L is for Late Show Report - Introduction

So, the PW show plunder posts, a bit late this year, but things have happened! We had a couple of earlier posts on the ephemera and the lovely spinning top, from Michael, but I'll be going through the rest over the next few days, and we're starting with the sorting, and some items I shot at the show but didn't bring home with me!

This was how I got it home, and actually very little was show-purchases in the room, but some money changed hands for some of the stuff in the named piles, and because all those named either give me stuff or let me have stuff well below market rates/for nominal amounts/swaps, that's how I shot it!

 

And this year's posts will carry the same message as last year, but thanking, alphabetically; Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, with the Replicants stuff (Peter Cole/Weston's) also shot separately!

 

Once it has been sorted into themes, which was the Sunday job I think, it was a week or two before I got round to properly sorting it all out, but here we have (clockwise from top left) the scenics, ancient & medieval, combat, historical & ceremonial, Wild West, sci-fi/fantasy TV & movie-related, 'planes/trains/automobiles & vessels, farm & zoo, odds & sods and civilians (bottom left).

 

The vehicular component was sorted the same evening, and here from the left are; 'planes/aircraft, trains, road transport, vessels, motorcycles/bicycles and some component of unknown origin - bottom right!

While the things I shot the day before, at the Plastic Warrior show, included this fascinating piece, which is a 'cheapo' generic rack-toy with stapled blister, the animals obviously being Cherilea, but, also managing to ascribe - by association - some fence pieces, which may be in your 'unknown' zone, and which are taken from the hollow-cast/lead moulds, I believe?

 

Meractor Trading (Adrian) had a bunch of Blue Box/Tai Sang boxed sets from the home farm line which consisting of most of the commoner vehicular pieces, including tractors in two colours and with various attachments, the cart and a combine-harvester. Note also: the nice ID'ing of the Blue Box dog!

 

We've looked at these sets before, late Miniature Masterpiece window-boxes from Marx, with mostly polyethylene pieces, rather than the polystyrene that had run for years beforehand, this was missing a rider and had a tatty box, but you don't often see them so it was worth a shot. It differs from my Knights sets in having ten figures, as protagonists, rather than the three or four in my samples, seen here before, I think.

Ah, well; if you follow things in the hobby, these should now be familiar to you, seen in the PW mag, and on Stad's Stuff recently; coming soon from a new maker, based in the UK/Mauritius, and courtesy of Michael Mordant-Smith, these are re-issues of old sculpts (from the original tools) of a French company Cody March,.

 

Not common in the original, they will make a nice addition to the medieval oeuvre, still in development, the ready for production (back at the show's time) will be looked at again in the relevant thematic post in a day or two, while these two shots include those poses which were still needing tweaks and adjustments to the tooling - 'test shots'.

I thought I'd bought this, but I think I just shot it, as Brain Berke, our roving reporter in New York sent the Blog one a while back, and I wondered at the cavity on his back, then, so decided I didn't need a second one!

 

Welp, here is what fills it, a slip-in reservoir for baking soda! Marked - U.S. PAT. (for 'patent') 293291C FLIPPY MADE IN ENGLAND - which isn't coming up on the patent searches, but has a number near the smaller Kellogg's patent, we have looked at more than once here, so probably contemporaneous.

 

Over here it may have been an import (from the 'States) by someone like Fairylite, or an export which got a US Patent first, by someone like Poplar, Tudor Rose or Lipkin? We'll need to find a carded/boxed one as the next step in this particular mystery solving!

 

The Wendan/Timpo ape would have been here, but I tacked him onto the earlier 'ephemera' post a couple of months ago, and so it's many thanks to everyone named above, for another pile of plunder, and to Paul Morehead who, with two of the forenamed, puts the show on, every year.

S is for Submarine - on a Card

I purchased this at the same time as the Tank in a Tin although it was a more reasonable pocket-money price of three-quid-odd I think? Also; it's the 3rd or 4th 4M thing to appear in the Blog now and I think I muttered 'up and coming' last time!

I love the card-art, an ocean filled with submarines like a school of dolphins, but then I guess a German wolf-pack would have looked something like that - if visibility in the North Sea was anything like an artist's imagination!

Because it's not that long since the last 'Subs' round-up I've no other images to fill the post with, so it's just a case of here it is; another bath toy, submarine. The slot for the coning-tower is slightly tapered so you can't put it back in the wrong way - helps the watch-officer navigate if he knows which way his 'fish' is pointing!

