F is for First Show of the Year - I

And so we all trekked-off to Sandown Park for the first show of 2024, a lovely day in the end, given it seems to have rained every other day since the beginning of February! I didn't buy much, but there are some nice bits among all the make-weights!

 

How cool is this? Adrian gave me this Fairylight magnetic-novelty at the end of the show, when I asked him what he had on it? We like cats here, and there's a surprising number of mice in the stash too; rubber, cartoon, Erzgebirge/wood, I think we saw some musician mice one time, so adding one of each, in the same box - bargain!

 

These are under embargo until they appear in the ongoing Railway figure posts!

 

Two early Wiking 'planes, I think we looked at a good one a few years back, these are missing bases and the wire hanger, along with their little clear acetate 'propeller sweeps', which clip over the nose-cones and can be replaced. Both dive-bombers/ground-attack types, a German Junkers Ju 87 'Stuka' and what I suspect is a Japanese Nakajima B5N'Kate' or, because the tail's not right, a Grumman TBF 'Avenger'?

An eclectic mix here, which, from the top left includes, a Linde premium buffalo/wisent type, a Barrat & Sons flocked cow, and an interesting use of the Impro tooling; an eraser-rubber version, with the full marking of the originals, also left on the brightly-coloured Imperial reissues.

Below them are two Vitacup animal premiums, one in a darker than normal ivory shade (which may only be a smoker's house jobbie?) and two Kellogg's premiums of Sooty characters, actually sweep and whatsit-cat . . . Googles frantically . . . Kipper! Kipper the cat.

And I'm sure most of you will recognise the Charbens circus elephant, it's easy to ID from this side!

 

A couple of cheap lots of smaller (35mm) flats, actually the upper lot are technically semi-flat, being a bit fatter, German troops painted as Fins, by the simple expedient of painting the flag Finnish! I'm not sure on the lower flats, but they do have base markings under the paint, which I shall address at some latter date, there is a fair bit of material to dig into on these.

And this was also a gift, Christian Hatley had mentioned them a while ago, and not recognising me with my Spring haircut, it took him a while to realise who I was, then gifted me this Diddy Man, who, I found when I got home, is another KT novelty figure! And there are probably at least three more to find, if they are aping the Cherilea ones?

H is for How They Come In - Another Box From John

I was over at John Begg's a week or two before the last London Show (report in the queue!) and he managed to foist a bunch of polymer loveliness on me, which we are looking at now, back from mid-June, you can see how everything slides!

Starting with an odd one, I didn't open it or shoot the contents very well as I thought they would be something common, like generic-packaged Billy V or BMC, but when I came to check - after they'd gone to storage, I couldn't place them.

Indeed, from what you can see here they are a bit of a Curate's egg; the marching Confederate looks to be a HaT 1:72nd scale copy, the kneeling Unionist has no base while the advancing Rebel looks more Comet-Authenticast or Spencer Smith? they also have small cannons (x2) and some mounted figures.

Pretty sure they aren't Imex, Imex-Billy V or BMC, BMC- Americana they don't look like the Hing Fat-Billy V, nor any of the obvious; Revel/Accurate, Esci/Italeri or A Call to Arms, so, for now: China [semi-] originals, in un-branded packing  . . . anyone know anything different, I don't think they are very old? They are now a priority for a re-look at the other end of my - currently stagnated (although HMRC found the missing £10K!) - journey.

The next day -  Loyal Readers to the rescue; Gisby recognised them as being Marx'y, and Peter Evans gave me the following "Those 45mm ACW figures were sold at a tourist concession at Gettysburg They are mainly scaled down copies of Marx 60mm figures, apart from a couple of Deetail copies and Peter's Replicants lying Confederate.", doubly useful info., as I'd not measured them either, so they are 'generic' sub-scale tourist trophies!

When I posted some carded Jean sets, an RTM or two ago, one of the PSTSM's little German shills posted some too! A while later, with the immortal word 'rare'! Please believe me, there is nothing rare about Jean carded sets, they are on eBay every day, these types are 1970's, early 1980's even, and while they tend to be a bit pricey, bargains can be had if you wait, but they are not rare!

This one is 'unusual', consisting of a variation on the Dulcop Charley Kit or Super Charley cartoonish, infant-toy Puppies figures*, and all civilian in this set, with a truck around 1:48/50th? and figures about 54mm, but still . . . not rare.

* A direct translation gives the same puppies as in 'baby dogs', but I suspect an infantile diminutive of the German Puppen for dolls giving Puppies (pronounced; poopees) for 'dollies', 'small dolls' or 'dollettes'?

