C is for Cakeboards

Sometimes a contribution is perfectly timed to get a load of other stuff out of Picasa, and with this lot, that's exactly what happened, so before the highlights posts, here's some resin figures which were in Peter Evans's big bag the other day.

These Cakeboard figures, from Peter, are the modern equivalent of Gem for Culpitts (or Wilton in the 'States), between 54 and 60-mil, depending on the sculpt, and I would have said contemporary, but I can't find a website, so recently deceased is probably more accurate? They do/did a range of nicely-finished resin figurines of civilian, sports and hobbyist/pastime types, for thematic cakes, or targeted cake decorating.

 

I have got them in the Tags three-times already, so we've had one or two looks at them already, while these were added to the stash and shot back in the early-summer of last year, the lady bowler is missing her ball-hand - ohh-err missus!

 

While the chap in the middle is an older sculpt in polystyrene, who I might have thought was the aforementioned Wilton, but he's almost too good (they had a cruder hard-plastic one in the 1960's), so maybe a French make (he has that certain je ne sais quoi!), or just a British minor-make lost to the mists of time?

The Cakeboard bases are usually marked (C) CAKEBOARDS around the rim/edge of the often quite deep bases, but can be unmarked, particularly on the thinner bases. 'Handmade' means hand-poured (into a mould) and hand-finished, not all have the sticker. I've also shown the interloper's base, in case it triggers any memories which might help ID it.

 

I also shot these, back in 2016, when the cake decorations shop in Basingrad was closing-down, the proprietor did look for useful catalogues, but all she had were price lists, which she thought were no use, and while I tried to explain they might be, it was a losing battle against her thinking I didn't need them or me making an offer I couldn't afford for a stack of what would have been mostly useless paperwork about four-foot high!

But you can see some of the figures already seen above, some we've seen before here at Small Scale World, (the cyclist was between the footballers before I purchased her) and a few others, and clearly some came in different colour-ways over time, like the swimmers, or footballers. The snowboarder may not be Cakeboards?

G is for 'A Good Walk, Spoiled'

I've had quite a bit of interaction with golf, golf clubs and golfers over the years; as a chauffeur I carried golfers around, while living in the sticks I did a bit of work at a golf-club and many years ago I planted a lot of the trees at Southwood Golf Club (now a nature reserve - hooray!) and can report than in my experience and from my observations, they - golf, golf-clubs and golfers -  live up to the worst of their stereotypes, without any effort! However; plastic figures . . . is plastic figures . . .

. . . and with the exception of Marx they are all basically cake decorations, and of course they would be; wouldn't they? What other group of adults would regularly want a child's cake, and one re-affirming the 'legitimacy' of their 'pastime', on their birthday? Presumably with pringle-patterned icing!

The first three are current or current'ish, seen in the larger craft-stores and branded to Wilton's or Anniversary House, then we have the Marx, a rarity only in not having broken yet! The other two are or were both Culpitt's, one from Gemodels, the other a Hong Kong/China replacement who may well have also been issued under other brands.

There appear to be three (or at least three) different sculpts of the Gem golfer, numbered above; the numbers have no significance re. chronology. A taller version (1) and shorter versions with thin legs (2) and thicker limbs (3). From the similarities between the yellow-jersey 1 & 2 sculpts, they are probably cavity differences on a small'ish mould tool.

A few paint variations of the recent one, I don't think it's still current, but you may manage to find it in the older catering shops, but most of them have closed in the last ten-years, so lucky if you do find one.

Seen here at Small Scale World before but re-shot for completeness; the Corgi golfer & caddy vignette, issued as accessories with a die-cast toy car, the trolley also in die-cast (frame and clubs)  with a polyethylene whale's (marine mammals Mr President!) penis and polyvinyl figures in a dense, stable polymer.

I shot these in a cake-decorators which was closing, these are the current offerings from Cakeboards, although some of them had another branding on them I think, we've seen a few of the others here already and there are more examples and shelfies 'in the bag'! They are poured PU-resin with inset wire-club shafts, in the same way weapons and extremities were stiffened in composition figures 100-years ago!

"Golf is a good walk spoiled."

Popularly attributed to Mark Twain, but it was first used in 1948. Twain died in 1910

Golfers; spoiling good walks, worldwide, daily, since at least 1948!

T is for There's Always Another One!

I totally forgot I had this in the big 700+image folder of other stuff euphemistically titled 'Newest Toy Soldiers', of which; he clearly isn't! But they're fresh in our minds (fishermen figures) so, a quick look;

Resin with a wire rod, and a bit steep for me so I took a shelfie and left him on the shelf! I think he may be by the same people who made the pirates we've seen a couple of times now, indeed I think we saw one for a third time only the other day! And he may have been wholesaled by Cakeboards or the modern rump of Culpitt? Nice catch!

T is for Two . . . Wheels Good . . .

Like Paratroopers and whatever the other thing was the other day . . . goes and checks the 'finished' folder . . . ; footballers (!), this has become another of those perennials, we return to from time to time, dinosaurs, insects and fish are all currently rising-up the queue as well, but today it's a return to two wheels; well, fourteen wheels or - if you want to be a total pedant fifty-seven wheels and at least three - visible - skids!

Roughly in the order they've come in or been shot since we last looked at them excluding a lead flat I think we looked-at separately . . .

