L is for Lots of London Loot - Sandown February - Space & Pop Culture

So, I would seem to be catching up with the stuff that's come in over the last ten months or so, and the Sandown Park show, just gone, produced quite a collection of bits and bobs across scales, types and genres for the stash, this post is what I'd normally call the Space and TV, but they weren't TV first, being corporate mascot and comic characters!

 

I have quite a few Bibendums, and we have seen him here before, but this is far more animated than the usual standing types. Quite large and a modern PVC-substitute, I'm sure it's a pretty contemporary promotional piece?

 

Slightly futuristic lines to these dime-store pieces, the car and caravan being more conventional, and marked ACME, one of the trading names of Thomas Toys in the US, I think the truck is unmarked, but I'm sure it'll be in Bill Hanlon's book? Looks like a simplified copy of Archer's 'Future Cars' sculpt?

 

Adrian had saved these two Cherilea / Hilco's for me, the standing guy has a damaged weapon, but they both have their correct helmets and put my squad, much enhanced with superglue up to about ten, with most complete, but all short on helmets!

 

Bully Lucky Luke figures, the eponymous hero, his horse Jolly Jumper and his dog, Ratanplan, these are soft PVC and scale well with the Comansi/bubble-gum premium ones seen here before.

 

The Dalton Brothers, from the left; Averell, Jack, William and Joe, also Lucky Luke characters, these are in a hard, possibly phenolic plastic, or early 'styrene, from JIM in France, and are in a larger scale.

 

Brabo bendy toy! Larger again, and manufactured in that slightly sweaty PVC, some Hong Kong makers used/favoured at times, but only to a slight shininess, not the full-on weeping stickiness of some old toys from the colony!

 

Mixed, larger-scale space figures with two of the Marx metallic blue ones, a Tudor Rose (marked) licensed copy/mould swap of Premier's pulp spaceman waving pistol and a - probably - 1970's PVC gum-ball, capsule-machine robot.

 

Three of the LB (for Lik Be) copies, I couldn't remember which ones I already had, so just grabbed all three against the possibility I might still need some poses, which may be among this trio, and because paint was quite good, except the bases!

 

We've seen them before, and now attributed them to two names, Toyway and the original GLJ, with packaging, so I thought we should see them from the back! I got excited as I thought I'd 'found' a fourth pose, but we've actually seen them all before!

 

These have been a steady stream-in, over the last few years, Italy's sub-scale copies, titled Space Legion (Legione Epaziale), from little pocket-money cards, again copied, but from Archer as well as the Premier biggies. I like the marbling, it gives each figure a certain character or uniqueness!

 

These are the Giant sub-copies I called 'Copy 2' here, and while the most common of the four types so far found, this particular batch is a late-production run, with a lot of heat-shrinkage dwarfism! They are also, mostly, in a darker gunmetal than the usual samples? You can spot the three more common silvery ones among them, and they are guarding two valuable dome-helmets (Archer / Glenco and Britains?) for the spares box!

H is for How They Come In - Sandown Park, November, 2 of 2

It's not that I'm trying to beat 2017's post total, that's an imposable target, this late in the year, but we’ve had a few wet days here, which I've used to get some of these folder's cleared-off the PC! Second half of the plunder from the last Sandown show now.

 

A Speedwell Japanese soldier, who had lost his head in all the excitement, already glued back-on, it's not a good job, and as the rifle and hat have been re-painted, I will probably strip him right back, re-do the head with pinning and repaint him more realistically, as a spare, someday.

A Timpo Indian from the earlier solids, taken from hollow-cast moulds I think, and a probably home-cast, probably modern ACW in whitemetal, but he's pretty enough and was in a bag with other stuff!

 

Hong Kong diver, resin anthropomorphic pig, a horse which I think is a bit of Dom-for-Heinerle and a driver sitting on an unrelated crate of bottles in a dense vinyl. The figure itself is polystyrene, and may go with that grey one which keeps turning up?

 

Three odd little aliens I know nothing about, might be Kinder and one has a plug on his foot, along with a Heimo-Bully Dalton brother (Averell or Jack?) from France's Lucky Luke comic strip.

Horton-Trix-Briains Lilliput station staff and passengers,

along with a hotel porter (red jacket)

Acédo Jungle plastic from France

Mostly Marty-M Toy (May Moon) WWII, but the driver is another colour and may be from a different maker, while the chap down the bottom with the marbled Lido knock-off, is taken from the Swoppet mortar man and will be from a third producer.

 

Other figures with the driver include a modern pirate, Manurba swivel-waist, modern cop and - probably - French bazaar cyclist, although he may be a board-game piece or cracker-toy?

