N is for November's Sandown Park - Wild West, Animals and Odds

Winding-up the Sandown purchases from a month ago now, and it's mostly animals, and the Wild West, with a few odds & sods, cartoon, TV-Movie stuff and the like, to look at this time.

 

I have two beliefs about this set (which was a gift from John Begg, I think), one is that it's from the same series as the #445 Mobile Task Force, and Space Explorer sets issued by Gordy, Woolbro and others, this being one 'sock' instead of two, and a generic issue with no branding-overprint. The other is that we were bought a set each from Webb's the Newsagent, in Hartley Wintney, by Mum, one wet weekend, in the holidays!

 

There was a two-sock Fort Cheyenne under the 445-code, but that had a version of the fort, and different figures/horses, so this may be a lookie-likey , and leaves the first belief questionable for now, the second belief is 100%, I well-remember the colour samples, and trying to wiggle the horses hooves into the carpet fibres to keep them standing up!

 

I bought a second pirate set from the same chap as last time, and it's already been opened and shot for International Talk Like A Pirate Day, so a couple of months after the last one, and there are already two folders ready for next year!

 

A  mix of HK smallies, including several sub-piracies of the 2nd version knights, in red, I'd had a few yellow ones but I think these are new, usually you find both the Giant originals and the copies in silver or black. They probably belong on the horses to the right, but this is how they came!

 

Someone tried to 'mend' a broken tail, by rolling a scrap of faux-suede up, very tight, setting it alight, and stuffing it up the horse's jacksie! Given how common these are, and how many would come in even a small 6d set, that was a hell of an effort! Probably a 'favourite' horse? Kids are a bit like that, you can have fifteen white horses in the bag, but if one's slightly grey and becomes your favourite, you'll move Heaven & Earth to keep in going!

A rather tatty 2nd generation copy of one of the Hong Kong dogs we looked at in a couple of round-up posts a year or two ago, and the smallest King Kong in the world! Certainly the smallest I've seen, who wasn't moulded into a resin Empire State Building keepsake!

 

Probably a 1d-1¢, gum-ball capsule prize or Christmas cracker novelty, it really is tiny, less than 20mm! In all other respects it's the same as all other HK gorillas; soft polyethylene, with a basic MADE IN HONG KONG mark.

 

A sample of broken Cherilea dinosaurs, which Adrian gave me from his bits box. Useful nevertheless, against colour variations, or even to combine with others into dodgy Dr. Moreau subjects at a later date? I mean they are so rare these days, due entirely to their brittleness, that some are better than none, and they will be added to a bigger sample with some better ones we have seen here, previously, at Small Scale World.

 

Two Britains copies, a rather nice Hong Kong Herakd clone, from Hong Kong! And a damaged sub-scale rendition of the war-dancing Swoppet, also from the colony of intellectual property crime!

 

Kinder, all 1980's, I think. If you were to 'age' Kinder like comic-fans age their stuff, these would be 'silver age'! The head and hat, is from a slightly different set to the complete figure, I think, while the fire-appliance with two mini plug-in firefighters was late 80's, and I actually kept a few of the tractors at the time, so there's a tub of these to add-to, or cannibalise from, to make whole examples.

 

Damaged guard from Cherilea's executioner set, another Invicta dinosaur, a couple of Esci Americans and a partial pig, in the style of the Xandria key-rings, but all 'ethylene, and probably from another source?

 

Four 'funnimals', and all probbaly Holly rather than Lik Be, certainly the llama-like and squirel-thing come in a set with the known Holly guitar-turtle, while the cow was issued by Mail-Order outfit Colonial Studios, with a set of otherwise realistic (Briatins copies) farm animals.

 

This is just marked Hong Kong, but is not a bad rendition of Disney's Pluto, and holds-up against the Marx, Heimo, and early-Schleich stuff of the 1970's, a lump of stable-PVC, I guess the ring is the remnants of a key-chain?

 

More of the cartoon mini-animals often credited to Kinder, but which predate Kinder by a decade or two, and were issued as carded 'families', as gum-ball machine prizes and through other such novelty avenues. Kinder would issue similar 'hard plastics' in the 1980's, but usually larger models.

 

UK Cereal premiums, haveing other outlets elsewhere, here they were all cereal, with two jig-toys, three of the Aristocat figures and a Brian the Snail from the Magic Roundabout, and while we now know Brian could have been a Wavyline promotional, I think in this shade of blue, he might be a European ice-cream premium.

 

I think we might have the Little Baby Jesus (or Moses?) in red here, a rather tatty Marx Snow White (from Swansea?) and a lovely survivor of Japanese blow-moulded lightness, in the probable 'styrene copy of an earlier celluloid Santa Claus.

T is for Tricky Treats

I posted one of these a couple of years ago, but didn't see any last year, however, B&M managed to get another five out this year, although I ate the pumpkin without photographing it in close-up, soz!

