T is for Two - Donations

On two recent meetings Adrian Little of Mercator Trading has given me small tubs of odds and sods, some of which are quite rare, unusual or interesting, and having found the errant pig hiding in one of the folders yesterday, I thought I'd better get the rest up here and shared with you.

Two of the pretty ugly, but quite rare Cherilea dinosaurs start this little parade of past plastic playthings, and while the Pterodactyl is reasonably complete, if rather playworn, the something ...nodon (tyranodon?) has lost a leg and the bit of the tail with the start of its name on! But, these will go with several others, some also a bit broken, in a growing sample.

 

Another handful of Blue Box Japanese, I will have some spares for swaps once they are all brought together and sorted for a final time, which is ironic, because for some time I had so few Nazar Marchenko sent me the missing figures as one of the first contributors to the Blog. Since when I've found and shown colour variations, painted examples and several mounted have either come in or been seen courtesy of Chris Smith!

 

Four Marx and a Deluxe Reading/Topper 50mm air-force/space types, very timely, as with the others in storage, they will be useful for a forthcoming comparison shot, and quite compatible with each other.

 

Another of the Taiwanese issue of the old European Asterix ice-cream/bubble-gum premiums, I opened the previous bag to shoot for a post here at Small Scale World, so I'll be leaving this one intact, as it's the less common one with shield etc . . .

 

I think these may be from Starlux, but are unmarked and probably from a boardgame, issued as premiums or possibly sold as die-cast vehicle set accessories, a' la Solido? I honestly don't know, and Starlux did have some unmarked stuff, and did issue unpainted toward the end, so?

 

Two of the figures from the MPC playset, on Planet of the Apes, the figures are in the style of Marx's made in Hong Kong WoW and Disney stuff, gloss-painted hard polystyrene, and while quite common are nevertheless nice examples of a subject which didn't get many toys outside the Mego action figure types.

This is fascinating, and anything you can add will be eagerly digested, it's a polystyrene novelty elephant, which is in two halves, apparently joined by a large ring and cavity thing which had me momentarily thinking it was a secret safe, hidden cavity type thing, before realising it's glued to its base (which also looks like the lid of something), even though there's no glue between the two halves which join tightly with no flash.

 

It could be the [sliding] lid of a vesta-case, cigarette case, or visiting/playing card case of some kind, maybe another version without the base does do service as a secret stash? Quite a good shade of 'ivorene', it's a charming, yet enigmatic little thing? 

Then, the other day, Adrian gave me a small tub of mostly die-cast vehicle accessories ad model kit figures, and these are the smaller ones with Lledo, Scalextric, Hornby and an unknown lead/whitemetal figure (O-Men?).

 

While these would appear to be the incomplete contents of both versions of the Airfix Old Bill/Omnibus kits, a Matchbox, a Dinky and a Britains Stage Coach lady passenger. I wasn't sure about the standing figure, but he's a heat-shrink which someone has painted-up anyway!

I is for Indomitable Gauls . . . Still Holding-out!

A funny one this, I have the better known pastel-shade ones from Ola, Americana et al, which were issued on a one-random premium per product item basis over here, but we are actually going to look at the slightly larger knock-off clones seen elsewhere, because that's how the cookie crumbled!

Bi-lingual packaging for export, and they do turn up here, I've now known two dealers have a quantity of these, each time the same contents in every bag of a stock-carton, but different contends in the two lots.

This was the first lot, and I shot them ages ago meaning to do something with the smaller ones when they turned-up, but forgetting to do so when I did quickly sort some of the premiums last summer ('21). Note the header-card states '10' characters, but you get twelve items, however, one of them is a stone!

Close-ups, there are two Asterix models, one standing (bottom left) and one charging into action (top, 2nd from right), the premiums blogs only showed the former when they were covering the sets ten or twelve years ago, but I'm pretty sure I have them both in the smaller colours, and it seems there were various issues of different line-ups. This is all Gauls or Romans with one Egyptian (top right) I think?

The other dealers sets (I again bought 2) are part new, part duplicates, and again the count is twelve, not ten, with a duplicate menhir stone but no Obelix to carry it! We also get the chiefs shield, but only one bearer, and the missing bearer isn't in the others set I've found so-far, so there must be at least a third and fourth packing for the full 36?

I had a few of the older ones here from a Sandown purchase which may have been in the previous 'H is for . . . ' on the subject, if not it's still in the queue! You can see the older set are slightly smaller, but the clones are good, with most of the fine detail carried-over, although the menhir (Fascinating read) is a completely new sculpt with a flat bottom so it can stand in monolithic majesty after delivery!

The size difference hasn't affected the shield-carriers much and a non-matching pair (Euro-premium on the right) seem to hold it level, for the smaller Dogmatix to occupy the chief's position!

Getafix (by far the best of the anglicised names, and better than the original Panoramix in my opinion!) gets a little collar, set into the caldron bubbles, to hold his stirrer, which seems a little excessive to me! These seem to be the same figures also issued in Peru, whether the tool stopped on the way to Taiwan, or is slowly working it's way back here I don’t know!

Funny; I have a shed load of these loose, all the same blue, all the same 17 sculpts, and offered a load to a chap who was making/painting an army of them on Facebook, free, gratis, nothing asked in return, his choice and I would have swallowed the postage but he managed to turn them down with a brusqueness verging on downright rudeness! Obviously he'd taken sides in other matters, and managed not to be insultingly rude (we've ever met and I've never harmed him), while managing to be rude enough! His loss!

H is for Holding-out Against Rome!

Everyone's favourite Gauls - unless they are emotionally dead from the toes up! My sample of the recent (that's my: forgotten-how-old-I-am 'recent') Kinder egg Asterix figures, not a full sample, but this is a rush post - I don't know if it showed; but I had scanning problems on Thursday night which put me behind and left the weekend's and this post a bit rushed!

Some of the main characters, Obelix, the fishmonger, Getafix making his potion and Fabula, the girl who Obelix is always flirting with! These are all from the 2000 set Asterix and the Romans.

The Romans being named, from the left; Centurion Numerus Clausus, and legionaries Marcus Konfus and Claudius Lapsus But they are from the German insert and may have differed here, to reflect names in the British edition of the original graphic novel?

The Claudius variation (with sword) may be from a later set, or a nation-specific issue? There was an earlier set: Asterix in America, but I rather lost track of Kinder after around 2008.

Dogmatix gets the chief's shield (and bearers!), there was a separate sculpt of the chief (Majestix) standing on his shield, itself resting on the legs of an upturned table!

I think there is a mix of English, German and French 'original' names/titles above, blame the Internet!