Shades of the old Kellogg's sub in the deck-slots and shades of another, more silvery modern one, in polystyrene (this one is propylene I think, with a nylon plug) which we've seen here before at Small Scale World, another novelty baking-soda submarine, or baking powder, it's all the same stuff!

Shipper's are Great Gizmos in the UK, Toysmith in the US and Playwell in Canada.

R is for Regular Round-Up - Divers Etc...

Time of one of the irregular 'regulars', namely; a quick look at the various novelty diver/bath toys which have come the way of the Blog since we last looked at such things.

Did I mention this the other day? It may have been in an eMail to someone, anyway this came back from September's Sandown Park toy fair with me, I think Adrian had put it to one-side for me, and it's a little charmer!

Around 25mm-compatible (allowing for an air-filled rubber suit), and blow-moulded celluloid or cellulose acetate (so probably Japanese), he is weighted in his feet and was probably one of the up-and-down with a cork's pressure type of bottle-novelties?

Not long after the little-one joined the  . . . skool? I think 'a skool of divers'! Brian B sent the shot on the left, his latest find in the cannon of air-hose, bath-toy, divers, here compared to the old packaging (on the right, also sent by Mr. Berke; a year or two ago) from the same Tobar stable.

Brian has also sent this in Support of the ITLAPD Captain Pugwash shot you may remember; he has shelf-captaincy of a right old motley crew of victorian sailors and deep-sea fish-tank ornaments!

Looking for something else I found this chap in with all the naval, marine and assault-boat stuff, when the divers have their own box, which we have pretty-much mined for it's goodies, over the years, so I thought I'd better shoot him now while he was here as it were!

'E has a long hole up 'is jacksey Pa! It's too thin for a pencil, so I suspect either a stick to anchor him into the aggregate at the bottom of a fish tank, or an aeration-hose for the same end-destination, as he is not dusty; those pale marks in the folds and crevices are limescale which didn't come-off with a cursory wash.

Finally; and because they have gone together in the past; and because I knew I'd find a use for that race-game central divider, I give you the gate-guardians at the Magical Museum of Multicoloured Miniature Mersibles, Sub.

One from Chris with all-four of its sticky-out bits intact, one from a job-lot, 'streamlined' for err . . . silent-running! And both - new colours!

Cheers A, B and C!

M is for Minestrone of Marine Marvels

A post which has slowly grown through contribution (Mr. Berke - thank you), accident and delayed deliberate action!

Brian sent this in reply/follow-up to the previous post on the subject (itself a minestrone of things gathered together on a theme) back in May 2016, which he also contributed to and it was sat in his folder for a while, not because I couldn't have posted it at the time, as a follow-up, but because I wanted to shoot the stuff in the attic to go with it.

It shows his collection of the 1990's Kellogg's re-issue (really a re-hash?) of earlier baking-soda powered bath toys, the submarine being based on the old 1960's one, the PT-Boat, all new. The boat in the same red as the divers (also looked at here) is not so common; usually it comes in the apple-green.

I already had the upper image left over from some other photo-shoot, possibly the multi-parter on vessels years ago? Anyway, they were put together and given their own folder, where they sat for a year and a half! The lower shot was finally taken the other day.

Mine are all in the green, the PT-Boat being called BarnaBee's Boat (is he a cereal character?), with; to the left of the upper shot, some of the older versions with their four periscopes/aerials.

The larger sliver/gunmetal one is from an unknown (to me) source, probably also cereal and interestingly has the same mechanism as the boat, with the exhaust gasses (produced by the baking-soda mixing with water) being channelled out of the scoop at the back to provide forward momentum.

Then this turned-up in a bag of mixed bits from Adrian the other-week, and I was so busy looking at some of the other things in the bag, at the show, I didn't notice it until I got home! It's a whale (obviously) with the same suck/blow action as the larger submarines and divers we looked at in those earlier posts.

A whale! It's a whale! I've never seen one before, so I'm quite excited by it - I'm easily excited!

So that called for a new 'family photo' comparison-shot, with the two larger (but smaller of the larger-) submarines also visited before here at Small Scale World. The grey/gold submarine also being a suck-blow type, the bottom one being a baking-soda one - I think; the bottom piece seems wedged-on and I don't want to force it.

In the meantime, and a while ago now; Brian had sent me these to chivy the post along, it's the re-issue for Hawkin's Bazaar (et al) of the old cereal diver, who accompanied the submarine, although as we saw last time they were also sold as stand-alone 'pocket-money' novelties - as were the submarines.

