P is for Potpourri of Plastic Peeps! Sports & Civilians

Off and running with Chris's donation parcel from late March, and it's the sportsmen and civi's first, with some interesting bits and a couple of all new ones.

 

This is a set I'd always hankered after, not so desperately that I sought it out and bought it, but unless you specialise in Merten as a core section of your collection, there is so much stuff by them, you just grab what you see, when you see it, if it's affordable, but I'd always looked at them in the catalogues and thought "That's a useful set", and here it is courtesy of Mr. Smith!

It's one of two sets in the catalogues, and if you were a wargamer, making an Italian Army, these would slot right in to an alpine unit, with the Esci-Ertl, Atlantic and - if you're lucky - Co-Ma Alpini figures! Also, I don't think there's a comparable set from Preiser, their's are walking with slung rifles I think? Something to check for another day!

 

Note also that an untouched set has the figures in the same configuration as the catalogues, a continuation of the very early issues where they were sold with the runner (incorrectly 'sprue') still attached to their heads.

A couple of the footballers usually associated with Parker/Palitoy, but there is more to it and a longer article is in the long queue, these 'novelty' games tend to generate copies and/or get licenced out to other brands or as cheap generics.

 

The fact that the blue one was in poor condition has allowed me to show some of the components, and you can see how the bent wire runs down the spine and hooks into the thigh, allowing a spring in the body to operate the kicking action when you press the head.

 

Another of the little Spanish terracotta figurines who have been slowly growing as a group, over the lifetime of the Blog, most as gifts from Chris or Peter Evans, or charity-shop purchases, I think we are over the baker's dozen now! I believe this chap is a shepherd?

 

Speaking of shepherds', I suspect this is German, I think I've mentioned before, when we were kids, (1969; so I was only five) we had a motoring holiday of Germany, and one of my abiding memories is of this mountain, possibly on the NATO side of the Erzgebirge, up against the Rhine (?), which was called something like Dwarf Mountain, and had a kind of Greek-columned building at the top (which was buried in low cloud the day we visited), and where A gift shop had this kind of stuff. I'd love to know where it was/what it was really called, if any German readers can recognise the description!

 

10 years later the shops in Bad Tölz were still full of similar stuff, but, while the later stuff was mostly real, wooden Erzgebirge, this is plastic, after the wooden patterns, as were the little chromed-gold dwarfs we bought that day, up the mountain!

A Betterware gift spoon with figural handle, this was actually the second thing ever blogged on the Blog, back in December 2008, but that one was a pinkish-maroon (what fashionista's probably call 'cherry yogurt'!), so a nice colour variation here, and presumably more to find?

 

Assorted sportsmen, I think the riders are Christmas cracker types, they may be from a board game, but I've never found it, while these little toys turn-up in most mixed lots of small scale, and have many colours and quite a few pose variations, while also being quite crude flat/semi-flat sculpts, so one suspects cheap novelties.

The wrestler is probably contemporary/near-contemporary, and is actually a mini action figure (points of articulation), but at this size tends to stay in the collection, as the Galoob Action Fleet types survive! The blue & white footballer is a cake decoration in search of a base (with one of the earlier, better football strips?), and we've seen the athletes before, many to find in a dozen sizes and loads of colours/base types. The fallen figure is Subbuteo I think, one of the oversized players you used for defending goal or taking throw-ins?

The other civilians include a sub-piracy of the Blue Box copy of a British race official, a turquoise lady, probably from a boardgame, a Lledo baker's boy, a dimestore vehicle figure (? I think we may have seen them in other colours, so maybe also a boardgame counter-piece?), Blue Box road worker copied from Dinky and an ex-Britains zoo-keeper sculpt, whom I suspect is from a set of rack-toy firefighters.

 

Thanks again to Chris for all these.

100 is for Real Little Dolls!

A follow-up to past posts, most notably this one from February '09, which looked at my two incomplete samples and a few oddities, tying them to the Euro-premiums, some of which some of them were pirated from!

