F is for Follow-ups - Recent Bits

When Chris Smith sent his parcel a couple of months ago, I told him I'd seen another of those finger monsters, a day or so before, and then spent ages looking for it, real rabbit hole stuff, in the end I went through most of the near-thousand folders in Picasa, thinking I must have moved it by mistake (sometimes you pick something up, absentmindedly, on the cursor and dump it elsewhere, without even realising it, on the way to somewhere else!), only to find it the other day, in the short or 'this year' queue, in a possible post on an exhibition!

 

Definitely a forth sculpt/pose, and if the paint-chips are anything to go by (almost certainly home-painted), this one is yellow plastic, which reinforces my - still possibly false - memory of a brown one? And obviously some kind of Kaiju from the Godzilla or Ultraman franchises.

 

From two different show reports, the Reliable figures and probably Reliable side-by-side, the standing shooters look different, because the foot-plug on the older version is not fully pushed-home, but I lined them up, and they are almost identical, even down to the long, adjustable iron-sight, over the breach, so clearly they just added integral bases changing the tool from a two-part to a three-part mould.

 

And thanks to Anonymous for highlighting the link, in comments, I was using the Way Back Machine version of the now defunct Ponylope as a guide!

 

Also from recent posts; show reports and donations, we've seen three of these recently in two posts, the others earlier in the year, brought together, you can see the two sizes (bigger pair on the right), to which can be added the several base marks, which I previously highlighted.

 

When combined with the couple of dozen which have come in over the last three-or-so years (get-at'able in storage), it will give an even better picture. While the master collection, buried in the container, which also includes the big ones, when all the new ones are added to them, will be the basis of a much better overview, one day.

 

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In this post;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2025/02/t-is-for-two-roarsome-rack-toys.html

 

We saw a metallic dino'bird/pterosaur kind of thing, which bore little resemblance to the other four on the card-back, but separately, and also from BJ Toys, I've been picking these up at petrol stations, namely the Esso outlet at Tongham/Hog's Back, and Bordon's BP station!

 

Plant spider!

 

Reverse colours.

 

Balrog's horns on this one!

 

The trouble is, they seem to appear one or two at a time, in a large counter display carton on the bottom shelf of a dedicated/custom BJ Toys sales display unit, mixed-in with an assortiment of other novelties, so I don't know how may there are, or whether they all have reversed colour versions.

 

And if you think this link is tenuous, for a follow-up - I thought I'd already posted one! But they were in two folders, with the other not photographed, so I was happy to find the Dino-phoenix, looking for the non-posted dragon! The point being, I think they are from the same source, not BJ; in China?

 

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On the subject of ducks,

 

The two vintage British plastic foul, one from Peter and one from Chris (pretty sure I have another in pink, or a maroonish-purple somewhere), brought together with the TK Maxx crayon ducks and a generic CHINA-marked goose from a rack-toy bag/toob/tub, for scale.

 

Similar, but simplified toys from Sonsco of Hong Kong, again I have several of these in various colours, including a fluorescent pink one which is just as leery as the green one in this set!

 

And on GI's,

 

This set of re-issue ex-Marx figures, being a mix of different sets, has the chap, both Chris and me thought "looked like Marx?", middle-top, and, sure enough, he was a Marx sculpt!

 

But I'd totally forgotten that Chris sent me this shot ages (six years) ago, when discussing something else, probably wanting it to feature in a Question Time, so, to repeat the earlier question, we know the re-loader is a Marx pose, now, but can anyone give a maker/brand to this marbled maroon-brown chap, and B) does anyone know anything about the figure on the left?

B is for Big Box of Bounty - Intro' and Sports

So, with much gratitude, we start looking at Chris Smith's Autumn donation to the blog, another wonderful pile of the esoteric stuff he's put to one side for the last few months, and sent to me, to share with you, and there are some real treats among it all.

 

Immediately, we can see useful stuff on the top, I won't say anything, as we're going to go through it piece by piece, but what can you see, and; imagine opening this, and getting to dig through it, especially if your interests are as esoteric as mine!

