern, which is a tied-in separate piece.

And these too have the paper/card seal over the hollowed-out bases, here; the DOnkey's, with close-ups of the shepherd and little baby Jesus . . . it's his official Birthday in a week!

If you remember last year's post, there are many copies of Art Plastics (themselves pirates) in the smaller sizes, and I'm sure over time copies of the larger (60/70mm) ones will turn-up too, but whether at this more extreme size I'm not so sure?

O is for Overview - Art's Nativity Again!

So, we've looked at the small scale, and we've looked at the larger ones in a set, this is just the main set of figures, from two sources in close-up. I seem to have shot two sets of comparison photo's, the 'before glue was removed' shots on the white bedspread, the after glue was removed shots on the black background.

Those sold separately, or in sets (without being glued into a vignette) have card or cartridge-paper seals on their hollowed bases, which presumably help them stand on uneven surfaces like the pillow case 'snow' my Mother always placed round the tree, a tradition I've carried-on!

The cards are coded and have a clear Art Plastics logo-mark, it seems the Kings' codes can be interpreted as White King, Coloured King and Kingly King - he can't be King of Kings, 'cos that one's in the manger! The inset close-up is COw!

Speaking of the cows; the glued-in set had a paler wash than the separates, and I found the easiest way to get the glue off (an old brown contact-adhesive of the Evostick type) was sit them in hot water for a few minutes which softened-it off enough to peel away, without, it was more flaky, but firmly attached.

The other animals, having said I don't think these are Fontanini copies (one is, see below), I'm pretty sure they are copies of someone else's (European) sculpts, the sheep are very familiar, as is the 'mirror' image sculpting of the pair, but I haven't ID's the donor yet? Or if I have - they are lost on the Blog somewhere!

The Holy family, and a King, showing the difference in the brown wash (actually a semi-transparent airbrushed coat), The left shot taken before the grub was removed from the bases.

The Wise Men . . . or definitely Kings in this case! A major colour-scheme difference in the kneeling monarch, gives a collecting aim, and hope for wider variations still to be found in the other two? As we can also see with the red Arabian headgear chap; some variation in the existing scheme too.

This shepherd-boy IS from a Fontanini sculpt! In fact we will be looking at his donor in a few days time if everything pans-out, and it doesn't always! He's quite a common figure in various forms, and I think it's down to the rather unique was he's carrying he lamb, it appeals visually, so was much copied.

The vignette's figures were also very dusty, the bases were much darker than the loose set, after cleaning!

I'd shot the loose sample at least twice in the more distant past and these are those shots! stuff does just pile up in Picasa, and one of the things I've tried to get done this year is a better system, or more ordered way of storing them all so I can find older images or supporting stuff!

The angel; it (they are sexless I believe . . . when they aren't impregnating virgins for their boss!) has a hollow back and you can see where it was glued on the wings and the back of the head.

An Art Plastics variation next time, after more of Chris's donation.

A is for Art's Artisan Accouchement!

Don'tcha' just love Google! We looked at several uses of Art's smaller Nativity figurines last year, and some of these (next few Nativity posts) were supposed to publish then too, but time waits for no man!

This is the smaller (12 items) set of Art's take on what are - I think - old Italian Precepi, in the larger size; not Fontanini sculpts, as far as I know, and there are several sets to look at one way or another, but this is another of those ready-made vignettes with a small assortment of the main characters, a few wood off-cuts (actually carefully formulated pieces, for mass-production!) and - not forgetting - some moss!

Carried/commissioned by Birthdays, the card & gift chain, I took the opportunity to look up Gloria In Excelsis Deo and find out exactly what it means (so you don't have to!), and it's "Glory to God in the highest" which makes sense, it then gets complicated and starts talking about the 'greater' and 'lesser doxologies' . . . at which point I lose the will to stay interested!

You can see that the wooden components are machine routed (larger parts) or die-cut sheet materials . . . nowadays it'll all be laser-cutting! The plastic figures are glued below the moss in the same manner as the previously seen ceramic ones.

Note however; that Joseph is unpainted apart from a few gold-painted highlights, and the baby Jesus is moulded into his manger - as with most of these sets more of a Moses-basket (some irony there!) than a actual manger. And in doing so; follows the smaller scale sets we looked at last year.

V is for Variations on a Seasonal Theme

We haven't had a Nativity scene this year, something I'd better rectify while it is still Christmas (I've just re-named two posts from 2020 to 2022, so there's back-up in the long-queue!), with this nice little leftover of . . . probably the 1950's or early '60's.

Which reminds me; 1979 (which is where the 'modern age' began with first Thatcher's election in May and then Regan's at the end of the following year, then Kohl and Mitterrand a year later) is now closer to 1939 than it is to today, while 50 years ago it was 1971 . . . just to make you all feel old!

89¢; would that be the '60's? Dexter's distributed by Lee Wards (seemingly known as Leewards despite the errant capital!), who were a US chain of craft and haberdashers', now owed by Michaels. I'm guessing Dexter's is a phantom brand of Leewards?

Quite a complicated set-up for retailing a set of Hong Kong polymer shite, with a separate pull out tray, divided in such a way everything gets displayed fully, must have been a nightmare to pack! The little metallic-foil laminated paper label says Dexter's Angels, despite only one angel being obvious, so it may have started life with another set?

The Christian family and the diminutive angel! Joseph is about 30mm. The angel has attachment/glue points on the reverse, the reason for which we will look at in a minute, but selling them broken down as craft items, it makes sense that a small piece - 8x10mm - might have some anchor points.

The contents of the other two obvious 'sections' of the tray includes three wise men (it doesn't have to be three), the shepherds (two) and their flock and a couple of barn inhabitants who went hungry that night as there was a soggy baby in their manger! We also get a tiny star!

I think they are all loosely based on larger European (probably Italian) sculpts and I think we've seen a bright-pink, soft ethylene copy of that cow as a Christmas Cracker prize in the past here?

The tray basically contains a kit of parts which - back in Hong Kong - is also used in-whole or in-part for other seasonal novelty items, among which is this Art Plastics set, also from my collection - which I thought we'd seen here before, but somehow the images went to the dongles years ago without being used? Art also produced some of the bigger 70/80mm sets which were straight copies of Italian 'Prespi' sculpts, but not the same as these.

These are better painted and finished (and more realistically coloured) and are probably '1st generation' to the Dexter's 2nd? You can see only the family and shepherds are used and you can see why the angel has the mounting points, it's so it can be attached to the pinnacles of these stables, despite there not being one here; I have seen them so attached!

While here, we have the three Kings as a hanging bauble for Christmas trees on the right, while more of the set are used with the candle nativity - which may have been home-made/garage-manufactured from the Dexter's set, although the little baby Jesus is a different sculpt? Other baubles probably had vignettes of the nativity family and shepherds for a set of three?

I've also seen them as wall hanging relief scenes and in snow-globes, while an equally large range of flat copies exist of this set, if not two or three sets of pirated flats which we will look at another year.

So it was a very versatile set that got a lot of dollars and pounds back to what is now - of course - the troublesome China! We are the architects of our own destruction, or at least our leaders have been.