M is for More from London, Second of Three Plunder Posts

Continuing with the look at Peter's late summer car-booty, and we're looking at sports figures and civilians in this post, with several useful examples of this and that, the odd oddity and some old friends!

 

Two Chad Valley and a Peter Pan Playthings footballer's, similar to the Palitoy push-heads, but having different mechanisms, I don't know if the Chad Valley's have been home painted or badly painted, while the Peter Pan can still be found in larger stores, or some of the mail-order novelty catalogues.

 

Note there are subtle differences between the fixing arrangement, of the Chad Valley players, to their bases, the significance of which I don't know (slightly different ball-kick characteristics?), while the Peter Pan player has a push button attached to a lever system like Palitoy's heads, Chad Valley's have a flicker on their upper shin, and (I think) a hidden spring. Similar figures were issued by Subbuteo as strikers or goalkeeper accessories.

 

Another bunch of the current cake decoration set, so far linked to three or more brandings, and several three or seven-a-side team strips, they will be added to and compared with the growing sample.

 

A humungous ice-hockey player, with a massive, chunky base, whom I assume is from some kind of table-game, akin to Table Football? I think he's polyethylene, but he could be a softer 'styrene, or some kind of 'propylene? Discolouration is probably from direct sunlight, and can probably be cured with an ultrasonic cleaner and some bleach solution?

 

The Gem golfer seems to be a Hong Kong copy, but it is in a soft polyethylene, rather than the usual (for Cullpit-Wilton commissions) hard polystyrene, and very-much in the ABC paint-style. Two of the HK mini-clones of the Olympic figurines and a key-ring, fat-footballer kid, conversion - loop removed and base glued on.

 

A lovely, current/new white-button Disney Princess knock-off from Rex London, another Disney-like in the Bully-Phidal-Safari style; I can't remember if she was marked, but one day we'll have to have a look at all of them on one page/in one post as there are so many! The cake-decoration dancer is missing her base, but can probably be wedged into one of the Charbens-Crescent-Marty circus horses, as some versions of the same sculpt are, by Marty!

 

And the bride, also a cake decoration is a better example of quite a few in the stash, who has her lace head-covering, 'posey' and silk ribbon intact. They come in a range of sizes and base marks, in various pastel colours and with different add-ons, and I do have a few complete variations now, so should blog them properly one day.

 

The key-ring looks like another variation of the Commonwealth sculpt, but I think it's more a case of the  dancers all being dressed in a grass skirt (the pāʻū) and draped in the floral-garland necklaces (lei lāʻī) associated with Hula, which is also about hip-movement as much as the hand gesture/language, so I think it's more a case of similar look, rather than crediting everything to Commonwealth!

 

Hong Kong (Wilton?) copy of the Hawaiian ukulele player, who is 'styrene, a Marx linesman, not clear, as he's on is back rather than up his ladder, but a set we'll look at properly another day, and two MPC civilians, in yellow (reissues?), the red one is new to me and the other two are different scales of a vast range of figures, seemingly from the same source, who were available to and issued by Tesco-Welly-Woolworth's/Chad Valley and others in the mid-1990's/early 2000's.

 

From the left, Cofalu, unknown 'China', Matchbox and Corgi, the long arm of the 'Leuwah' as Inspector Clouseau would have put it! And PVC-rubber, polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene respectively.

 

Thomas on the left here, I think, PVC, with an unknown and new-to-me, but interesting rider/driver next to him. A civilianised version of the common seated figure we saw in black, in part one of these posts. A Benbros-Kemlows type motorcyclist is next, with a pair of what I'm sure are novelty firemen, from a larger beach/garden toy.

 

One of the cross-over's with the forthcoming Chris Smith plunder posts is this nice hard plastic, possibly phenolic or urea-formaldehyde type, possibly an early 'styrene? And basically, a novelty, floating, bath-toy, there were also swans.

 

A collection of horses, with the larger one Britains for Tri-Ang if it's the one I think it is, two of them in contrasting colours came with a large tin-plate horse-box. Papo girl on pony, with another Papo to her right, a damaged Vitacup and two coach/wagon horses complete the group.

F is for Follow-up - More Snakes & Ladders!

I made a huge boo-boo on this morning's post, the catalogue and figures are DS Plastics, not De Gruyter (who were the premium issuing supermarket!), so I'll have to go back and edit all mentions of the one with the other! And I have no excuse as Theo made it all clear, indeed he corrected me once, but I was editing at 4am with matchsticks holding my eyes open!

In the meantime, Theo also sent me this by way of reply to my old Gibson/Victory set, and it's even nicer!

A more muted board and extra snakes makes this nicer than mine, and I love mine! The snakes are very similar but with less cartoony faces and there are 12 snakes to my board's 11, and ladders are also 12 (to my 10) and while ladders are shorter than snakes, they are not so short, so it should play a bit quicker than the Victory one.