 

From the sublime, to the ridiculous, is unfair, but exactly the sort of occasion for that phrase! Lone Star's swivel/jointed-limb farm animals above, we looked at a complete with tab cow here, and, Kinder wildlife below.

V is for Vikings, Vandals, Varangians, Visigoths and err . . . Goths!

Plain old Goths . . . with a G! The same comments re. this post apply as to the Roman post - mixed lot on eBay about a year ago, posted a few elsewhere, a couple of unrelated photo-shoots, finding the Heimo/54mm's while putting them away in the loft, shooting them against the small scale before they all went to storage and then having to be a bit vicious with the pile of images but still ending up with some duplication!

We'll start with a comparison line-up this time; on the left is the Warriors of the World, hard polystyrene plastic 60mm Marx original with full factory paint. Then an unpainted copy from the former Soviet Union or post-Soviet Ukraine.

As the former they can be the Ukrainian DZI,  Донецький Завод Іграшок - Donetsʹkyy Zavod Ihrashok (Донецкая фабрика игрушек - Donetskaya fabrika igrushek in Russian) whether Russia steals it again or not - Slava Ukraine! 

As the latter: Ark Models, where they are often described as "recast Marx", well, firstly you cast metal not plastic (you run, shoot, inject, 'push-through' or mould plastic) and secondly, they are copies, possibly stolen from the German Charmore production, not even reissues, although Ark are reissues of DZI! More on DZI here.

You can see however, they are very good copies, even down to the blemish on the spear shaft, and there may have been a nod-&-a-wink, from Marx, via East Germany (?), but they are too small to be 'from Marx mould tools', a very good example of the pantographer's art, but the size difference can't be explained by the [marginally] greater shrinkage of polyethylene, over polystyrene!

Then we have a 54mm Viking from Marx (with home paint) and finally a pair of the Miniature Masterpiece ones which led to the confusion of my thinking I'd also shot 30mm Romans the other day! Of note here is that the right-hand (late, soft plastic version) figure has had his spear re-tooled, I think the back-end of the shaft may be 'short-shot', but the pointy-end has been re-done, with a new spear-tip, placed short off/of the base

Last year's additions, allowing for front and back shots of two, and these are often found damaged, due to the fine sections and frangibility of polystyrene. They're fun, and while as Verangians, the Vikings were enemies of Rome, it wasn't the Rome of Marx's legionnaires, but rather the Arthurian/Dark Age, late-Rome, beloved of fantasy set-dressers.

Again, what can I say, it's a good shot! Note the arrows are threaded behind the bow, not as you would sport-shoot today.

Base marking and plastic colour, one white the other a cloudy/marbled neutral-granule grey, neither have the full Marx-X of the Romans, but just a HONG KONG, which makes them look bought-in!

The other chap, I rather like him, he looks like he doesn't take nonsense from fuckwits, which is not a bad life philosophy! It's like he's daring you to say something . . . anything untoward!

The Ukrainian copies, I don't have the whole/complete lot in any type, but I have them all in 30mm, and I thought I had at least one larger example of each in larger iterations, but I am actually missing one - guy with a sword and shield, similar to the clubbing guy, top middle!

An equally incomplete set of the 54mm's, but a mixture of originals (top row) and reissues (bottom row). I think we all know by now that horns and wings were more of a ceremonial/burial-goods thing, rather than a practical feature of war-fighting, skull protection!

Miniature Masterpieces, all eight, for some years, from childhood until taking the hobby up again after the Army, I only had the chap on the left and always thought he was an Assyrian or something else more Biblical . . . Hittite or something! And with that cone shield he would/does make an excellent Goliath with HäT Industries Assyrians!

And there's a nice diminutive slinger in the Revell scale-downs of Elastolin Romans, who can be David!

In the putting-away I found a Heimo licensed-production figure in PVC; with the white beard he looks like an avenging God! Full Marx-X marks on the small scale figures and some size comparisons, the Heimo has no marks.

How they went away! Hard polystyrene and soft polyethylene go together, reissues, copy and PVC are in with the Rojas y Malaret elephant for some reason - enough room for an elephant I suppose! The PVC figures get a separate bag, as they have a chemical effect which can affect other plastics or paints and I don't want to find a tub of sticky goo, next time I go into it!

G is for the Glory of Rome!

I had a lucky score on eBay about a year ago, showed them elsewhere, took some extra shots for here, and sort of lost them in Picasa, shot them again when I was putting them away with the other Roman stuff, including other Marx, and had (possibly 'in the meantime') shot a comparison with some smaller ones.

