F is for Follow-up to Plunder Posts - Animals (Prehistoric)

Confirmation of the 30mm rubber cavemen being issued by Harett-Gilmar (HG Toys), and some of the rather fat dinosaurs they lived alongside, in the well-known prehistoric continent of Gondneverwhen!

 

Sometimes it's those mid-era (of one's life) toys which pass one by, those issued while you're busy doing other things, but which have disappeared from the retail market by the time you return to collecting, full-time, and I only discovered these, looking for something else, in 2023!

 

The dinosaurs are fat, I mean there's something wrong with their metabolism, which may be a clue as to their demise, if the meteor theory proves false . . . they ate themselves extinct by getting too fat to mate, or move! The shrub, being like everything else, a softish PVC, could easily be mistaken for a Bata accessory, with its semi-flatness?

At least four poses, although I've also seen the guy with stripey loin-cloth ascribed to another toy line (Mighty Max, I think?), but that was almost certainly a false identification, and I'm guessing the string on the bow is a home addition (in fact I think the whole bow is a replacement), and the club is missing from stripey-pants, but you get the idea!

G is for Gygax Monsters - Part VI - Marks / Marking & Minor Makes

So this would have been the final post in this series, but there is another, sort of follow-up, which I shot the other day, and as this is the 31st, I think I'll do this one now, and then maybe do the other as a proper F is for Follow-up, in a few days or a week or two?

 

 

Image previously seen in Part I.

 

This is looking at all the contents of those tubs and bags in the original birds-eye view of my samples, with a better image of the smaller bags, the yellow one, bottom left in the previously seen shot isn't looked at here, I'm pretty sure he's nothing to do the rest, and the two bags of Lik Be (LB) aren't looked at again.

 

'Gygax Monsters'

 

 Dinosaurs

 

These are the most common finds, and seem to tie-in with the 1970 catalogue images most closely, so we can assume they are all or mostly Holly Plastics production. The mark, which can be in a straight line or more tumbled, consists of MADEIN HONG KONG, with the three groups of letters seemingly one each of three stamps in the possession of the tool-makers.

 

The mark is also found on other rack toy stuff of the era, especially farm and zoo, where it will have 'Holly' significance in the future here, but also on Army Men of clearly different makes and generations, which suggests they (the little stamps) were bought-in by different toy makers, from a machine-tool/engineers supplier.

 

Note however that the MADEIN is slightly larger than the HONG and KONG, not something you find with say, those 25mm Britains and Crescent Khaki Infantry clones, where they are all the same size and in perfect line, suggesting that the prefix may have been added to the cavities later, or purchased separately?

 

 

The above musings partly explained by these, basically some of the missing poses, which only have the HONG KONG, and not the 'madein', so it appears we are looking at a firm whose marking policy was neither a priority, nor rule-based! Again, they match the illustrations in the catalogue, so we can be pretty confident we're looking at more Holly stuff.

 

Dodgy photograph, but you can see, for instance, the standing yellow dino's above, in the catalogue in the brown plastic of other models in the range, while there are two Dimetrodons, a smaller better sculpt, and a larger 'gape-mouth' one on longer legs, possibly copied, by Holly, from an earlier 'rubber-jiggler' type? Not necessarily their own.

 

I'm sure there are lots of Holly products in the not so well sorted Dinosaur pile, and when we return to these, in a few years, probably, I will have hopefully brought more together.
 

 

These, however, matching most of the above in poses, plastic colours, paint colour or style, are all totally unmarked! Different contracts? Duplicate cavities, earlier or later generations? I suspect everything above was Holly, and it was pretty hit-and-miss as to what you got.

 

Remember, with the Einzinger set, clearly a Holly-originating card, we had some marked with just the dinosaur's name, others marked with another MADE IN HONG KONG font altogether, a more standard engineers stamp lettering, closer to a DIN type - in both senses of the word!

 

Note also, we are getting different sizes of the same basic sculpt, and for some there are clear small, medium and large versions.

