Small Scale World

I will make an effort this Christmas, to finish the railway figure series, started two years ago, I meant to do it last year, but it never happened, and it's high time it got done. In the meantime, and as a taster (it's the only image on the firm in the queue), is this, which was donated by a Blog follower who prefers to remain anonymous . . . don't worry, I get it, I'm a loose cannon, and it's a brave man who would be associated with me!

Imported into the UK by Bachmann Europe, is this hillbilly Jug Band, in HO from Woodland Scenics, and it's absolutely lovely! The only thing missing is a couple of drunk neo-Nazi bikers, loosing a fight with Bo' and Luke Duke! We've got a wash-tub bass, a washboard and a guy playing an actual jug, with three more conventional instruments, charming. Cheers Dude, you know who you are!

Because I made a major purchase the day of the show, there's enough for a Circus post this year, instead of shoving them in with the civilian/sports post, and what a purchase it was, and very welcome, even though we've seen all the separate elements before. Fingers crossed they load in the right order . . .

. . . and they did! Wouldn't want to re-sort these one at a time, plays havoc with the formatting! A nicely labeled Crazy Cown Circus from Frazer & Glass (F&G . . . like LB for Lik Be, just sort of works, always has!), lovely 1950's (or late 40's?) lining paper/gift wrap on the box, and similar to some Italian stuff we'll be seeing in these show-plunder posts soon.

How you bought your cheap ['er] plastic toys in the years immediately before I was born, loose in a box! Or singly from glass compartments in Woolworth's! A complete set, the seller admitted it's made-up to completeness (I think he has a perfect one in his collection), but after 70-odd yeas I'm not complaining, and would have made it up from my loose ones, if it was incomplete, anyway.

One-ring circus!

Always nicer when it's yours, rather than an Internet image!

Balancing and Tumbling Acts, I don't know what I was thinking the other day, of course you could get a single one, without any signs of glue - the A1 Clown! But here with base, unlike the baseless one we saw the other day.

Three in line, and note: different spots, shape, base v baseless, cone hat size &etc.

Juggling Acts.

Ringmaster is a standard clown with no top-hat?

But he does have the red trousers.

Equestrian Acts.

Seller had added the band! I have recently come-across a dog, with top hat, in the same vitreous 'styrene, which I believe may be another late addition to this set (to go with/accompany the hoop-clowns?), it's in a forthcoming post, somewhere, I think, if not, I'll dig it out and get it up here with a few links back and forth. On the subject of links, the last time we looked at a few question-marks and variants, on these, was nine years ago;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2016/07/c-is-for-crazy-clown-circus.html

But the F&G Tag or Crazy Clown Circus will get all the thoughts/posts in one hit!

Another marked Maysun set, of Crescent copies, adding confirmation to previous utterings here about them/that! With a couple of loose horse that have good paint, and one will need to be used to replace the brittle on in the bag, whose lost it's legs!

Charbens, a nice clean sample, with opposite colours of both clowns!

Late Corgi, I think, on the left and another M-Toy on the right.

Thanks this year go to, alphabetically by surname, Issack, Graham Apperley, John Begg, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Peter Evans, Adrian Little, Michael Mordant-Smith, Trevor Rudkin, Steve Vickers, and with no emails since the intro-post, anyone else who gave me stuff, I've forgotten to add! Thank you all.

These were sort of pencilled-in for the Christmas season, but aren't really Christmas stuff, with the possible exception of the Carol Singers, however it seems easier to post them now as civilian stuff (despite the connection some of them have with Nazi Germany!), over the festive season, than shove them down in Picasa's 1968 with the other eight folders of pending Christmas stuff, or elsewhere, or just leave them choking-up 2025 in the short queue, before the year's even properly started!

Vaguely nutcracker'y, but not really; no bushy beards, proper muskets, lack of overemphasized uniform elements, but they do have the huge epaulettes, this would appear to be a belt-buckle of some kind.