 

I didn't announce it on Faceplant either, this time, because they want me to provide a 3d video of myself to prove who I am, and as we went through all that a few years ago, when they were asking for scans of passport or driving licence, I don't feel I need to prove my existence again?

 

They don't care who's a member, or how real/legitimate they are, they just want to feed data into their AI-bots, and generate some 3D avatar of me on the other side of the planet, so, I'm consequently rather off Faceplant for now, and maybe forever (check your junk folder, I've eMailed you from .gmail!)?

 

Initial sorting, and I haven't texted over it like sometimes, but a spiral from the top left gives; Prehistoric, Ancient & Medieval, Wild West, Pirates, Paratroopers (not numerous enough for the usual opening line-up shot!) Civilians, Bits & Bobs, Vehicles & Vessels, Wild & Domestic Animals, Historical & Ceremonial Sci-Fi & fantasy (with TV/Movie), Cartoon (also with TV/Movie stuff), Divers and finally, Sports with a Circus horse! And, apart from the horse, it's those last two we're looking at first.

 

These are fun, I thought I'd posted them years ago, but I didn't, so this is their debut - Tomy's Electronic Super Cup Football, a battery-operated, hand held 7-a-side football game, which came with two pre-painted, near HO-gauge compatible teams, in red and blue with yellow and green goalies, already emplaced in the holders on the pitch. But, in little drawers under the game, you got these, blank, flesh-coloured runners for painting your own favourite teams . . . although, no paints were included!

 

Three more cracker/capsule/Lucky Bag/Piñata type Olympians, two sizes and three different base marks give's you some idea of the task faced in sorting them all out, I had a half a go at the small-scale (these) near the beginning of the blog (nearly 19-years ago now!), and we looked at the bigger ones a year or two ago, but there's still a lot to cover/sort out, so every example is valued.

 

The weight-lifter is the same as the one in Peter's last lost, and has broken in nearly the same place, a weak-spot where the two flows of plastic meet in the cavity, a thin point, a cooler point, and a point which will get most stress, in play!

 

Hong Kong cake decoration footballers; I used to have a few of these in a bag, the same two poses, always damaged and no balls, but in recent years thanks to people like Adrian, Chris, John, Peter and Trevor, I've got a better sample to gather together and blog properly one day. But, suffice to say, more poses, some with footballers, complete examples, and several sets/sources are now clear. And there'll be a follow-up later.

 

Board-game or Totopoly pieces, we have seen them before, but it's a set of twelve, in three or four (?) colours (I think three each of four), and with plastic and metal (earlier, but commoner) to find, I still have plenty of gaps, especially as the waterslide transferred numbers can be missing or flaked badly.

 

The little red one is a similar chap, but much smaller, and seems to have plugged-in to something which may be similar to the Tomy football game? New to me, Blog and collection though, and I do have lots of these 'unknown' horse racing figures, most in small quantities. Like football games, there's a lot of horse racing games out there.

 

The little chap is from the Chap Mai play sets, there was the big Aircraft Carrier set, and a few window box 'gift set' type things, with a pair of runners, holding assorted Galoob style figures, in black and khaki.

 

The larger one is really nice, seems to be an unarmed sport/hobby diver, (lacking weapons, and seemingly undamaged), he might be a fish-tank thing, or, like the divers-watch promotional from Down Under, we saw a few years ago, something more commercial? Hard polystyrene, and, yeah, very interesting, does anyone know who he is? I have a feeling we've seen a similar figure, possibly seated?

 

Table-top football games and table-football players! We've looked at both generations of the Subbuteo St. John's Ambulance stretcher teams (left-hand figure), the magnetic footballers will need further work, as the samples are all over the place, likewise the spring-loaded ones, there are many versions/makers/issuers/titles associated with both types.

The magnetic ones can come with different cones, same-coloured figures or painted ones like the above, and in various qualities of pose and/or sculpting. Likewise, with the many versions of the yellow chaps' above -  standing on footballs -who can also be found in straight-armed sculpts, with plug-in springs, flat plastic bases or suckers, and manufactured in rubber, 'styrene or celluloid!