Four Blue Box Russians; top left, which, with the three that came in a while ago (not shown, Chris, Peter, eBay?), made the full set without me ever getting my incomplete ones out of storage! Bargain!

Below them more Blue Box - knight (much-needed original weapon) and Tarzan, a useful Spot-On Policeman, and three of the many-branded (Tomy, Pressmann, ActionGT et al.) Crossbows & Catapults floor-game figures.

Right above is a mix of bits including a lead para' wargames figure, half an 'Old Bill' Bus Tommy (the other half may be in their bag!) from Airfix, and unusual ACW figure from Hong Kong, Marx Miniature Masterpiece totem-pole, Preiser Bundeswher Engineer from the river-crossing set and some other junk!

Bottom right is a nice Hong Kong stretcher-team, which may be (from the platic colours) two versions/makers or two batches - another Marx knock-off.

A right old mix here! Top left are some more of the educational supplies / cracker prize items, four Indians (I've just learned were cereal premiums in Canada - thanks Gisby), another Dinky clone road-worker, half a handful of comic-ad' AWI and some other novelty bits.

Top right are a probably French lead gun (RF, RL, SR . . . something with an R in!), and an anthropomorphic donkey, which may be from a Spanish or similar (Portuguese, Italian or French?) TV series? Rather nice, some age and while the paint is a bit chipped, he still sits/rests on his tail which you might expect to be missing!

John also insisted I take a bag of bits which included a bunch of rockets and missiles form Corgi, Dinky and Matchbox, along with ones for the Hong Kong pull-back tanks and armoured cars and a load of kit spares, while other bits include a flag-pole, pile-of-bricks lorry load (Eldon?) and some HVSS suspension/road-wheel units off of a large kit; 1:25, 1:30?

 

This was so nice I shot the arse out of it, you may remember we had the Barratt & Sons flying ducks from this range of doll's house furnishings, years ago, courtesy of Adrian Little I think, but this is so much more fun, No.2: Aquarium, four little goldfish in a little tank, we actually had one when we were kids, AND it had a green enameled wrought-iron frame with glass panels sealed-in with bitumen, which would spring a leak from time to time!

Small scale odds included a bag of Giant and Giant-like bits, a nice 'Cracker wagon', some Blue Box khaki infantry, a Preiser wagon, the top half of a Matchbox petrol-station attendant (the bottom half is part of the die-casting which includes the fuel-pumps and base), a bag of mixed Wild West and a bag of rack-toy 'army-man' bits.

Money changed hands, but not near what it was all worth and only because I insisted, so really it's another contribution to the Blog / Master Collecton - once it's all sorted out at the other end - Cheers John!

S is for Sandown Park - May 2022 - 2 of 3

Part two of the Sandown plunder posts, and while it wasn't a particularly memorable show for nice things, I did get a pretty eclectic mix of bits and bobs, so let's have a look at a few more . . .

I think these were two separate purchases as I went round the tables, on the left a late, but still marked, Lik Be (LB) robot fitted with a key-chain loop and in soft polyethylene with a few stabs of silver paint. On the right a variation of the bath diver, this paler than usual, and unmarked so might be British rather than Hong Kong in origin, but not the - often overpriced - Tresco one! We looked at a few here.

Some more hollow-cast, lead 'gap-fillers' from Adrian, another red-legged Lone Star legionary (from Steve Vickers, who thinks it's a repaint . . . I don't mind!), and a bag of Pic-a-Pac (Prison Industries/Pridus?) Charbens Guards, who we have to assume are Scots Guards, from both the lack of a plume and the inclusion of a kilted piper - not rare, the seller had a box-full!

The price was taped to the catapult and was quite expensive - for a catapult, the rest were spread about the shelf a bit, so I asked it it was for the catapult or the whole lot and he said the whole lot, at which point the unit-price became very reasonable, so I bought them - the second 40mm Elastolin lot in two weeks!

Four crew and a wheelwright/blacksmith's assistant but take his spare/mended wheel away and he makes an excellent extra crew-member!

This bunch were in the lot too, various archery shield-works/screens for laying siege, wicker and timber mantlets with wheels to push about the place, and a more substantial wall, with modular construction.

Poor photo I'm  afraid, there's a couple of them as I was shooting against Boysey-Boy's freshly laundered fleece and it's so soft and fluffy (he loves it) that the camera didn't know what/where solid was! But yeah - Blue Box Russians, another HK radio-operator Adrian found in his post-PW Show sort-out and another Aurora kit figure Russian.