 

Not as colourful as last time, but, like last time, I'd describe the flavours as 'tutti-frutti', yet, I did notice that they varied between the lollipops, and it would seem they are all supposed to taste different, nevertheless, there's no hint as to what the flavours are, or which lolly is which? Still in B&M, and worth looking out for instead of photographing all the piles of polymer, land-fill, shite!

 

As I entered the store, the couple ahead of me said "Oh, there's a spider on the floor" and we had a laugh about it, and as they wandered-off to look for whatever they were after, I though, it might need a good home, so rescued it from the detritus under the shelves! I think it had fallen-off one of those big polymer, land-fill, shite piles! There's a trend for 'spider's web' netting, pre-stapled with hundreds of spiders?

P is for Plastic Glass!

Sort of a 'part three', but not really connected to the previous two, which dealt with the 1950/60's stuff, these are the more common stuff from the 1970/80's, and will be quite recognisable to most of you, and really no more than an overview of the other plastic 'vitrines' out there.

 

I sorted the Tags out last night, and 'Glassware' covers everything made of glass from marbles up, but not these, 'Vitrines' covers the real glass versions of these, and they will also have the Glassware tag, while 'Glass Animals' will cover both these plastic ones and the glass ones, so these will have the latter Tag only, marbles will get Glassware only, and real glass animals will have all three Tags, which will hopefully help someone in the future, get the right search-results up?

 

A nice set of six from Hans Postler over the Channel, they are better known, to us, from their many sets of rack-toy soldiers, more in keeping with the main thrust of the Blog, but that this is here, reminds us most of these guys were general 'Toy & Novelty' importers/wholesalers, and would turn their hands to anything they thought they could make a small profit on, and, these are probably 1980's, or later?

 

These have more the look of the '70's about them, and they have tree-hanger rings in them, so there you go, get a daft-looking mouse hung for the festive season! But, you know, if you can't afford the glass ones, because you have some shitty, underpaid job, and live on a trailer-park, and you see these going cheap in the local gas station, or drug store, why not, if only for the kids?

 

Kids aren't snobs, now, I am a bit of a snob, specifically on Christmas decorations, but I was raised to be so, by my late, and much missed mother, who had her own reasons for being like that; Nuns, an even stricter mother and an Edwardian upbringing!

 

'The sins of the Fathers . . .', 'The child is the father of the man'  and all that! There is always a truism in old sayings, wives tales and aphorisms. The tragedy is that somehow, 70-years of progressive democrats, totally failed to educate enough idiots, as to what they were trying to do, and we now have enough Morlocks and Yahoos, who don't get 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel', and they are giving justification to the Trumps, Farages and Le Penns of intolerance?

 

Just as we need the World to come together like never before, the warmongers, climate-deniers, the superstitious, and the anti-science brigades, rise, like muddy, Ork scum from Isengard, to wreak the planet with their ignorance, and singularly selfish stupidity.

 

A knock off Snoopy, an elephant who's also a key-ring, two more of the cocktail glass donkeys, we saw in brown, last time, and a variation on the Hans Postler elephant. The HP set is basically the six commonest types (from experience; that may not be strictly true!).

 

Another elephant, slightly better (slightly earlier?), another mouse, and the deer we saw in one of the comparison shots a few weeks ago. The elephant, if cleaned would have that faux uranium-glass look to him, but I don't know if it's a transparent marker (like most of them) or dyed plastic, and fear if I cleaned him, he might lose all his original colour!

 

A swan and yet another mouse!

 

Two of the mieces, back to back, but not yet in pieces!

 

Two of the elephants, with a small rhinoceros, he's probably from a Christmas cracker, but could equally be a gum-ball, capsule-machine prize, or something from a Lucky-bag, this stuff tended to get around!

 

The Rhino', it's missing one of those crappy plastic key-rings, you press both ends of, to hook onto the plastic oblong which he has retained. Is it meant to be a woolly-rhino'?

 

Only came in recently, and a charm-loop suggests gum-ball or Christmas crackers again?

 

These are interesting, Bam Bam and Pebbles, from the Flintstones, both larger sculpts to, they seem to have been taken from the sort of PVC stuff Bully and Comics Spain might have been issueing, he's holding a club behind his back!

 

While these are equally interesting for having been taken from a set of dogs, which we may have seen here in more realistic colours, as polyethylene toys, but here in the same clear 'canopy' 'styrene, enhanced with transparent coloured marker-pen! We'll look at proper glass ones next!

T is for That Tortle, No, Turtapin, no, Terratoise . . . Doh!

Speaking of Holly musicians (as somebody might have been?!), here's a small orchestra of them from my own collection! I've mentioned this tortoise several times over the years, and I think we've seen him in a mixed-lot post, and this picture has been sat in Picasa since 2016! And, actually, he's got cartoon hands (four digits), so he's neither a turtle nor a tortoise, and definitely not a terrapin! While, maybe only two of these are Holly!