But, again, the chap on the right is very interesting, I have some in hard plastic, from Hong Kong, I think we've seen them here, and their similarity to the Gem ones has always led me to believe they were second generation piracies. But this chap is in soft polyethylene, and looks very 'early British plastic', so I'm wondering if they might belong with the diminutive 18/20mm circus and fox-hunters, in the "Possibly Charbens cake decorations" folder?

Certainly, while they (I think there are two similar poses) resemble the Gemodels goalie, they are less three-dimensional, which is a trait of Charbens sculpting, and something you could accuse those unknown mini-circus figures (and the 'other' Christmas carol-singer set) of suffering from . . . so food for thought there, thanks to Chris!

F is for Follow-up's - Various Recent Things

Running over a few additional details, info or images of a few bits we've seen here in the last few weeks, no particular order or sense to it, just things I fancied doing extra/more/follow-up shots of!

The sports pencil top Chris sent, alongside one I had here of a boxer, we both think we've seen a football one, and it would be interesting to find out what others there were, as a set they probably went to at lest four sculpts?

 

The Hong Kong-marked KT figures I have here, about half of them went to storage a while ago, including the pen-stand thing which started the whole odyssey, so one day we'll look at them all together, as there are probably pencil-sharper and stand-alone versions of all of them, along with other novelties for some of them . . . I haven't found a sand-timer yet, but I'd happily put a tenner on one being found.

 

And the pencil sharpener version of the guardsman with its replacement figure. Luckily the old one just popped-off, but I had to do some careful knife-cleaning of one of the foot-studs on the replacement, who had a lump of his old stand still attached as that bubbly-glue patch stuff!

 

Also, while the damaged figure popped-off, he did leave one locating-stud rattling around inside, which I caught by well-glueing the hole with liquid-poly, and shaking it around, upside-down, until it sopped rattling, meaning it had got stuck to the glue . . . something to confuse future archaeologists!

 

That green Tatra figure from Chris, next to the two most common colours, although, these days, you see more and more of the red and blue too, but you can see just how green he is, under the gold-residue?

 

Following on from something in the comments, these are the athletes which have come-in over the last 18-months or so, we looked at them originally as mostly small scale here;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2009/12/blog-post.html

And revisited them more recently here, to look at the larger scale;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2019/11/a-is-for-athletes-vintage-plastic.html

so with this sort of quantity being added every year or so, when we return to them properly we should have a better idea about which sets/types had which poses, and are therefore, in the two or three seperate 'families' of piracy?

Remember I said I had another Morph, well here's Chris's donation, standing on himself! Too cool for art school! And the brown colour which Morph was made in (his later mate Chas was a neutral beige-gray), is the same brown everyone's Plasticine went after it had all been mixed together in the toy-box!

Plasticine Flash Mob!

 

Oh yes, TJF had such fun correcting my 'brain freeze' when I said they were from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, when they were from some Disney knock-off, but they were also from a different-again board game, and having found the four copies a while ago, I now have a slightly damaged Lost in Space original, also Remco, in yellow, with the missing figure, and 3 more board-game pieces to find we will return to these!

 

Left to right;

 

4x Homecast resin/3D-printed (?) copies of Remco - Lost in Space figures

1x Remco - Lost in Space original

1x Remco - Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

M is for Merry Mass of Malleable Model Mayhem! 5 - Civilians

On to the civilians from Chris Smith's donantion today, always a few surprises here, although some of the more interesting ones, those who are nationally/ethnically-dressed, have been sent to the Ancient/Medieval post to pad that out!

And what a way to start, you know we like divers here at Small Scale World - sticking out of everything else when I opened the box, this, admittedly large, lump of polystyrene is a candidate for best in box! Obviously a fish-tank ornamental aerator, it has a pipe connection at the back of the helmet and a finely pierced ceramic plug in the top, to generate the fine lines of oxygenating bubbles. But it's just so unusual, and a rare survivor from - probably - the 1950?

 

Sports was mostly footballers, with Waddington's Table Soccer figures to the left, and what I think are Ariel's Soccerboss figures, de-pegged to the right, the tennis-player pencil sharpener is a real treat, while the incomplete kicking player could be Parker, Palitoy, even Subbuteo, there are lots, and one day I'll sort them all out. Two athletes and a broken Subbuteo make up the shot.