I thought I'd also shot the 30mm's (Marx's idea of HO, being their [America's] slot-racing 1:64th!), even unto mentioning them as coming in this post, the other day, but I hadn't so we'll have to wait another day for them . . . if they exist. But more on that below.

Anyway, they all went in this folder, and I then had to be a bit ruthless in what I deleted and what I put in an 'unused' folder for now, but here's the result, still with a bit of repetition but not the amount of duplication which was here this morning!

From the purchase, the two sentry poses above and a couple of the more dynamic chaps below, front and back with some variation in paint, you can see what I meant about the 6-inch figure's shield arm in the previous but one post, on this figure it's far straighter giving a neater and more vertical look to the figure.

The choice of a man with a whip is odd, these were originally from the 60mm Warriors of the World line, and as such he was called Marcus Gaius, which seems to be a totally invented name (there are a couple of Gaius Marcus's in history), so is he whipping slaves (yuck) or propelling a chariot which would come later with the 54mm Ben Hur playsets?

Shot the previous top row again, with the addition - far left of upper row - of a soft PVC version from Heimo's European operation. These two are my favourite poses, possibly in part due to their having been copied by Giant and others in small-scale.

I like them so much in fact, I shot them again! Call it 'Trooping of the Colours', with the previously seen here on Small Scale World; pencil-sharpener statuette, and err . . . no colours!

The other guy from the top again, with a damaged orange polyethylene one who might be a good rack-toy copy or a reissue from Mexico or somewhere, I don't know? But a nice enough figure throwing a small spear or javlin.

I really like this guy as well, but he doesn't look terribly Roman! Some Illyrian, Thracian or Dacian 'barbarian' maybe? Equally, if you take him out of the time period, he's a Greek with the right helmet and a large Hoplon shield, but a very good sculpt with much dynamism.

My 54mm Ben Hur sample is incomplete and modern reissue production, so nothing to write home about, but that's alright I'm already home so I'll write it here as a box ticker. A few useful figures, but not a set which has ever got me excited, the seated figure is sitting on an ancient warship from a board-game which happened to be passing - Escape from Atlantis.

I shot these ages ago, they have been turning up in ones and twos, pretty much since I started collecting, so have some age, the most I've seen at once is three which came in from Peter Evans, but he'd probably also collected them over time, so the conclusion is something like Christmas crackers or gum-ball / capsule-machine prizes? Note that one of them is actually a Marx Egyptian pose - bottom right.

However, you can see here (taken after those three from Peter, or a Chris donation, maybe an Adrian lot?), that the bases are very Marx like, with two mould-release pin-marks, although also marked 'Made in Hong Kong', so . . . There were a few Biblical sets in the Marx Miniature Masterpiece lines, some of which may have contained the Egyptians (another - damaged - one added in the above shot, bottom left), which would explain the tool but not the base mark!

Equally, I don't know of any Romans being in the MM-sets, which is why I didn't photograph them, I don't have any, I do have Vikings, but they went up against the (very Tudor) Knights in this scale, and while the Knights get a soft-plastic unpainted version in the window boxes, the Vikings weren't promoted to those lofty, late production levels, let alone any no-existent Romans!

But, we have seen similar bases from Ri-Toys as Marx re-issues, mostly of known Miniature Masterpiece models as retailed in the UK by Marksmen and covered here once or twice now, but these Roman/Egyptian sculpts weren't among them and they (the Marksmen)weren't marked-up to Hong Kong.

All firms start small, even one which would get as big as Rado Industries did in the 1980's/90's (seem to have gone now, their place rather taken by Hing Fat!), and there's a possibility that if they got the HK Marx mould-tools which they clearly did (some at least), and if there was an Egyptian tool (for the biblical sets), there may have been with it, a Roman tool which didn't get used by Marx, maybe one tool, it would only be 12-16 small cavities.

Consequently, Ri-Toys might, early in their existence, have pushed both (Egyptians and Romans) through an injector and hawked them round the market as cracker/capsule novelties, with an added base mark? Lots of if's and maybe's, so I'm not saying that's what happened; definitely don't quote me! But it’s a possible explanation for these rare'ish and unusual versions of Marx sculpts?

As I was putting them all away, I found this chap, who is one of the missing poses above, indeed; the missing 'colours'! He's a chalky polyethylene in cream and probably Swansea production, home painted, you can see the white fogging of superglue near his left wrist, it's the only thing keeping him 'as produced'!

And thanks to the above named trio and others; my sample of the 30mm oddities is larger with duplicates and some probably came from John Begg, Gareth Morgan or Trevor Rudkin, it's all the oddities these guys save or send to me or the Blog/for the Blog that make the tale more interesting.