But it doesn't seem to have the robustness to survive on my trousers, where I've broken heavy die-cast buckles over the years, yet seems a little too whimsical to be part of a genuine military panoply, not even the historically-dressed 'old guard' many British regiments still have a few of, for ceremonials or KAPE - Keep the Army in the Public Eye.

So, my guess is some sort of costume jewellery or actual theatrical costume? The clasp clearly hooks to a bar or rod similar to the belt loop, and the whole has been cast from three repeats of a single figure moulding, with the joins between them barely hidden, possibly using the lost-wax method - I'd add that the paint's probably been added by the/a later, hobbyist owner.

And while it looks brass, it doesn't really weight 'brass', so it may be a brass-coloured (alloy) base metal type material with brass clasp and copper or copper-bronze wire loop, which could be brazed, but are more-likely soft-soldered, suggesting it wasn't meant/designed to take any great strain, or long-term work-load . . . any ideas greatly appreciated?

These are a mystery also, they are composition, rather than bisque, and painted in a similar style to some of the Zang 30-40mm's we've seen here before, but with more effort on the faces. You can see from the damaged blue figure that the composite material is similar to Zang's too, however they came with some WHW figures (next section below) and may be Winterhilfswerk?

If they are WHW I'd love to know the set, if not, festive cake decorations from Zang are a possibility, or someone like them, of 17/18th century garbed carol singers or street musicians seems to be as likely? Equally, some French/Low Countries composition uses that plaster/pumice base? A real question mark?

While these ARE Winterhilfswerk, nine of a ten-set of Grimm's fairy-tale characters, with - from the left - Snow White and five dwarves, a lovely Puss-in-boots, a frog-kissing princess, a goose-girl, a generic witch, a very small 'giant' or hunter, a girl with blue birds (I remember some story about the bluetits sewing a dress or something?), whatever the Grimm version of Tom the piper's son is called (Tomas?) and Red Riding Hood on the right.

The box is probably not original, but I will keep them in it, it's a nice little fake snake-skin embossed paper from the 1940/50's (probably a gift box, from a watch or pen), and will keep them together until they inevitably have to be handed on, one day.

They are the typical bisque of such sets, looking quite like French fèves (which are traditionally hidden in tarts at this time of year), with a firing hole, that doubled as a receptor for the chemical fixer/glue blob we've seen on these before, for when badge-pins are added (two issues?), and the tenth turned up hiding under the faux-wool when I put them away - Sleeping Beauty, still holding her bobbin of spun thread!

Also, please note Dwarves six and seven are moulded on the rear of Snow White, albeit undecorated! And I don't know the set's issuer or issue date/s.

Finally came this witch-like, rather troglodyte, femme-sinister, who you can see from the chip at the baseline, is in a red terracotta, again reminiscent of other WHW sets/subjects, but would appear to be a beer (or Bier!) promotional, the monogram is not clear, but could be HB (Herforder Bier?) or RB, and whatever that answer, she may well be contemporary with the other pieces above, excluding the brass number!

Clearly she's holding the moniker'ed Stein, but what is in the crook of the other arm? A swaddled baby, some kind of brötchen or pretzel, or a sheaf of brewer's barley?

You can see she's barely 30mm to the more standard 40-mil of the other two, and more questions than answers with all four here, once I'd sat down and typed the blurb! So any help with these, sets, dates, issuers, origins, gratefully received!

. . . up his perverted little hole, preferably after shoving some Bwreakshiteers and Neocons up there first.

We're better than we think we are, we're better than we know we are, but we need to make more effort, every day, especially in England.

Someone in France has a shed-load of these, but there was one in the UK with a fiver on it, and I was paid on Friday, and the parcel was at the old house when I dropped off the recycling, on my way to work, so I've just shot/scanned this little beauty!