From the archive are a couple of newspaper clippings, one is Dept. DL, which might be a clue to the Detroit Lakes Tribune being the carrier paublication? The other is a more generic PO Box number similar to those used with the comic-giveaway Ad's these 'dolls' also appeared in, but both came to me already trimmed

I played with the pictures and ended up with two usable images! I can't remember why I numbered them, there may be a missing list somewhere! But basically 1-10 are taken from the previously flagged European margarine-premium 'dancers' set, 11-20 seem to be taken from other sources too, 21-29 are more unique to the 'comic' set and 30 is the Santa I'm still missing!

Mentioned in the past, they came with a PVC/vinyl sticker set from which you were to fashion hats, skirts, shirts, collars, capes and bows - for the deer! Like a lot of old vinyl, they are sticky and shrinking now.

Now; I do have this set somewhere, but I'm not sure if these are my scans or someone else's off of that Wibbly Wobbly Way? If they are yours and you want me to remove them, let me know, it's not a problem, I'm just losing track of all the imagery on the dongles!

The missing Santa in the upper shot, and the Berserker doing some scaleing in the lower shot, all the figure images are courtesy of Brian Berke who sent them some time ago, well, about two years ago, it's a long queue now!

The same artwork being used in a rare branded Ad' for Palmer Jones, you can see why some people conflate these with the Giant-branded stuff - there's very little connection beween most comic-stuff and Giant, the exception being the 'board games' by Lucky Products and Helen of Toy, where some components are the same as those used by Giant of New York, World Toy House and others.

There is more on the sets in a brief entry on the A-Z blog here, while I looked at a few of Betterware's versions in this Blog's second ever post!

H is for How They Come In - December 2020 - II Chris - Ceremonial, Historical & Wild West

On to 'Toy Soldiers' proper, except most of these are technically civilians, but civilians with guns! Although some ceremonials at the end of the post get us back on military ground.

The sitting figure here is an odd one, I have him in two sizes (I may even have a missing drum somewhere, but I don't know which sized figure it goes with) and I think the larger (here) may be RP (Res Plastics) from Italy although unmarked, and if not; any one of several others, while the smaller version is probably the Kinder variant, the knees having to fit in the egg-capsule? if the missing drum is right, it's a thin disc more like a tambourine! 

July 2022 - A similar but glossy, yellow one is now known to be by Locati from Italy; similar capsule toys.

The cowboy with lasso is one of several I have now, both cowboys and Indians, all smallish (45mm), all glossy brown (different shades) and only a few poses (two of each?), so probably Christmas crackers or something like that? I love the yellow flat in soft plastic, probably a copy of a Euro-premium! We've seen the cake-figure before and the damaged Herald Copy is a lovely plastic colour, so definitely worth keeping.

There should be a totem-pole with this, but it was shown earlier in the year and them went away with the others! Comansi, late production in semi-indestructible PVC vinyl rubber from Spain, it was previously issued in polyethylene and there are small scale versions I really should have Blogged by now, but they have actually gone away into storage . . . again!

We've seen these before more than once and another contributor - Brain Berke - managed to ID them as Lucky Bag gifts over here, but you can never have too many I suspect, due to the number of poses and colours coupled with the frangibility of them making whole ones that much harder to obtain!

Ah yes! Winners of the worst figures ever, in my book (after some editor nicked the obvious Cherilea first spot when he launched the 'competition . . . no, not bitter at all, press corruption is what Brwreakshit was all about, wasn't it!); the MTC Ninjas, although space-ice-hockey-jockey-Ninjas does them more justice!

A Kinder push-together, two-part Samurai archer in the middle, I'd like to think I'm building a set of these (there are only two poses in two or three colours I think?) but the bows are always broken, so I have a full set of legs with one good body!

Bottom row is a Japanese-made 1950's celluloid peasant, he should be walking next to a cart with a rake or broom over his shoulder I suspect, then another Euro-premium copy of a Fontanini oriental statuette and finally a swoppet practitioner of Kung-fu from Hong Kong via Ward International and others.

This was a real surprise, we've seen the Texan/Alamo cowboys (and cannon) and the dancers, but this is another set of European margarine flats, taken by Betterwear and reproduced in soft polyethylene, clearly a nativity set, it was new on me - and as far as I know the rest if the hobby? There's gonna' be at least ten to find? Lovely.

A lovely bisque cake decoration with drum and another Guardsman key-ring! The latter is in rubber and to stand him up I had to prop him against the cake dec', so you can't see his rifle well, but it is all there!