I looked on evilBay, and this board gets an update (same split boarder, but different snake artwork) and an even later replacement which is very cheap, but I suspect this is a late Edwardian one, and the artwork is everything. Chad Valley (and others) also do an 'Indian version' with cut-off corners, but still 100 squares.

Again a charming - if rather violent - label on the outside of the board and bigger than our old family board, covering half the board or a whole 'fold', the lady using a ladder to escape a snake, while a fake fakir attempts some kind of venomous, viper murder!

Theo has the original playing pieces and their box, but also the rule sheet, missing on all the earlier ones I saw on feeBay. I think the tumbler is polished card, while the counters are turned wood.

The rules actually have a variation of our traditional family finish, but only that you have to sit there waiting for the right/exact throw, rather than our bobbing and weaving and risking a snake with every throw, but Chad Valley make up for an easy finish by having players who land on other players sending them (the sitting tenant of the square) "Back to square 1", which is well harsh!

Lovely board Theo, thanks for sending!

 

Late September the same year - and from the 'well fancy that' department; Collectors Gazette give us a history of Snakes & Ladders, no original imagery (all free-use internet stuff), and - it has to be said - not the first time that august publication has published stuff a few weeks or months after it's featured here at Small Scale World? It seems the Blog's influence is greater than some would like to admit!

 

What's doubly annoying is that when they copy Moonbase, they always credit them, when they copy me, they don't! And the usual author knows me well, so there's no excuse . . . Lesson there for all of us - if you fight the system, the system will fight back, so if you're a coward, don't fight the system, but expect to be shafted from the moment you're born until the moment you die, when your relatives will be charged three-times what it actually costs to burn a body!

S is for Shelfies - TJ / TK Maxx

So; I take the odd shelfie or two every time I go to TKMaxx in Basingrad and while a lot of them are of not much interest, they are all figural, so have at least some relevance, and this is a round-up of the last few month's-worth.

Remember that weird Superman with foam wings, who came-in in a mixed lot, got photographed and went back to charity? Well, the mystery seem to be solved; modern-to-current, made by an i-Star Entertainment and being fired by means of an older type pull-cord mechanism and a more techie' trigger which seems to momentarily store the kinetic energy. And - apart from missing the trigger and pull cord, mine was probably/vaguely complete?

Chad Valley are very much a trading brand now, having been resurrected and gone bust, bough by Woolworth's and gone bust, bought by Argos, bought by or sheared with Sainsbury's . . . and cleared through TKMaxx, while both organs are themselves still trading!

The figures (54/60mm) look familiar and I feel I've seen them before somewhere, but then they would be bought-in, as a trading brand Chad Valley does no original manufacturing itself anymore. Indeed; I think the building has the same sticker as the Ja-Ru (?) set Brian shelfied a year or two ago? But the figures are from somewhere else, the helicopter a common rack-toy trope, the traffic-cone from elsewhere?

Sub-scale shuttle and intermediate scale figures (around the 30/35mm mark IIRC) from Johntoy of the Netherlands, but I was drawn to the satellites which would go well with my Airfix HO-OO astronauts, but it wasn't particularly cheap so I left it one the shelf!

Diving out of TKMaxx for a moment I shot these dolls house accessories in Flying Tiger a while ago, notable for the fact that as polymers continue to be implicated in mass pollution, environmental damage, infertility, biological-androgyny and extinction, wood and metal will regain their lost roles in the toy industry . . . as they will in the kitchen, garden and garage/shed!

Back to the Max' and every boy's Christmas fantasy was a big box with everything in it, and this isn't far off! You even get a small forest of poplar trees! Shit image means I can't read the full logo but it's looks like Play Fund, Play Land or Play Pound (as in 'Dog Pound')? This is likely a phantom-branded packaging - several of the vehicles are recognisable from the multi-brand post a couple of Rack-Toy Month's ago.

The kneeling police sniper is an old (and as we've seen here at SSW in the past) much copied Ja-Ru sculpt, so I assume the others will be two, all-six drawn from a larger 'menu' of figures, produced by a contract manufacturer somewhere.

Just because it's figural . . . and may turn-up in a mixed lot! It says 'Brick' so may be Duplo-sized/compatible?

Seen at the London Toy fair in January '18, seen them in TKMaxx before, Interplay's Fairy Garden the fairy is another one likely to turn-up in mixed lots and may be of use to fantasy collectors, if only to have the game-master declare her 'captured by Orcs' and demand her rescue as a game-wining aim!

Phidal - smaller toy/book confection, and aimed at much younger readers than the full-size My Busy Books, can use non-licensed stuff without hitting sales, not that they aren't loosely based on My Little Pony, but them isn't MLP only a further commercialisation of the pink, yellow and blue animals transfer-printed on our cots and play-pens by Pedigree Triang Mettoy fifty years ago?