These are boxed and have a B prefix to their codes, so I suspect the others had a W prefix for 'window pack', and another look at the logo reveals it's probably CWT or WTC?, these lack the painted details of the others, so may have been later, or a budget line, and I think are the sort of thing you might have found as fair-ground side-show prizes - hook-the-duck, hoopla or the coconut shy?

Properly set up, and in fact both her hands were blocked with PVC-paint, so you have to force them, but it was an easy job. Accessories in white this time, but the drumsticks are green as last time. The French lot were mostly white too.

Box art and codes, still only the six instruments/one pose, but we now have more colours hinted at, while the French lots include the mustard yellow, we're still looking for red and pink, and a darker blue than the lot the other day.

To fill the post, I think we've seen these all before, but these are the bendies which have come in over the last few months, including the Brabo-marked soldier, and possibly the first bendy ever, the 'Little Rubber Man' who's clearly a Witch? The smoking dog came from Chris Smith and is one of a series of smoking dogs! The two littlies I can't remember, one's a Mickey Mouse knock-off, the other a small, daft-looking dragon type.

I had a parcel from Peter Evans yesterday, and I'll blog the rest in the usual fashion, but these need a post of their own, and I loved them so much, I got straight to it, Majorette Bendable's, whether majorette's or not, at 'Ball Games', Rose Parades, Independence Day, State Days, Town Fairs, the American's love getting their kids' into Marching Bands, so of course someone made toy ones!

I had hoped I could put a brand to these, but it was, in fact, a very similar TM by another maker (Tai Ming Industrial), so we're still looking for this TW or WT! As they are all coded 'W' it may well be the latter?

"Collect them!" it says, quite forcefully, but I don't need to, as Peter has sent all six, and you don't need to, because they're all here for you to see! Actually it's the same basic sculpt for all six babes, but where they don't need both ring hands, one tends to be left blocked-up with PVC paint.

A saxophone, a side-drum held high on the chest by the same strap as the base drummer's, and a trumpet (? You know what I'm like with brass instruments!), the Brass have two spigots either side so both hands can be attached (unlike the box-art), and you can then move the whole together, theoretically - because they are quite small for bendies, there's actually quite limited movement.

Base-drum and . . . Majorette Major? Didn't Joseph Heller do a skit about this . . . major Major Majorette-major! The shoulder strap of the bass-drummer has a very small nick in it which won't allow for full operation/posing, but I didn't want to try substituting the side-drummer's in case it's a sign of forthcoming brittleness, better to leave it on the ground.

And the French horn! Which raises the question of how many colours were they available in, and/or how many colours of instruments are out there? I'm also guessing all blue ones are blonde, all yellows russet or redhead and all green ones raven-haired?

Not that big either, about a true 60mm and a bit chubby in a slightly cartoonish or caricature style, but they'd go well as background interest with all sorts of 'standard' figures. Except that they are really kids around 85mm real scale?

She can do all the moves!

From ETSY via Pinterst, I think this is a vague approximation of the headdress aimed for by the Hong Kong sculptors, but I warn you, researching girls marching band hats and/or helmets is a fruitless, if interesting rabbit-hole, you probably don't want to fall-down!

We looked at the Britains-copy Hawaiian dancers here, and then there was a quick follow-up here, and I've now found this in the archive, it's not much use without the figures, but from the illustration it would seem to be one of the straight piracies rather than the clip-on skirt versions, and with the tree, probably the ones in the latter images of the above link.

Gay Gem, who often turn-up on evilBay with this kind of stuff, as I say; not much use, but it's in the tag-list now, under 'Hawaiian'. This would have been from the James Chase collection, and as the figures weren't with it, they probably went through the main auction at Christies, while this was in the ephemera-dump/polymer-overspill sale at SAS Auctions a few months later, all back in 2006, I think?

While I was at the London show I shot a few things, and these are some of they, from Matt's White Tower Miniatures stall, while I umm'ed and err'ed over what to purchase! Blurb-light because the images speak for themselves'.