Three military musicians on the left; a very nice copy of a Crescent/Kellogg's drummer, reduced in size a tad, the Highlander now credited to Scottish International Gift and a European figure, which I think might come from Layla, or one of the other 'minor' German makers?

We saw the Pirates on ITLAPD, but here they are again, Lone Star 'Metallions', or copies thereof, or licensed production, there are about five-names associated with these sculpts in die cast and a few plastic knock-offs. Quite a few!

******     *****    ****   ***  ** * **   ***    ****     *****      ******

This should have published at 9.30 this morning, but the laptop went phutt last night with one line to do! I spent all day running round Berkshire and Hampshire trying to get it fixed, and then after a nice chap in a techie-shop showed me a cheat while he orders a part, it righted itself! Don't know how long-for though, so, fix will go ahead, and new laptop seems to be my Christmas present to myself . . . they are all Win.10 or II and none of them have a disc-drive - WTF!

F is for Freebe!

A follow-up to be read in conjunction with the original posts, which were right back at the start of this blog...B is for Betterwear

A quick perusal of those posts will reveal that I talked then of 'Incentives', having always been told and therefore believing that these were issued for total purchases, or total value of purchases or success as an 'agent' for neighbours or something, however; it would seem that in fact they were randomly shoved through the nation's letter-boxes as an advertising gimmick...

A quick read of the leaflet/flyer that accompanied the 'gift' would seem to suggest a rather physical version of cold-calling, in which the local agent introduced his or herself by going round the neighbourhood posting free cowboys, dancers or spoons (what else was there?) through peoples doors...oh that they were doing so today, they are still going as a direct/mail-order marketing concern with 'local agents', as are Avon and Kleeneze.

How the assembly seems to have been delivered; the flyer and figure together in a paper-backed cellophane window envelope of the type stamp-collectors used to use (well; they may still, I'm no expert!). The tear-off slip states that you exchange it for a free gift? Was this the cowboy so clearly accompanying the uncut slip or a further gift? Did some agents just place the gifts with the coupon as a further incentive, or was the policy changed after the flyers were printed?...or; has the cowboy been married to an uncut leaflet with a stamp-collectors envelope by a toy collector?!

A slightly fuller set than we looked-at last time, the photographs are courtesy of Gareth Morgan (Morgan Miniatures) who has also sent me some shots for the Charbens section of the Khaki Infantry page! I'm still missing the cannon from my collection.

Maybe you got one figure/spoon through the door and the rest of the set with your first contact? Can anyone remember?

It would also be nice to know if these are taken from another - probably US - origin (like the World Dolls which were previously margarine premiums), as they have something of the Alamo or Philippine expedition about them, rather than being just plain 'cowboys'?

 

Much latter - Yes, they are taken from a set of Euro-premiums credited to Mayer-Lippinghausen (German margarine), where they were issued in hard, brittle polystyrene, rather than the soft polyethylene of the Betterware examples.

B is for Betterwear

Late Photo-addition to show markings on previous post!

B is for Betterwear

Yeah! I know...I can think of at least 6 Z's, it's Q that will be the problem!!

Well, the enthusiasm of a new blog leads to two posts in one day!! These are by Betterwear, a company that was early on the scene with door-to-door sales of plastic household goods from little catalogues issued every month or so, the company is still going as a franchise, but they haven't given away this type of Premium/Incentive for years. The heyday was the late 50's through to the early 70's.

The first photograph shows the 25mm range, appearing in soft red and cream plastic, these are taken from the much copied/licensed 'World Dancers' and 'National Dress' sets found all over the world, flat and semi-flat, various scales and hard or soft plastic, these are flats. I will do a full article on these figures in the fullness of time...no, I will!! [February 2009 - I did, you'll find it under 'W is also for World Dolls']

Also flats; The Cowboys are closer to 45mm and again turn up in hard plastic as Margarine/Tobacco premiums elsewhere. Bottom right is commonly found damaged so he may be clubbing with a rifle or using a pick? [Clubbing with  rifle...June 2014]


The final photo shows the Betterwear Polystyrene medicine spoon with 54mm civilian in typical 1950's office dress, and the others compared to an Airfix 20mm Cowboy.