This is fun, and following-on from the footballers in the previous shot, he's an Airfix footballer under his new skin of Mariachi guitar player! The instrument is from an enamelled metal pin-badge, which I distinctly remember having as a kid/teenager, which has been thickened with a balsa-wood off-cut, totally homemade conversion . . . Wild West or a 1-guage restaurant/dining-car? We'll never know!

 

Odds and sods, what can you spot? The drunk is a magnetic novelty who needs his lamppost to work fully, the green chap next to him is from that Wookie/King Kong game we've seen here in passing before, there are some railway bits, cake decorations and die-cast accessory figures.

 

Police; one marked Funrise (dark blue) and in a soft PVC substitute, the two to the left unmarked in a very soft silicon and 'maybe' Pioneer, the other a common'ish, current ethylene rack toy we may have seen before here?

 

Firefighters; Three from 'big-box' vehicle toys, the third from the left being a really nice composition figure, presumably from the basket of a tin-plate ladder-truck by someone like Tipp & Co., Karl Bub or similar, as is the white chap from a plastic garden-toy

The smaller figure keeps turning-up, and is hard to place, but someone did a Berlin firefighting vessel (River Harvel) kit (Revell?) and he may be from that, or something like that? In the past I've suggested a fisherman or sailor from one of several Tug or Trawler models, but each time he turns up he's in blue or painted blue, so I think firefighter from somewhere/something?

The guy on the left is interesting for being an apparent copy of the Corgi 'cherry-picker' platform truck (forward-control Jeep), which was copied by one of the Hong Kong pirates (TAT/Telsalda?) in a large-scale plastic as a Dinky/Ford hybrid, I think, so he'll probably be from that!

 

The racing car driver is obviously from a racing car, but is looking early-British, plastic-wise, and from quite a big model (1:20/1:24?), he's both new to me and pretty stunning, he must have George Musgrave, George Eric, Stadden or Nibblet behind him? Someone like that, a bit of a 'Find', I think, and another contender for best in box - Chris, thank you!

Shopping lady could be Plasty or Kinder, I think she's the former, but I'm not 100%, and is she West West or some civilian 'doll' village thing? While the policeman is a new'ish die-cast accessory.

 

Seated figures tend to close the civilian page, as paratroopers open the posts! We may have seen some of these before, but with colour variations, there'll be many more to come, and there are shed-loads in storage to sort out and ascribe one day! Highlights here include a beach-buggy driver from a plastic kit, the pull-and-go racing motorcycle and sidecar crew and a Mattel CUTIE seated in pink!

O is for Olympics!

So, one of my earlier purchases did a get shot before I sent the box up the road, and it raises a point I didn't mention in my 'lots' of 'wrong' history the other day, but it was pretty obvious if you studied the photographs.

It is that with some of the figure sets, the contents are, to say the least, assorted, with duplicates, often the same pose/colour - pointing to a lack of mixing before packing, or an incomplete pose-count.

Note that this set has a set number/order code, most do, but some are on the fronts and some are on the backs, and the reason I listed them alphabetically is that I couldn't find enough images of both sides of the cards to build a decent list, I will, when I get my seven/eight out again, probbaly find them all. If you read anywhere "the card has a stock number which many of the other cards do not have", be sure - you are reading bullshit.

The seven poses I've ended-up with, as stated last time these are the 'Euro' poses, not those issued by Marx, and not those issued in UK Cereal, neither of which have a torch-bearer, so are all just 'athletes' against this set's Olympic figures! I suspect there should be eight?

That's a question mark because I don't know for certain, it could be ten or more, I'm not sure, you see, Kent, Paul, Stadinger, Fuckwits Anonymous . . . if I wrote there were eight [as a fact], and they supplied them to Choco-tag-nuts in brown (because Choco-tag-nuts had them in brown), I'd be making things up as I go along, and I try not to do that kind of shit here!

 

These were offered by DS Plastic in Holland / the Netherlands, and are probably 35/40mm flats/semi-flats, possibly soft polyethylene, and which may well have appeared in De Gruyter lucky/gift/surprise envelopes, and I wonder if anyone has actual examples they could send to the blog . . . or send it to a leading magazine - Plastic Warrior has recently covered all the other athletes?