Two Marx 60mm sports figures, coincidentally the two most usually broken (I think I have the golfer WITH super-glue!), both have their flesh coloured-in which I think was an end-used addition? And a reissue (?) of the 54mm female jungle explorer

Box-ticking with the lead civilians! Charbens (or copy?) farmer - Crescent mechanic -Unknown (penny toy?) - Johillco milkmaid? I'll check them all against the books at some point! I love the farmer's matching neck-tie and handkerchief in polka-dots!

Seen before here, courtesy of Chris Smith, as 'unknown, a bit like Arco', now known as Pikit Toys 'Battle of the Bi-Trons' with a better post coming, probably in RTM?

A well! Since the two or three posts/follow-ups on these a year or so ago, Chris has sent me one or two, I've bought one or two, so the whole sample/side-collection has grown somewhat but is currently in several places, most of them buried in a shipping container, so it will be a while before we return to them, but we will and with a better picture than last time, and they told a reasonable tale then! This is the all lead version of the Barratt piece we looked at here, produced after Taylor had 'won' the T&B tool in the divvy-up!

Another one that's not quite in focus, we saw them years ago when I shot them on [I think?] Phil's table at Sandown Park, now I have a set, a nice box ticked. A bit pricy, and not as rare as some would have you believe, they found a load when the Elastolin factory closed about 15/20-years ago, so all the interested parties got a set at the time!

From the rears, the red one is quite a traditional, if portly 'crab-man', and the spaceman is very good if a bit uninspired, the other two however came from the fevered minds of a surrealist on drugs! The blue one is both inventive and wacky, but the monkey-faced, horned, flat-chested, ostrich-knickered, hoofed, rubber-stretchy hula-lady is the stuff of nightmares!

I wonder if there is a Perry Rodan connection with these figures; there isn't an 'overt' one as far as I am aware, but I thought maybe some of the paperback artworks might have inspired the sculptor/s?

H is for How They Come In - Chris - October 2021 - Mixed Stuff

I think! I have another lot from Chris Smith which is in a folder marked December, so it was further down the list of catch-up 'H is for...' posts, but then I realised I had a sorting picture dated the end of November, so it had come in earlier, and yet these are dated the middle of October, so they too may have been put to one side and photographed a while after they'd come in?

It was all a bit hectic in the autumn . . . still is, just had four days in the garden trying to sort the stuff from the sheds, greenhouse and garage, but don't seem to have got far despite working till dark! Anyway, another 'junk' lot kindly donated to the Blog by Chris, with a view to sharing the highlights with the rest of you and seeing what I highlight!

Starting the sort, and you can see a lot which won't be in the two posts this time, and there's no rhyme or reason for what gets shot and what doesn't, and something which won't get included in one post, might make another.

The things which stand out on the day get photographed, it's all got a place in the collection, and things ignored on the day, might 'make' a thematic or maker post, years from now or provide the only example on an A-Z page entry - when they gather pace!

There was a nice selection of Dinosaurs, which varied from the poor, mono-coloured, multi-sub-generational copies of old US sculpts to the very realistically painted ones top-right and bottom-left (I do like a Dimetrodon or two!), and the two top left, who were fantastic!

Gotta'be a highlight of the whole box! Plug-together, articulated dino's in an HO-OO compatible size . . . bargain! Rather generic 'meat-eaters' and I suspect a cereal premium, or cheap carded rack-toy, mid-1970's maybe? But absolutely delightful - anybody know anything else about them, how many were there, who issued them?

This is interesting, the locating stud/perching spigot on the underside is (I believe) compatible with Lego technical stuff, now years ago I had some chrome-plated jeep stores (jerry can and spare tyre), probably Hong Kong, which went-on as they were beyond the scope of the collection, but they were useable with Lego, so it may be that this pterosaur is a Mega-Bloks, Tomy or other, more minor Kiddycraft-clone's 'playability' accessory?

Other wildlife! Another of those Indian plaster, wire and wood birds, a lovely 'styrene pig who's beautifully marbled and I love the fake netsuke monkey, while I had a scruffy example of the small (35mm) bendy-chimp, but I didn't know he came with a larger bendy-parent!

I think the red horse is from the R&L/Kellogg's horse box (can't remember if it was in two parts or what plastic it was now, and it's away, sorted!), while the flat pair of Dachshunds are a wishy-washy white plastic, so probably Christmas Cracker or gum-ball capsule machine prize, rather than a creamy-white Euro-'margarine premium'? All good stuff!