T is for Toy Fair 2020 Reports - Bullyland - Disney

I didn't get the name of the importer/distributor for these it may be an outfit called heo (small 'h', Fulbourne, Cambs. And like a short-form of Heimo? Well, well, well!) who claim 'we distribute popular culture', but as guesses go it's not terribly scientific, based as it is on the only business-card I can't tie-down to any of the other posts from Toy Fair 2020 in the queue!

Not that I was thinking of getting the importers name, we spotted these on a counter as we removed ourselves swiftly from the venue to a local hostelry, for a pint, so I grabbed a few shots in passing, as you don't often see Bullyland these days?

Three Disney princesses and a . . . err . . . a 'Prince' - although he could use a dentist, and would benefit from a hat! There's nothing to choose between these and other makers in the same sizes/materials, but a passable alternative to Schleich, Papo or even (and increasingly) Phidal. And as I've said before; these will all paint-up as wild-west 'belles' (well; not the Beast - obviously!) with no problems at all.

A couple more and some bad-girls! I ought to do a guide to all the princesses, as you are supposed to be able to tell them from their dress colour . . . a word to the wise; never date a princess who wears the same dress for scripted days, weeks or - if magicked asleep - decades. I know Napoleon wanted his a bit 'ripe' but eeeuwe!

I hate these two squeaky bleeders! I really hate them, I hated them as a kid, and I'll still hate them on my deathbed. Oozing in mawkish sentimentality, slathered-on like Nutella, but without the nice aftertaste, they represent to me - harbingers of the end of days; Warhol'ian self-cannibalism through junk-culture, bread & high-pitched circus! Nice figures though!

C is for Comics; Characters, Capers and Spain

I love it when a plan comes together by itself, or a post sort of creates its own momentum, this is just such a post and while we will look at little we will cover a lot!

Juan (Gog of Toys From the Past and the free, biannual, Action Figures magazine I mentioned in the week) had sent me the above a while ago, part in response to my previously blogging something he's sent me and partly conversationally in an eMail exchange.

The issue highlighted in the picture/discussion being that the figure on the left is a Heimo original (with damaged feather) of Robin Hood from the 1974 set tied-in with the Disney movie which I remember going to see in Godalming (when it still had a Cinema!), while the other two are bootlegs or 'knock-offs', possibly from Spain?

While it was intended to be used at some point, as a stand-alone image it got put to one side (metaphorically; in actual fact it sat on the laptop's desktop, where I have far too many folders and files!) against the 'rainy day' when it might get used.

Then at PW I picked up the King John, bootleg; not Heimo (left hand figure - it's a crown, not a cake!). So in so far as it went it was so far, so . . . so-so!

Not really enough for a post, but I've also been getting so much Phidal stuff that the Cartoon, TV and Movie - TBS box ('to be sorted') had reached crisis levels of lid-angle, leading to my constantly recovering self-seal bags of often quite uncommon stuff from between the joists in the attic.

However, following more cartoon characters incoming from the PW and Sandown shows I had a big sort-out and putting-away session, finding the other two figures in the course of my endeavors . . . "Ah-ha!" I thought, "Shoot these together and have a conflab' with Juan, I think" I further thought, so I did!

Juan kindly confirmed that the other two were Heimo (which was actually a slight disappointment as I was hoping one or the other might be either a knock-off or by/from Comics Spain - latterly: Comics Figuras).

As you can see, the bootleg-King John has a spurious, meaningless C (for 'copy', heehee!), the woman is marked © W.D.prod. (for Walt Disney Productions) and the foxy-looking gentleman is marked Appolo ©, with what looks like a remnant of a D, possibly a cavity mark?

The woman is called Medusa and is a character from a Disney cartoon movie called Bernard & Bianca (in Germany, here it was called The Rescuers I think), while the fox is called err . . . Fox (Fuchs) and is from a non-Disney set of Pinocchio figurines.

I'm going to guess here that Apollo may be/have been a German/European TV production company and that the figures are characters from a local kids TV version of the tale? Certainly the figure is ascribed to Heimo in the German guide, and the character has no other reason to carry Apollo on its base.

Then, this week, I got four bags of mixed shite from charity shops (the day after the road signs!) and a very interesting deep-sea diver (waiting for new camera!), among which was an actual, fully marked Comics Spain figure from The Muppets and . . .

. . . Bingo! We had a worthwhile post! We've also gone full circle as the post which lead Juan to send me the first image was a Comics Spain post!

By way of thanking Juan for his input both to this post and the Blog over the years, can anyone help him ID these? I know they are late Hong Kong or early 'China' era rack-toys (mid-late 1990's?), probably with dinosaurs and a palm tree or blow-moulded rock or two, but can anyone ascribe a set title or brand-mark to them?