 

I had a go anyway;

• 1008 - Action Athletes
• 3006 - Antique Cars
  
• 3002 - Comic Animals
• 1001 - Comic Moon Figures
• 1007 - Comic Pirates
• ???? - Dogs - Mexico
• 1003 - Dolls of the World
• 3004 - Dune Buggys [sic]
  
• 3009 - Historical Transportation
• 3003 - Horse-Drawn Coaches
• 1011 - Robin Hood Figures
• 1022 - Soldiers of World War II
  
• 3001 - Super Motorcycles

Put in numerical order;

• 1001 - Comic Moon Figures
• 1003 - Dolls of the World
  
• 1007 - Comic Pirates
• 1008 - Action Athletes
• 1011 - Robin Hood Figures
• 1022 - Soldiers of World War II
• 3001 - Super Motorcycles
• 3002 - Comic Animals
• 3003 - Horse-Drawn Coaches
• 3004 - Dune Buggys [sic]
• 3006 - Antique Cars
• 3009 - Historical Transportation
• ???? - Dogs - Mexico

So, it's not 'many don't', it's all do! Stadinger was making it up as he went along . . . again! Hahahahaha, fuckin' unbelievable, isn't it? It's fuckin' unbelievable! But they keep doing it, in the desperate hope they may, one day, really catch me out!

The 1xxx's are probably numbered-in with other toys/novelties/playthings, the 3xxx's suggest other Italian/R&L type clip-together kits/funnies may still be to find?

R is for Really Rubenstein!

Ooop . . . just let me get up on my high horse . . . that's better, now, where was I? Oh yeah! Rubenstein. There isn't much on Rubenstein within the hobby and most of what you will find seems to be conjecture dressed-up as fact! So I thought I'd add my tuppenceworth to the mix and probably ruffle a few feathers!

 

Rubenstein were a US jobber, one of a dozen or so companies/entities started by Irving Rubenstein, sometimes with his Brother Ralph, or possibly a wife, 'L' (?), always in or around North Hollywood, California. Rubenstein International were incorporated in 1977 (too late for some of the premiums they are credited with?), but are no longer active, although several of the companies (mostly involved in B2B sourcing, services, or marketing) are still extant, along with a family foundation.

 

On the left are the Euro-premium pirates (eight sculpts in the UK [Kellogg's] and 20 poses elsewhere, under several brands), on the right my fledgling Rubinstein collection about two years ago, I went on to add about three or four more sets, but they all went to storage about 12-months ago! Some described - by Rubenstein - as 'Made in Mexico', other's (most), 'Made in England' (not 'Britain', not 'The UK'). I have so far found one set credited to having been 'Made in the USA'.

The Robin Hood figures are the same version described elsewhere in the hobby (marked with small 'Canada' monikers), and seen elsewhere on the Blog against the New Zealand-made versions. As one of the 'made in England' sets, this would suggest someone larger than Tatra (for instance) as they must have been big enough to have a Canadian office/subsidiary?

The athletes are after the 'Euro' versions (with Olympic flame carrier), not the Kellogg's or Marx sculpts, and while both figure sets are soft polyethylene, the dune-buggys [sic] are hard polystyrene, like the R&L mini-kits, from Australia, but not marked-up to them.

Other figure sets include the ex-Raja Conjunto do Espaço 'space set' (which explains a question-mark from the very start of the Blog; my shiny yellow one is Rubenstein!), ex-Commonwealth Plastics dolls and possibly the dog breeds, but this is where I need to point out that so far, and I have been looking hard for over three years, there is NO empirical or circumstantial evidence for the Soldiers/Warriors of the World/All nations having ever been in Rubenstein packaging?

 

And if the dogs were issued by Rubenstein (and I suspect so), they were the multicoloured ones (from Mexico; not England), NOT the silver or gold ones issued with Nabisco breakfast cereals in the USA, for which the evidence is as sketchy as for the military set.