 

The two probably Holly are to the right, neither associated with the Gygax stuff we looked at recently, and not seen together, in a set, I mean, yet, nor do they have the 900-codes of some of the Holly funnimals. But on the left, are cruder copies of both, in the style of stuff by Diener or Imperial, but not marked to either brand, however, manufactured in the same soft silicon-rubber which makes for shite erasers, but excellent pencil-smudgers!

 

The pig will be a lesser-make cake decoration, probably a set of musicians, but maybe just three (the 'Little pigs'), I don't know, while the Topo Gigio character (another left-hooker!) could also be the Portuguese Balin, but I don't think so.

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! 

G is for Glass Animals - Oh Dear, More Deer!

I was toying, for several years (the folder these come from has been filling since 2020) with trying to establish 'Vitrines' as the collective noun for these, but the trouble is vitrines are already a thing, specifically small glass table-top/mantle-piece display cabinets, sometimes confused with the similar terrarium glass mini-greenhouses for houseplants, or even fancy lanterns for tea-lights!

 

So even if you were minded to go along with me, it wouldn't be ideal, and sometimes confusing, while if you were determined to not cooperate with the naming exercise, it would annoy the hell out of you every time I used it!

 

Equally, some people call them 'Murano', especially on eBay, where EVERYONE's an expert! And, while there are elements of Murano in their production, Murano is a particular form of Venetian Glass, specifically from the island of Murano, and pertains to larger pieces, using techniques not often found in these little novelty animals, which are more generic to glass foundries everywhere, and amateur glass-sculpting hobbyists.

 

AND, we're looking for a word or phrase which will also cover the plastic-tat versions, and 'coloured-transparent-animals-in-glass-or-plastic' is too much of a mouthful, so, they will be 'Glass Animals' in the Tags, even if they are plastic, and I hope that suits everyone!

 

In the order in which they were originally shot, we'll start with the plastic tat! These were a common prize at fairgrounds, where skill in hooping, hooking, magnet-fishing, shooting (air-guns or darts) or knocking a coconut off a pole, could win you your very-own, chained together set of coloured, transparent animals!

 

Chained together, coloured, transparent . . . yeah, well, boys would pick a pack of cap-bombs or something!  A loo-roll 'Furby' (called a Gonk, and predating Furbies by several decades!), or a bottle of bubble-liquid with wand, were other common choices, a Frisbee, or a balsa-wood fighter-plane! But, under multicoloured, flashing lighting, on their little gloss-painted wooden plinths, these boxes looked pretty attractive!

 

One the left, 1950/60's, on the right 1970's, even more-tattier, tat, in a reverse pose, but the charm's still there, and I bet you can still find these in some souks or markets about the planet! In the end, key-rings were added to some of the more substantial, or just 'less-frangible' mouldings.

 

But, in the 1940/50's, you got glass ones! And here, on the left is a box for a glass set, with a slight variation of the other set on the right - lightly oblong box against the first one's true-square, and a variation of code number, 33V as opposed to 33VA?

 

AG or GA does not spell Venice or Murano! German, Czech', American . . . Japanese?

"ArtNo" hints at Germany, does anyone know?

AG could be something-Glass.

 

The glass ones are much finer, and quite delicate, although some strength is imparted by dint of the stretching, and the annealing effects of continued heating and cooling, as the various steps of the manufacturing-process are gone through.

 

Glass got tissue-paper packing, while plastic gets plastic!

 

Comparison between the two, let's be fair to the toy-men of Hong Kong, it's not bad, and in a capitalist world, it's all about the money saved, at least they've tried to make the one resemble the other? No pink bows, or chains, on this (later?) set of plastics?

 

"Come out to play!"

 

Another boxing of the plastics, the little pink bows are illustrated, but the bondage chains are left off all artworks, here credited to an Illfelder Toy Co., of New York, but plainly the same Hong Kong product.

 

A lot I saw on eBay, with pink-glass horses (or donkeys?), the ceramic deer we saw, cropped-out in a previous post a day or two ago (I'm losing track at the moment!), and a chained set of the 'barley-sugar' deer, also in glass.

 

This one, who I picked-up the other day, in a charity shop next to the lucrative (for Rack Toy Month) Post Office in Cranleigh, is slightly more Murano in style with the orange glass-powder sprinkled, or, more commonly 'picked-up' by rolling the molten glass over the ground glass, on it's back, but is, otherwise, following the same pattern as the others, and it's one of the simpler techniques.

 

While these - above - are obviously all mass-produced sets of commercial production, the many glass animals you find, may also include both craft/hobbyist pieces, and end-of-term/end-of-year student test pieces - can you produce, using a set number of techniques, a number of similar sculpts, following a set of recently-taught rules?