From the neutral language and artwork on the card it looks like they re-issued the Submarine as well?

When I call them suck-and-blow toys, we were either doing it wrong as kids (as I always wondered at the legality of a toy which resulted in regular mouthfuls of bathwater) or they have changed the design slightly, as the instructions seem to suggest they sink themselves and you blow them back to the surface? Maybe we were impatiently accelerating the Dive! Dive! Dive! But mouthfuls of soapy water were a feature of my younger days.

Seen in the links above and here for completion; the previous, and the fact that I'd finally got them out of the attic, meant I took this just for the hell of it. The Tobar is a copy of the old British moulding on the right, as pointed out before - the Hong Kong clone has been updated to a more modern helmet with single-piece window-glass.

P is for Raphael Lipkin...no; Pippin...no; Plastron or...Modern Toys!

How many brands did this company use?! In their day (the 'pioneer' period of plastics for toys) as big as Tudor Rose or Kleeware, this set dates more toward the end, judging by the packaging?

I photographed this years ago (2007), and it's not in my collection to inspect further, so I'll let the pictures tell the story...suffice to say it takes baking-soda toys to the next level! Approximately 100mm figure?

R is for Rocketry

A couple of poorish images for you in this post I'm afraid, but it gets a new tag in the list and clears some stuff from Picasa, so win-win for me!

I love this, branded to Lyvia, this Hong Kong made money-box has a mechanism which allows you to fire the coin into the cone, how long before it would crack the cone or knock it off is open to question, but what a fantastic, practical 'toy'! I also love it because it has a combination lock at the bottom; when I was a kid, I had a post-box money box, also made in Hong Kong, so there's a nostalgia hit in this. I occasionally see the post-box one on evilBay, but so far have managed to resist!

I never saw one of these when I was a kid, if I had some serious badgering and car-cleaning would have ensued! A forerunner of the modern Estes rockets, and slightly safer, this seems to rely on 'Epsom Salts' tablets and the instructions are interesting reading, comparing what was acceptable for sale as a plaything 40/50 years ago with what is acceptable today...

F is for Freaky Freddy Frogman and his Filosophic Flipper-Footed Floating Freinds

Although this is one of my 'in depth' looks at something, there is only one acknowledgment tonight, the Philosophic Toad who provided the old advert for Nabisco. As this is also in part a request by her, there's a nice symmetry there somewhere!

The original patent applications for Kellogg's, apparently the first recorded case of someone applying for a patent for a performing novelty diver/swimmer was a German gentleman in 1891. quite how a tin-plate toy would have achieved buoyancy is anybodies guess!! I know - It would have been wood or India Rubber or some such? I couldn't find his application, but found these during the search.

Notable is that A) While both applications were made the same day, it took two more years for the double figure application to be awarded? B) The patent is only sought for a period of 14 years, taking it through to 1969.

These actually throw up the most interesting bit of information to come out of the research for this post; The applicants seem to be two brothers, Henry and Benjamin L. Hirsch who apply as "Assignors to Kellogg Co." Now - with more modern applications say for Tomy, Mattel or similar the 'Assignor' is clearly an agent for the toy company, making a patent application on behalf of and signing over (Assigning) the patent to the toy company. Also there is a complication in US Law known as 'assignor estoppal' which I'm not going to go into here as it's all complicated stuff!

However the Hirsch brothers were - incidentally - the owners of a cardboard box manufacturing facility...sounds frightfully posh? I'm tired...they had a box factory! They also hold the patent - as assignors to Kellogg's - for the diving submarine, and other non-Kellogg's novalty patents.

So what? I hear the more impatient among you mutter as you read through all this drivel so's not to miss anything while really just wanting to get to the next 'pretty picture'. Well, if you've been following these cereal premium posts you will recall I made a tenuous link between a UK paper/board magnate and the production of the Soldiers of the World a month or two ago. It looks as if that link was stronger than even I was willing to credence, and that Kellogg's made a habit of having their packers produce/source/invent their give-away premiums whilst they - Kellogg's - held on to any Patents!

Two of the three Kellogg's figures, I have the limpet mine holder in red but he's so badly chewed there was no point including him in the photograph. I aught to point out that while Kellogg's held the patent (if they renewed it after '69?), they didn't hold the mould, and these figures were available in bagged sets as recently as two years ago, the only difference between them and the vintage ones was the level of rust/corrosion on the stoppers, missing on my example, however see the Manurba divers down the page.