 

Indeed, let's get this out of the way, Rubenstein International were an 'Import & Export' outfit, according to their licences, and it's very unlikely they ever "made" a single toy! So whoever was supplying Rubenstein, would also have supplied the cereal or ice-cream guys &etc., and earlier, I think. Also - we know Tatra (for instance) were responsible for the warriors/soldiers . . . in silver and gold!

The R&L styled mini-kits, I now have three of these for us to look at in greater detail another day, indeed I think most of these are the shots of the auctions/BIN's I won, I wouldn't use so many evilBay images in one article if I didn't think I had a tad of moral ground under my tippy-toes! Not sure if I ever succeeded in getting the Cars, but I know I bought two sets of motorcycles, so I can make one set up, for a Blog post!

I actually managed to get the Antique Cars photographed, though! But I think I might also have got the set of Wagons, although I might be confusing it with the Historical Vehicles which I know I got but also didn't photograph? Interestingly, while the Dune Buggys are polystyrene, these are polyethylene, and the Penny Farthing in the Historic's set is probably the one Brian Berke sent to the Blog, as an addendum to that premium kit post!

So far the only set sourced in the 'States which I've found, which is not to say there aren't more, but the same eleven sets keep turning-up, with a possible run of the dogs in multicolours, making a dozen.

 

These are also nothing like the others, and we saw a pale-blue Hong Kong example of one of these in Chris Smith's last donation, so, a common gum-ball machine prize, or those rack-toy cards with a bunch of teeny header-bags for a dime or sixpence?

 

All of which gives us;

• Action Athletes - Mexico, after Manurba/Linde et al.
• Antique Cars - England, after R&L?
  
• Comic Animals - USA
• Comic Moon Figures - Mexico, ex-Raja premiums
• Comic Pirates - Mexico, ex-European tool
  
• Dogs - Mexico, ex-Nabisco premiums
• Dolls of the world - Mexico, ex-Commonwealth 
• Dune Buggys - England, after R&L?
• Historical Transportation - England, after R&L?
• Horse-Drawn Coaches - England, after R&L or Pyro/Kleeware?
• Robin Hood Figures - England, previously/also Canada, after Marx
• Soldiers of World War II - Hong Kong, contents unknown, Airfix clones?
  
• Super Motorcycles - England, after R&L?

Sourced from England x6, Mexico x5, Hong Kong and the USA x1 each, for a twelve-count, which make-up grosses, which is how this rack-toy stuff is ordered/wholesaled thirteen-count; a bakers dozen!

The reason I've question-marked the possible R&L connection, is because R&L is another one where there may be falsehoods hiding as fact. When they turn-up in British or European products as premiums, they usually have A) very fine parts, B) 'R&L' somewhere on the runner, these four/five sets (the Dune Buggys may be from another source) are simpler and unmarked, while there is the various Italian sets of similar kits and the De Gruyter connections to consider.

Still no soldiers/warriors, though! Four days later - Still no soldiers/warriors!

Thanks to the Jabbering Fuck and Kent Sprecer for their contributions, not!

C is for Chris's Autumn Parcel - Sports & Civilians

I was going to do sports and civilians as two separate posts, but realised most of them were sports (or pastimes) of one sort or another, and all the seated figures were in one shot which would have made a quick post with two Asian ladies, so they're all here!

Fussbal! There was something about pig's bladder kicking on Faceplant the other day, some Arabs were organising an end-of year kick-about or something, I believe the Argentines were playing dirty again, but still won? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

The three on the right are from board games of one type or another, but the chap on the left is one of those press-button collapse'a'toys (I've ever found a good generic term for them), where all the parts are threaded on wire, cotton button-thread (in this case) or fishing line, and held in tension by a spring in the drum base, so when you press the button, pushing the spring in, the fellow collapses like a 'red shirt' in an alien death ray! All plastic - brilliant thing!

Sorry for the upper shot, by the time I realised it was unusable they had gone to storage, so I used it! They are something we have seen before, in depth twice and in many mixed-posts like this one so you should be familiar with them, and with so many variations in size, colour and base type; something we will return to one day, these are mid-range (30-odd millimeters) and mid-quality.