 

So returning to the other line-up image, and we're going to look at the two larger samples in a sec', but first, you should be able to read my dodgy notes if you open the image in a new window and click on any plus-cursor you get. The annotation is thus;

• * - Probably Holly Plastics Factory
• X - Probably not Holly
• # - Likely from Holly, or old Holly tools 

So the big Tyranosaur (middle right), is one as supplied to Enzinger, to his left are four mono-coloured/undecorated (late production?) ones, which are otherwise all Holly, while the two smallies on the left of that row have clearly had Holly's marking removed, for reasons we'll never know, but equally likely to be contractual (end-user asking Holly to mask identifying marks), or, ex-Holly tools?

 

Below him, the other Enzinger mark on a Steggy'. Top left is probably a piracy, while the bag bottom middle seem to be another Holly marking variation, and we'll look at the other two bags quickly now;

Above the T-Rex, we have CHINA marks, but following Holly's rules on plastic and paint colours, almost certainly closer to 1997, than 1970? And a step on the way to the last lot, and the end of this post, below.

 

However, after all shots, annotation and above blub has been cast, looking at them in close-up, the fan-whiskers have been fused into a lumpen 'wing', so these may well be copies pretending to be Holly, either with permission or as straight band-wagon figures, as discussed in Part I?

 

Equally, they could be reworked tooling, deliberately thickened to ensure proper moulding . . . it's never going to be 100% clear with this stuff, millions were made, over decades! And . . . that IS one reason why they have a separate bag.

 

These are Holly'ish, and I suspect they are Holly, from the same era/generation/batch as the Enzinger, but include the unusual red-plastic version of a Triceratops, and the only example of the 'Disney' dinosaur I mentioned in the original list, he may be a Disney thing, he looks familiar? But overall, they conform to more Holly 'rules' than they confound.

 

These are far more recent, and have a mix of MADE IN CHINA, or CHINA A (B, C, etc...) markings, I believe these are from Holly tooling, whether it was still Holly manufactureing is not so clear, there are still a couple of Holly's, but in auto-parts, medical components and such-like, with different logo's, and one with only a 20-year history can't be 'our' Holly.

 

We did see them before, and they seem to be Jaru-issued as seen in the sets Brian Berke sent us from Liverpool, and of which I then found a bag-of myself, while the loose sample above was a charity-shop purchase who got a post at the time, they can all be found under the Jaru Tag, but I should add a Holly note?

 

The odd-one out, if we assume these are from Holly tooling, whoever actually made them, is the stripey tailed Parasaur, who seems to be a better sculpt, but Holly did have a largish one in their inventory . . .

 

 . . . Bottom right, mostly hidden by the card-art, but the same beast, with a newer, bigger Dimetrodon and large Mammoth sculpts, so it all ties-in nicely! But we don't have to assume they are from Holly tooling, they could be copies, or half-and-half, ex-Holly and new tooling, it's not an exact science! And if anyone has one of those electric-blue and heliotrope-pink Mammoths going spare? . . . It's a huge gap in my collection - how leery is that!

G is for Gygax Monsters - Part III - Hans Postler

I'm pretty sure these are all copies of Holly, rather than Holly product, and from the leery colours of both plastic and casually sprayed paint, the 'Chine' and the bar code, mid-to-late 1980's or more laikely second half of the 1990's? But an interesting chapter in the Gygax Monster story, with most of the monsters in the one set and the possibility that other assortments may have had the missing sculpts?

 

Header card, much of a muchness, and a pure coincidence that Hans Postler and Holly Plastics both have an HP monogram!

 

Bag and contents which we're going to dissect below!

 

Six more conventional dinosaurs, all copies of Holly's products, and, at least five of them (green and brown) also used by whoever produced my favourite childhood set of silicon rubber dinosaurs, which we saw here, in Fleetwood colours. There are soft silicon copies of the Gygax Monsters too, once you start looking for them, they turn-up everywhere, like LB (for Lik Be) astronauts!

 

Two cavemen, also ex-Holly, although originally Marx, MPC or someone!

 

The 'meat & two veg' of the business, seven of the Gygax Monsters, including two named, the Bulette (top left) and Rust Monster (bottom right), the oddest, and hardest to find after the Owlbear, is the Chinese dragon, which I failed to see on the Holly carded set, and had to add, an hour after I published last night, doh!

