C is for Concord, Cloned

We use 'clone' in the hobby as a shorthand for copied, pirated or knocked-off, but given as how a clone is supposed to as good as or hard to tell from the original, it's never better used than for this quite amazing model, which a mate kindly bought for me the other day when I spotted it going cheap, on that there evilBay.

The plain shipping box, and that's you, shipping it home in your car, revealing it's really being aimed at cake decorators, not aimed at retailed-toy customers! And one supposes a bigger stockist/store may have had six or eight in a larger carton? Wilton also ran a mail-order facility through their annual 'yearbook' catalogues.

Recognised it straight-away! And this is possibly Wilton's finest! A millimetre-by-millimetre copy of the Britains model of the Concord Overland Stagecoach model, with only two items seemingly not reproduced, and graphics/stickers switched-out (to use the US expression!) for Overland Stage Express Co., but in the same red & gold livery.

Three smaller bags contain all the little add-ons, a third, out of shot, took the seat seen here with the riders/crew, and even the luggage has been faithfully reproduced, or blatantly stolen, depending on your viewpoint, and a 1970's kid's viewpoint was very different from a Britains executive's!

Some of the colours have been changed, but otherwise, the whole thing is remarkably similar, upon first look you think it must have used the same tools (maybe after they'd been shipped to Hong Kong with everything else circa 1971), but there is a slight drop-off in quality, most noticeable on the horses.

An unusual detail of this copy over the more typical output of Wilton, or the Hong Kong pirates, is that different polymers have been used, as they were on the Britains original, so finer details are in flexible polyethylene, as are the horses.

Clearly marked Wilton on the underside of the base (which I neglected to photograph), one obvious difference is that they've only cloned one of the two horse poses, although the manes are different, so all four are roughly the same, where Britains gave you one each of two quite different horses, in opposite colours.

The other obvious difference/omission is that the passengers weren't cloned, but both crew are faithfully reproduced, even down to the long strip of PVC sheet/strip used for the driver's whip.

While the colours of the coach are matched quite closely, in fact the paler tan for the yellow on the bodywork is almost a better choice, and the crew, loosely followed, the luggage is a little more leery.

And the whole gives a lie to Donald Trump's "Chiiinah stole from us!" crap, actually, the Americans stole from Britains, running-off to Hong Kong and giving it "Here, make us a copy of this, and keep it cheap, we're going to sell it as a cake decoration"!

As a bit of a Brucey Bonus/'Question Time', the seller included these, for free, they weren't listed in the sales-spiel or images. And I'd love to know who made them, presumably a more craft-oriented US maker, possibly two, the wooden barrel and drinking 'spoon' being one, the printed cotton-sacks from another, can anyone help with a name/names? Doll's house accessories? 50lbs of 'Old Mill' sugar and Idaho potatoes!

C is for Comedy Candy

As mentioned elsewhere in the last few days, Halloween was just not a thing in the UK, when I was a kid, we didn't 'celebrate' it, we weren't [culturally] aware of its connection with South/Latin America and The Day of the Dead, we didn't import any Halloween 'stuff'.

 

It is, entirely, here at least, a commercial invention (like Father's day) to sell us stuff, and we keep buying it! Ephemeral stuff, piles of polymer stuff, which goes straight to landfill, unnecessary stuff, stuff we don't need, stuff we didn't know we don't need, and . . . amusing, edible stuff!

 

This missed last year's Halloween posts, as it was given to me by a customer I was delivering to, in Frimley Green, on the 31! Under the wrapper it was a smooth, milk-chocolate oval, and very nice!

 

These are in Lidl at the moment.

 

Candy Container.

 

Anything container!

 

I succumbed to some of the polymer shite, myself! There were several colours and I nearly selected the purple one, but decided the clear one would look most like a crystal skull, once emptied, and took that instead, and I think it was a good decision, looking at it empty? I'll find something to keep in it, and it can sit somewhere, looking vaguely sinister! I think it was also Lidl?

 

Not nice! Not-chocolate-mice! Chocolate 'flavour' (not 'flavoured') sugar candy, they taste fatty, and aren't quite as realistic looking as the artwork on the B&M box would suggest. As kids, I remember us being disappointed by mini-eggs at Easter, which were made out of this devil's faux-chocolate!

 

The missing pumpkin from a previous post . . . I bought another pack, they were so cheap! B&M stores, and they did have the more colourful ones, from a couple of years ago, I just didn't see them last time!

 

Also Lidl, these are better chocolate, with some actual chocolate in!

Well - once you've unwrapped it, to photograph . . . ! 

 

The Aldi catalogue shows similar Lollies.

C is for Carded Combat Crew

More minters from Sandwon, or, at least near minters, nothing 60+years old is ever that 'mint', bags fog with a million invisible folds, cards fade or discolour from sunlight or bleaches in the paper itself, but these two have held up pretty well;

 

No brand and a blank back to the card, so no clue to producer/issuer, and 43p (maybe around 50¢ US, at the time?), if only such things were still 43p! It looks like it might be the same quality as the Rosebud one seen here before, but I couldn't manipulate it enough to see whether there was anything in the parachute cavity? But still a nice item to add to the collection

 

I think these might be by Hugonnet/Féral, but it is by no means certain, they come in several different generic header-cards, but always unmarked/unbranded, so they could be another operation?

