P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Sports

The next section of Chris's wonderful parcel is the sports and pastimes, which are sometimes thrown in with the civilians in these cover-views, but there were quite a few this time, so they get their own post!

 

Three from Subbuteo, one home-painted 'fan', one unpainted goalie and a factory-painted press photographer, behind a bunch of simplistic chaps from some beg-board board-game or more interactive table game with wires and springs or even a blow-football type thing, I'm not sure, but I have ID'd lots of similar sets via feebleBay, over the years!

 

Not strictly-speaking 'sports' but cake decorations, but most of them are sporty and there weren't so many images in the folder! We looked at the skaters back at Christmas, the cowboy and footballer have been covered a few times, and another part drum-kit from Gemodels helps with a future 'Battle of the Bands'!

 

The skipping girl is from a larger set of various figures via Hong Kong, stocked over the pond by some of the minor makes I think (Grandmother Stover, Unique, Carousel et al) rather than Wilton, but may have been Culpitt over here? And the Santa' was a new pose, also made in Hong Kong, and similar to the Crescent pose, but not the same.

 

Three boarders, from three sources, all unknown to me, there is, or has been in recent years a lot of this in the proper toy-chains, which I haven't paid enough attention to, but the near one is probably a cake decoration, back left some rack-toy generic maybe, while the girl on the right should be plugged-in to a missing board, and is somewhat reminiscent of the late Britains Petite sets?

 

Obviously from North America, but whether the 'States or the never-to-be 51st State of Canadia is anyone's guess, two base-ball players with magnets in their bases, and a more modern PVC ice-hokey player. Help needed on all three?

 

The beautiful game! Another of the Hong Kong vinyl, football keyrings we've seen before here, a cereal premium we've also seen a few of the others from, but I've forgotten which set/when/where, and a novelty footballer bear which may be Kinder, or a recognised mascot, or both!

I is for It's Not Rounders and It's Not French Cricket!

I picked up a small bag of mostly American Footballer's the other day, but there happened to be some nice, early-looking baseballers in the same bag. To be honest I wondered if they might be Commonwealth (right colour, but too glossy?) or Van Brode (semi-flat), but a quick Google revealed them to be Ajax, and not that uncommon.

These are they! Factory painted in a dark chocolate brown (and blue!) on a pinkish-fawn base material, it's a hard plastic; probably polystyrene, but some of the properties of a clean Bakelite, the sort used for visible electrical's in domestic settings, plugs and switches. They are smallish, about 50-mil - I didn't measure them and they've been put away now!

The three on the left were also in the bag, while I had the one on the right, all copies of Lido-made US originals. These are the poorer copies, unpainted and in two variations, smooth bases and hollowed bases with a HONG KONG mark; the smooth-based figures are marked on the body - see below.

The better copies are hand-painted and can be found in soft plastic or - as here, carried by Wilton's - in hard plastic, these are very similar to the American Football set we looked at the other day/will look at in the next few days (delete as applicable!) and might be from the same source. These also carry a small HONG KONG on the base - see below.

Loose odds include a soft plastic version of the previous figures, a figure who may or may not be a baseball player (he has some properties in-common with some novelty soldiers I have with separate clip-together belts and stuff), but I think he is, his heat-shrinkage damage making it hard to read the details!

The other two are probably gum-ball capsule-toy inserts, with a glossy 20-odd millimeter one and a larger, earlier looking chap who I like as he's  a catcher (?) preparing the 'secret hand signal' for the pitcher!

Markings, or lack of them left-to-right from the top, Ajax are blank, marked and smooth based Lido copies, the other marked, flat-base (Wilton) and the three smaller novelties.

The body-mark of the other Lido-copy, compared to the hollowed-base one; orange is another colour that's hard to photograph, but it is there! Like American Footballers they are not numerous this side of the pond; it's not our game!

Speaking of American Footballers - meet you here again in an hour-and-a-half!