 

The one I call Gator is called Lizard Man by some people, but as an unnamed 'Gygax', can be whatever you want to call him! Likewise the one which I call Ardvark, some call 'Armadillo' or Armadillo Man.

 

On the subject of naming: some sources mention Kaiju, Ultra Man and 'Pachisaur'/Pachisaurs, but most of the mutterings don't agree with each other, and seem to be people trying too hard to make connections, links or a narrative which really isn't there. A couple of guys, mucking about, chose three monsters, at random, out of a bag, and named them, just the three!

 

In one case Pachisaur seems to be being used just to sell 'merch', while another guy has a very detailed graphic, but the two most important links are greyed-out, because, as he himself admits, it's not clear if they exist as links at all! Another Gygax AD&D monster was called Pachisaur, but doesn't resemble any of the Holly Sculpts closely.

 

Scenics

 

Close-up's of the Phoenix

 

Plastic colours and distribution.

 

Polyethylene play mat.

G is for Gygax Monsters - Part II - The Holly Plastic Factory Limited, Kowloon

So, who made the Gygax Monsters? Well, it would seem the bulk of the common ones, and those similar but with slightly different markings or sizes, are to be found in the Holly Plastics catalogue for 1970.

 

A common enough logo on 1970-80's boxed plastics, Blue Box farm and zoo knock-offs, New Maries Noah's Ark clones and the like, but also, it seems, carded rack toys of farm, zoo, LB style funny animals and, yes. the Gygax Monsters! For years I thought the monogrammed-logo was AJP, rather as it used to be thought that Lik Be's LB was actually, first ID, IDL or ID Ltd., and then LP, how silly 'cos there's no pee in bee! But it's an HP, done as a leaf or onion-tower motif.

 

Counter-top or shelf-display/dispenser box, with an assortment of dinosaurs

and the Gygax Monsters

The two pink blobs are cavemen (from the top) and we'll return to them another day), but we can see the green Spiny monster, the dark-chocolate standing 'Gator', the waving monster with 'winged whiskers' in red and the 'Friendly' dino-monster, with a horn on his nose (in white), as the classic Gygax Monsters.

The Rust Monster top left, with Spiny below it, Wavy Winged Whiskers below that, Friendly to the right, then Gator, with a Bulette under the wing of the 'Phoenix'. Both the above may have been random assortments in carded bottle-bags, while the next three seem to be fixed-content blisters.

 

An almost complete set of Gygax Monsters here, but possibly the smaller sculpts? From the top, then top left left, by way of an excuse to list them, Gygax monikers in bold;

• Chinese Dragon 
• Bulette
• Friendly
• Spiny
•  Ardvark
• Wavy Winged Whiskers
• Gator
• Rust Monster
• Wavy Fan Whiskers

Missing from line up

• Owlbear
• Phoenix
• Disney (might not be Holly)

 

  

These two sets only have the Phoenix, and while it might be meant to be an archaeopteryx, it's a more convincing phoenix, which puts it in the Gygaz Monsters line-up, rather than the dinosaurs, which, while there are lots of other dinosaur sets in the catalogue, I'm not really concentrating on in these posts, as the reason they were languishing in Picasa was that I intended to add to them, and even as I blurb them up, I am seeing how they can be returned to another day, although whether I remember those thoughts later, is anyone's guess!

 

But, yes, it looks like the Gygax Monsters, were Holly Plastics monsters!

P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Sci-Fi and TV

We find ourselves looking at another favourite subsection of mine, the Sci-Fi/ & Fantasy stuff, although there's some media-related in here, there's also some in the final 'mixed' post.

 

Both seen before, I suspect, a Poundland Pterodactyl and an old novelty skeleton.

 

Ger'Nomes! A probably Euro-premium or Wundertüte, with a thick layer of paint to be removed and what I think might be the Tobar John Major jobbie in the middle, but either side is some even-more interesting fellows, if more pixy'ish! A multipart PVC one to the left which I suspect is another Xandria piece from the Netherlands, and, on the right, an ex-keyring chappie, who may have been a Leprechaun, but he's not really green enough?