Upon the demise of PoundworldPlus back in the summer, this was reduced to 50p with a further reduction at the till taking it to 43p or something! It was worth a punt for a small plastic motorcycle, of Kinder-egg quality? It needed squeezing together properly which I didn't notice until after the photo-shoot, branded to their ITP Imports and coming with a reasonable rendition of an executive type helicopter and a really crappy jeepney-thing which - if pink - would look like Barbie's beach-buggy!

I can't tell you what this cost as it was a present for my Brother on his Birthday! He's one of those people who has everything he wants, and if he really wants something else tends to go and get exactly what he wants himself, so he's very difficult to buy for, but he likes his motorcycles, so when I saw this . . . bingo! Noki are the same people who did the novelty egg-cup and toast-soldier sets, see Small Scale World passim.

I think this is the third time out for this chap, and the second involving contributions from Peter Evans, who recently sent me a very interesting set, with the unpainted black-plastic version. In the meantime I found another (slight colour variation) in the Storage lot, so shot all four together and they now have a new tub, all to themselves, although the black one is still in the bag awaiting next year's RTM.

CHiPs! From storage, from Kentoys, but not the Kenway Cycle Shop of 1950's London, but rather the 1990's Kentoys with a half-mile-long factory in Shatin, New Territories! Now into high-end, larger-scaled, die-casts, they started (as so many HK companies did) with cheaper plastics, these came with blistered sets or singly with larger trucks, in this specific case the 'Wheelers' fire-engine set. They were announced at 1:72 and - basically - would have been in competition with the similar New Ray and Supreme sets of that time; among others.

Is it a Harley Electra-Glide or a Honda Goldwing Aspencade? Now - there's a question for my Brother! Judging from the full-tank and headlight-fairing; I recon a Honda?

Old solid-lead motorcyclist (Postman?), I don't know if it's in Joplin and I haven't looked as I know it's not particularly rated (Adrian had it in his cheapie-tray at Sandown last), so probably a copy of anything similar-looking in the aforementioned tome, or more likely a home-cast which may have been made commercially available? The lead-guys dismiss this stuff (and melt it down!) like some in our polymer-branch of the hobby still dismiss HK stuff, but you know me; I'll post anything!

A bicycle, Cakeboards, resin, cake decoration, the resin pile is piling-up! Nice 54mm and a female subject which is never that common, so pleasantly unusual!

Mr. Berke sent a whole box of donations to the blog the other day with his uncommon generosity, and we will be looking at bits from it over the next few days, as some of it was very timely, but there was also this, Greenbrier/DTSC. I don't know if he and Mr Evans are in competition with their contributions, but this is an even larger scale than the candy-container bicycle we looked at in Rack Toy Month! Guy's; I don't know where to put them!

Thanks again to Brian, Peter and Adrian for some of the above!

P is for Pop Music . . . ♩♬ m'Pop, m'Pop, m'Pop-Musik! Talk'a'bout doobie-doo Pop Musik! . . . ♩♫

Picked this quintet up the other day, for a song ('juke-box hero' . . . heh-heh!) I know I have a purple one in storage, but five was too good to pass-up, they're playing pieces from a board game the name of which escapes me but I haven't got time to look it up (timing's all shot to pieces this week!) and I think there may be a sixth (black?) piece missing, or was it a five-player game? I'll dig it out next week.

Pretty clean-cut for pop-stars; I tend to think of them as Cliff Richard'a'likes! Around 54mm and made in a standard model-kit type polystyrene you often find them at shows in the 50p rummage sections with broken or damaged guitar-necks.

Detail shots.

Thought for the day

There used to be a joke that when Elvis died there were x-dozen registered Elvis impersonators or tribute acts, ten years later there were x-hundred registered and ten years after that; x-thousands of the bespangled crooners, and that extrapolating those figures forward, the entire population of the planet would be Elvis impersonators by 2051!

Now - with news of a holographic Roy Orbison back on tour, and Elvis having already had similar treatment, will we one day fill the known universe with the sound of comfy-rock; with the entire population of the human race either impersonating a 50's pop-star, or paying to see a holographic one? Will planets of fake Elvis's launch vast armada's of killer death-ray armed starships against planets of Roy Orbison-a-likes.

Will the night-skies of a thousand star systems be lit-up with the supernova-flashes of intergalactic battle fleets deciding arguments between fans of Supertramp on one side and Supertrooper on the other! And will they all go into battle playing Wagner's Ride of The Valkyrie's? In space; no one can hear you croon!

Or should it be 'Sista', good name for a band; slimmer-sista! Comparison shot; all the others have been seen here at Small Scale World before, trouble-is they are hidden in the tag list under 'Band' I think, which is full of Guardsmen, one day I'll have to re-tag the relevant posts under 'pop music' or something, but we have a couple more HK sets to come and will revisit Gem at some point. Not to forget - rock star Smurfs!

Emirober on the left, two Hong Kong's and a resin 'unknown' (second from right) along with the game piece; centre.

♩♬ New York, London, Paris, Munich - Everybody talk about . . . m'Pop Musik! ♩♫ 

1st May 2020 - The upper five were joined a while later - Courtesy of Glenn Sibald in Australia) with a sixth, pink one, which revealed them instantly to be Tri-Ang as - together - they looked just like the Cops & Robbers figures seen here before!

 

2nd April 2024 - the resin figure is a Cakeboards chap.