Nabisco went with a different system all together, and probably closer to the original German's idea. While Kellogg's divers use baking soda (or - I believe - certain types of washing powder?) to generate gas (air bubbles) causing the diver to rise until the bubble departs the chamber whereupon he sinks again, with Nabisco, a lightweight moulding holds a small air bubble against the pressure of the water - in this case; in the face cavity - and by pulling/pushing a cork in the neck of the vessel you can produce movement in the diver, or screwing and unscrewing a cap, it's all about air-pressure at the surface changing the density of the water the diver is suspended in.

There was only the one pose of 'Freddy Frogman' and I don't know if I'm searching for a blue one or a Yellow one?

On the left we have a modern take on a combined Kellogg's/Nabisco system, I think these were issued 8/10 years ago, a Nylon/Rayon type dense plastic with both air-traps in the hands AND a gas chamber on the foot. The caps have yet to be removed from the 'sprues'. I don't know who issued them but Quaker and Nestle have avoided mention in this post so far...as have Cadbury?

On the right is most (?) of the Manurba divers who follow the Hirsch patent, the two blue figures still having their metal caps.

These are vintage Nabisco and of the same system, indeed they are the same plastic (a quite soft ethylene) and were a later series, coming with six sea creatures (Turtle, octopus, Pelican Fish, Swordfish,Sea Horse & Stingray) I've never seen?. Of note is the fact that the larger mouldings call for two air-traps to produce the same effect, as the mass is greater.

A look at the five types seen above for the comparison of sizes.

Known Issues;

Kent Sprecher over at the Toy Soldier HQ has some smaller versions which he credits to the '54 issue, which makes sense as they have larger powder chambers which are not the same as the patent application drawings. so adjusted list;

US Kellogg's 1954 - Smaller versions of the three large ones (Corn Flakes) [Predates the patent?]
US Kellogg's 1955 - The three large ones (Sugar Corn Pops)
US Kellogg's 1963 - The three large ones (Shredded Wheat)
UK Nabisco 1957 - Freddy Frogman (Shreddies)
UK Nabisco 1960 - Powder blue ones with sea creatures (Shreddies)
UK Kellogg's 1987 - The three large ones [Radcliffe]
UK Kellogg's 1990's? - The three small red ones
Toy Racks 2008 (approximately) - The three large ones

US Kellogg's also issued a rubber-bulb hand pump tube operated diver with Raisin Bran in 1961, this would have been a larger toy similar to the submarine I remember getting in my stocking one Christmas as a small boy.

[I notice that this images has been stolen by Ghislain Oubreyrie and poorly 'Photoshoped' for his mostly plagiarised website, there's nothing I can do about it at the moment, the man's a thief, but one day I'll sue his arse, and the more he puts (of mine) on his site the more I'll sue him for, at his current rate of thievery, I'll be getting the price of a small house off him one day...any French Intellectual Property lawyer fancy an easy case? It's just comparing images (with originals) and site-editing dates! meantime; the high quality originals will always be found here] 

19:09:2010 - An additional frogman pose turned up at Joplin's show a week ago, so here's a shot of all three with the markings laid out. They all have Kellogg co. down the left 'sprue' as you look at them in the photo, with the given number clear on the other arm and blobby/blurry on the reverse of the bottom of the left (right - as you view) foot/lump.

U is for Underwater

Only the one photograph, but a lot in it. Centre top is the lose Mini-submarine from Manurba with the driver/pilot underneath, to the left is the same machine issued as Scuba Diver Set by Gordy in the US (another company that remains unsung under Giant's shadow, despite producing a similar sized range of similar products?), while below it is the more common Hong Kong copy, note the full-round cross-section. This is a hard plastic model with soft diver, the Maurba one is all soft.

To the right of the lose ones we see the carded presentation of the HK one, entitled Frogman Set with colour variants below.

The bottom of the picture shows from left to right; Baking-powder divers from Manurba (these are different from the Kellogg's one's and I will look at them all later), while next are a couple of Hong Kong Mini-sub's in soft plastic that have kept the Manurba hollow hull, and came in Christmas Crackers, Sobres etc..

Finally, the same card as above, but with different contents and marked L.I.C. (Laramie Industries Corp.) Philadelphia. In the very centre is a Manurba rubber boat (sans engine) to compare with the HK copy of the Airfix US Marines boat.