 

Among the small-scale stuff were two totally new to me/Blog/Hobby astro-alien types (red and green on the left) which are probably small 1 or 2 ¢/p type gum-ball machine's capsule prizes? The 12-wheeled micro-rover is in the style of Micromachines, but from somewhere else I think (anyone know?), and the blue chap is another premium/gumball prize type, being a reduced-scale version of the old Manurba sculpts,

 

A handful of post-Giant stuff includes a red alien from the big bags issued by Novelty Headquarters Inc., and is a useful find! While we have one of the blow-moulded derivatives of them behind, the eyes are everything with these, and he has both! Strangely, despite being on the blog lots of times now, some people were struggling to ID them the other day despite being followers of-, and [occasional] commenters on- the Blog, almost . . . deliberate amnesia!

 

When they are that desperate to post the same thing days later, they are feeling threatened by you, plagiarism, even of ideas, themes or subjects is the sincerest form of flattery!

 

I know, but this was a half-full folder! Two modern takes on cavemen, and another of the small ones in polystyrene which turn up from time to time, I now believe they came as scenic accessories, with an Aurora type range of model-kits from Life-Like, which were actually inherited from Pyro, so could be either?

 

The mini blue 'superhero' came as companion pieces to larger ones on Pound Shop cards a few years ago (probably still a few out there somewhere), a Cylon Warrior from Mattel's 1978 Battlestar Galactica line, I have the Earth pilot somewhere I think, a lovely Terminator, sans arm, but possibly an unlicensed rip-off piece, and an MB Games piece courtesy of the Nottingham Mafia!

 

The Superman keyring was a very generous inclusion in the package from Chris, as I think I know guys on Podstalions who would swap an arm for something both vintage and DC! In the middle is . . . a dough/cookie cutter? Something like that, infant crafts of some kind, but figural, and apparently glowing with radiation! The Orange guy may be a racing driver, and I vaguely remember doing a show-repot on a company at Kensington Olympia who had a bunch of similar figures?

 

As well as the Giant knock-offs, there was a smattering of the Lik Be (still LB, for obvious reasons) robot/alien types, always useful, and in this early, clean/sharp state, possibly HG Buck Rogers fayre? Many thanks again, to Chris Smith, for sending these, for me to share with the rest of you.
 

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Ephemera

As I posted some of this back in lockdown and as the lockdowns are all a couple of years ago, they might as well go here too! A rather eclectic collection, but the 'Seen Elsewhere' folder is one I have managed to migrate, find and get to grips with.

 

From the Hong Kong firm Star Toys' catalogue, their range of Timpo/Britains (and other makes?) wagon/coach clones. Amusing to see both Stage Coaches ripped-off, and Britains horses on Timpo bases.

This is from the retailer Josef Kober of Vienna's catalogue, from the mid 1970's. We see Timpo Indians attacking a Timpo cavalry/union-manned fort, while Elastolin cowboys get up to all sorts down in the town, including laying in wait for a Timpo stage! Wooden buildings exclusive to Kober.

I believe the shop only closed in the last few years, and when I posted it previously Gubányi István of Hungary recalled the shop was popular with Eastern European visitors during the Cold War, presumably due to Austria's NATO/Warpac neutrality.

This went on Brain Heiler's facebook group, where they like a bit of early evening, older kids, TV serial-related stuff, preferably Canadian, but this is British and another retailer (or actually; wholeseller)'s catalogue, Dekkertoys. I might even have a couple of those fake medal/badge 'Bling' items somewhere! Childhood Fun!

Not intending to park my tanks on Moonbase's lawn, it just happens there's a few white-button/wind-up, giant insects down the bottom of this collection of plastic kits from Bandai's 1975 catalogue, all of which have the clockwork 'walking action', I previously posted this on the STS Animal Forum over a year ago.

At the same time as I posted this image of the Marx prehistoric playset by Burbank Toys, presumably - by then - a Dunby-Combex sales vehicle (also marketing some Mattel), although originally formed in 1957. They also sold the last version of the Guns of Navarone playset, both in contents-photo' box-art, along with a third which I think was a Wild West set, with fort? It'll go on the A-Z listing in the end, with lots of other stuff!