Chris sent the yellow ones in the lot we're looking at here, and I photographed them with some I'd already put on the side, which may also have come from him or Peter Evans, but may have come in one of a couple of real cheapo' HK-junk lots I'd purchased last year for one or two figures? Point is, solid piracies of Hong Kong swoppet copies (of the Star Toys type), of Timpo - that standard bearer is not bearing Timpo anatomy!

More annoying, I know I have now found a brand-mark for one of the two types (deep, hollowed or shallow, smooth bases), but I can't find the reference just now (the reason I had the others on the side!), so we'll have to return to them at some point when it turns-up.

An eclectic bunch, the Household cavalryman would seem to be a HK-copy of Britains Herald, but with a solid (clumsy) right-arm, the damaged figure is very interesting (one assumes die-cast or plastic vehicle accessory), as he's a scale-up (40mm'ish) in polystyrene of the Matchbox 25mm hunter from the 1-75 range.

Love the angel, she's a bit sexy for a nativity set, and looks vaguely familiar but I can't nail down the memory? The guy in the floppy-hat may be a cuckoo-clock barometer/weather-vane person?

Top left I think I've seen on an LRG forum described as a gum-ball copy of some better Japanese Kaiju/Anime character? Top right also looks very capsule-machine, while the broken gymnast finds a home here due to the number of different versions of them out there and plethora of sizes and colours;  - any sample is better than no sample!

Not quite in focus, sorry! I was going to do a whole page of firefighter figures (and various people; Chris, Brain B and Theo V-de-W helped with shots), and I will, but not as soon as I'd hoped, and when I do; these will all be there! In the meantime; obviously two large-scale vehicle accessories and a more 'army-man' rack-toy type who had a painted helmet when new.

There's a lot to ponder here! Love the 'Cleatus' teeth, because they're designed to give an over-pronounced 'toothy' over-bite, they have teeth-grips instead of being designed to slip behind the gums, or go-over the wearers teeth, consequently I haven't been spotted trying them on, as I don't know where they've been!

Two cracker/gum-ball pistols will join the growing bag of such novelty items and the sack of corn is another thing which I can't place but which looks familiar? Don’t know what the cow's head is from (orange blob), maybe one of the Mattel custom 'chopper' motorcycles?

The 'Tardis' is probably a European call-box, police or breakdown, and an accessory from someone like Majorette or Solido? The well is a nice piece, we had a bit of a mini season on them a while back (back in the early lock-downs?) with help from both Chris and Barney Brown, and this is a colour variant of the Barrat one. Chris actually sent me another well (in the Nov/Dec. lot) and I have in the meantime combined all mine - as they went to storage, so we will return to wells in a year or two!

Finally a nice late Giant-copy wagon, dog-kennel (or z-gauge locomotive shed!), and a standard Hong Kong army-man flag, but with an unusual design on the flag!

This is an amazing survivor; a very delicate, polystyrene, novelty 'plane, which I seem to recall makes a dive-bomber's wailing noise (or bee's hum?)  if you blow or suck on the large engine, but as with the Cleatus teeth, I don't know who sucked it last, so I gave that test a miss, but one day I'll give it a clean and have a go!

Many thanks to Chris as always, and part two will be the military!

W is for Well . . . Follow-up to the Follow-up

Barney Brown of Herald Toys & Models sent these in case I didn't mention them in the follow-up to wells; which I hadn't, not only that but I had presumed the Taylor was from the hollow-cast mould and fingered Barratt as possible source of one of the two unknowns!

The truth is Barratt & Son inherited the T&B mould and FG Taylor's is the much copied version, although I think heavy cross-bar notwithstanding, the Speedwell is based on this - 'this' being the Barratt one!

This is the lead original, although the company is known as a hollow-cast producer, items like this are more traditionally made, poured-lead 'solid' castings, this is a cross-over piece with a plastic roof on a metal body, so is probably 'Barratt' rather than 'Taylor & Barratt'?

Production was eventually all-plastic and here is a later one with polymer body and roof, but still with a metal bucket and wire winding handle. You may have noticed - before reading this far! - another piece of plastic, on the bottom of the moulding? Well . . .

. . . I think this well is the first of the wells we've looked at, which is designed to hold actual water? The 'cap' is manufactured from neutral granules, is semi-transparent and can only be there to provide a seal so that water can be poured into the mould . . . how cool is that, it was the 1950's after all!

Many thanks to Barney for (what are very good-) images and the data, I'll update the other two posts to reflect the new information with links to here.

Previously;
Original Post
Follow-up Post (post below this one on the page)