Below them we have a rider (from an eraser go-cart/cartie type thing?) in eraser rubber, a wrestler in the style of Kinukiman/M.U.S.C.L.E., but not marked-up as one of them, so probably a gum-ball/capsule-machine knock-off, and, finally, an ice hockey player, similar to the pencil-top/key-ring footballers, but with no sign of a loop having been removed and no hole up his back-passage, more of a stand-alone desk-mascot.

The rear of that cart-rider, I wondered if he was a spaceman (he's quite similar to the Dinky Moon-buggy/Space Chariot crew, but he's more BMX'y with knee-pads and padded thigh-protectors, and I have half a feeling I've seen the cart somewhere, equally you might think pencil-top, but the larger hole is still a tad small, and I suspect locating-lugs on the go-cart?

The upper shot shows three skiers, all cake decorations, all Hong Kong, two polyethylene and one polystyrene (to the left) who's predictably lost his sticks, the first two are copies of the Britains Arctic Explorer, the one to the right a Gemodels skier I think?

The funny thing is I think the Britains 'Arctic' exploration set came out during the hype for an Antarctic expedition, the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) of 1955–1958, which my late mother helped with, back here in the UK, and I've found some of the paperwork in her estate, which at some point I'll do something with, nothing exciting; kit lists, typed databases of suppliers, formats of begging-letters, that sort of thing!

Below them are three of the cuckoo-clock/barometer figures, a pair and an odd, with a lovely Bavarian/Tyrolean dancer in Lederhosen. We have looked at the clock-figures before, but we will return to them at some point because several more have come in, and hopefully some will make-up more pairs? In the meantime this is a pretty good line-up!

A couple of these - like the go-carter - were borderline space figures until I looked closer; they all seem to be divers/marine explorers of one type or another, with a deep-sea diver to the left, two undersea vehicle crew to his right and the Nabisco (?) diver, much chewed in front. The chewed one is worth keeping for the colour and the fact that I think I only have the one other - bent legs - pose!

The deep sea diver looks like a pencil top, but the hole is too small again, so I expect he's from a similar novelty to the Nabisco one, which relies on air pressure/water density affecting a air-bubble in the hole, to make him go up and down in a bottle? But what do I know? He might be a nineteen-fifties fish-tank ornament from a weighted wreak or something!

The other yellow plastic chap is from one of the several rack-toy sea 'chariot' or James Bond villain-army type toy vehicles out there, I think/assume!

The 'might be' Hilco cake decoration hunters, from Britains Lilliput above, with two Hong Kong cyclists below, one almost a cracker-toy, but we've seen the packaging here I think, the other from one generation of Britains piracy or another. I picked up another, raising his arms as if crossing the finish-line, the other day, which I'm pretty sure goes with this chap (but they are already ensconced in two different places!), so it's a question of matching them with the right cycles in the future, and blogging them together with the doors and the little articulated one we saw here a while ago!

Seated figures, like paratroopers are standard contents of mixed lots, and highlights this time are the turquoise one (top, middle) who looks to have some age, and the metallic turquoise one below him which is also new to me, I think? Below them is a grey aircraft (?) crewman, in the style of a kit-figure, but possibly factory-painted and therefore from a more commercial toy/pre-built aeroplane model?

Lastly, but anything but leastly; two more of the KT/Shackman et al., figures, we saw these two in images from Brian Wagstaff which are on the 'World Dancers' page (link at the top of the page), so it's really nice to have them here now, a separate image has already been taken and added to the 'Commonwealth additions' folder!

When Brian W sent them I hoped they might be the sign of a larger set of ex-Commonwealth or Van Brode sculpts within the tourist/novelty pencil-sharpener line we've been looking at here, but these are the fourth/fifth to turn-up now, and the feeling is that they are just the pair, as in a 'Pair of Asian Dancers'

With a pair of Americans (Cowboy & Indian), pair of Germans/Tyrolean's (May Day/Dirndl dancers), four British touristy subjects (Policeman, Beefeater, Guardsman and Highland piper), and . . . I'm hopeful a Mountie might turn-up?

Thanks again to Chris for all these, which leaves us waiting for the 'other figures' post!