 

A site crediting them to Hugonnet pointed out that they are Starlux copies with the heads turned, usually through around 90º, and you can see for yourselves, they have been given oblong bases.

C is for Cleaning Up!

Having seen the guardsman the other day, I thought I'd dig these out of the David Pomeroy folder, not sure if he was involved in the sculpting of them or just had them for reference, but we have two more soaps to look at, and no convoluted plots, which require watching the extended episode on Friday!

 

The better of the two soaps, in the poorer box is Mrs Cobbit from Camberwick Green manufactured by Wright, Layman & Umney Ltd., of London (apparently still making Wright’s Traditional Soap for Smith & Nephew), and I have a vague recollection we might have had a pair from this set one Christmas, probably in our Stockings?

 

While the better box came with a slightly battered Paddington Bear, who wasn't the best of likenesses before his hat got so simplified, and dented! Made by Richard's & Appleby of Jermyn Street, they seem to be still trading, and still making novelty cosmetics.

C is for Comedy of Errors!

About eighteen years ago, Andreas Dittman said he'd dropped some stuff off with a mutual-friend, and subsequently a small bag of bits turned-up at the flat in Berkshire, which, while interesting, didn't seem to fulfil the promise held by the description, as given by Andreas!

 

Anyway, you've probably guessed the rest . . . they turned-up the other day, when the third party was having a sort-out! So, with thanks to Andreas for all sorts over the years - both before I had the Blog, and in the early years of the Blog, I didn't post everything as it came in, like I do now, so a lot got sorted into the collection without credit - let's have a look at this little lot!

 

Both sides of a nice coach, probably from a transport set, I like the busy legs of the horses! I didn't record any of the brands as I took these, and they were sorted away, awhile ago now, but Cleverstoltz, Heudebert and Wagner were featured among them, I think, with quite a few unmarked generics.

 

Might be Manurba, but issued by several brands, Peter Konrad's books can help there!

 

Snowballer and snowscene, probably the same set?

 

Buildings, not sure the stage, front-right, goes with them, it looks like the kind of platform Americans might use to try or lynch slaves or cattle rustlers?

 

 

 

There are only a few of the very early Wiking vehicles which had a figure/driver, I have the jeep and a sport-car, Mercedes, of course, but finding I've had the other two for years without knowing it, was a treat! Of interest also, given the 99% 'styrene of Wiking's production, is that the forks of the fork-lift are a flexible polyethylene moulding?

 

Two more of the dancers, we've seen before, and indeed looked at several versions of!

 

Interestingly, the 'plane may be a British export, or a mould swap/borrow, with someone like Tudor Rose or Kleeware, as we shall see in a future post, where a Made In England set carries the same aircraft.

 

The train will join all the others, away from the flats, 'Euro-premiums' often involved transport, and trains were common, but they are all slightly different, especially in their means/method of coupling, and they all have separate bags to be added to, piecemeal, with items like this!

 

There appears to be a lot of wooing going on here, with a possible proposal on the left, an invitation to dance, the 'young people' doing a duet in the salon, and a basket of fruit being offered! I am reminded of the interminable first chapter of War And Peace (which I have never got past), and the never ending (because I give-up reading, before it ends) ballroom scene, where just about everybody comes across as insufferably arrogant, eager to die for an idiot flag, or just a bit bloody stupid!

 

Three colourways of the same beer/bier premium, possibly hung round the necks of the bottles on a little string-cord? One of the most depressing threads on the old HäT forum, was a thread on beer, and how all the brands I'd enjoyed 20-years earlier had gone! Pfauen-bräu, which you could only get in a few dozen bars in the streets, or surrounding villages of Tuttlingen! Henninger Bräu was out of Frankfurt.

 

Colour is not common with premium or margarine flats, and while coloured plastic does show-up from time to time, paint is even rarer, so these with their one, two or even three-colour spray-painting are a real treat, they are also particularly fine sculpts.

 

A few odds and damaged examples for the spares/TBS tub, it looks like the two gnomes (who clip into the larger moulding, bottom/near-right) are designed to be clipped to a baby's pram, pushchair or safety-pen metalwork/tubes? Although it's a bit fuzzy, I think the Elephant is market Mamot Berlin, a bar or club perhaps?

 

Many thanks to Andreas, better late than never!

C is for Chained Miniatures!

More glass animals, except these are all plastic, but I explained how and why that Tag is going to work, and glass animals they are, because glass animals they're pretending to be! Looking at Horses this time!

Chained! Make no doubts about it, these critters are going nowhere, until they're glue!

 

While the deer were 'Mum' and two kids, here we get small medium and large of basically the same pose, still connected with the little anodised aluminium chain, and in a rich orange transparency, with yellow-painted higlights and the same big doe-eyes!

 

A darker orange-brown has also come-in to the stash, here compared with the cocktail-glass ornamental donkey, manufactured in a similar colour, in all cases here, a hard, brittle polystyrene.

 

That donkey in full - that's it, more box-ticking!