We saw a couple here in a mixed lot a while back, both went back to charity the next day, Peterkin are behind this juvenilia.

Two brand-marks here, Country Life and My Lovely Horse, both from Johnjoy out of Holland (a place called Waddinxveen), not my thing, but for farm collectors, horse collectors or animal collectors, they may have appeal, clearly going after the Breyer market, which both Schleich and Papo are also chasing these days.

If Tomy are to do anything useful with that Britains Farm property of theirs, they might do well to dump the Britains tools, double (or halve?) the scale and go after a slice of this bandwagon's pie!

That's yer'bunch of mixed shelfies; with one exception, all recently or currently from TKMaxx.

C is for Chad Valley via Chap Mai

When I bought this at the PW show in May, neither me nor the seller knew what they were from, but we both agreed they were interesting and well done if a little esoteric, uniform/equipment-wise! A bit like the SOMA figures, but actually Chap Mai.

Well a quick Google revealed tons of 4/5-inch action figures at the budget end of that market, but no little figures (these are 23/25mm), but I was sure I'd seen them somewhere, and an Argos catalogue was the saviour on this occasion.

Foreign readers/visitors will want to know Argos are a catalogue shop, where a small counter with several ordering/paying stations fronts a huge warehouse and the stuff comes up a  conveyor to the hand-over point (I don't know if you have something similar where you are so forgive the egg-sucking explanation!).

As well as the action figures, Chap Mai made two Micromachine type play sets, an Aircraft Carrier and a heavy-lift C130 Hercules type plane, both of which were the carry-case and 'playmat' for a handful of Micro AFV's/'Planes and this frame of figures.

Originally sold in Chap Mai packaging as two separate sets, they are now combined as a contract-product under the Chad Valley label Argos bought from the Woolworth's fire-sale. So anyone wanting these figures can have them for £19.95 (two for thirty quid), with a load of free plastic and die-cast tat thrown in...actually the carrier looks quite good...just the turret looks silly....still Chap Mai and separate sets elsewhere/on the Internet.

Argos Listing

They are OK figures, although as I hinted above; the uniforms/equipment are a bit all over the place. Also unlike the Galoob precedent, they are unpainted and a bit bigger, having the appearance of a last minute chuck-in-the-box for added play value. They would go very well with the Bluebird Zero Hour/Code Zero figures though...very well indeed, look at the frogman...and the heavy bases.

MPC is for Mini Ships - Part Two; Comparisons

So to comparisons between the MPC mini ships and other comparable vessels ancient and modern (of manufacture), to give an idea of what goes with what size-wise, as 'scale' is so clearly a moot point with these models.

Starting with the larger submarine, it's actually quite close to both the similar and almost as accurate (in outline) ballistic missile subs from Galoob's Micro Machine lines, the other three are really just toys.

I left the similar sized Crescent sub off the first image, so have squeezed it into both collages as a continuation shot, I also forgot the Lido one so I've placed that with both as an inset. It's quite interesting as it's an early Nuclear-sub design which keeps some of the lines of the old U-Boat styles, but for scale purposes, would have the size of the more modern ships.

These are all board-game playing pieces with the possible exception of the two grey ones nearest the Patrick Henry (dropped [or; lowered?] an aitch on the caption!), which may be war-game pieces, and the two aforementioned (Lido and Crescent) which were both 'carpet' toys.

Landing craft; The MPC WWII one flanked by the two modern ones from the Airfix HMS Fearless kit, and all lead by an unknown kit boat (LCA shape...'ish) which I think might be from one of the odd box-scale kits from Pyro or early Revell?

On the MPC vessel the spigot sticking out of the back may be for an unknown accessory, or just a bit of frame? Likewise the indentation forward of the wheelhouse may be a mounting hole for an unknown accessory, but I think it's just shrinkage.

Battleships - The larger size and by association smaller scale range of the MPC minis;  the INGAP and the penny-toys are quite similar, but the Hong Kong and Crescent boats are modelling smaller vessels, so are over-sized in comparison with the MPC ship.

When I say penny-toys, it's only because I don't have a name for them and they have 'cheap' decoration. They may be by a later a 'name', there were several smaller die-casters in the UK making toys in the 1950's-60's such as Benbros and Kemlow, these may be by either? They are also all slightly different and marked B1 through to B3.

[Now ID'd as Chad Valley, probably from a boxed set, 1950's?]

Intermediate or medium size, here using the Tramp Type steamer and an LST from MPC as comparison vehicles for food premiums from Manurba and Sanella and the Matchbox accessories from a large harbour play-set they did. Painted-up these would all look fine next to each other size-wise.

The smallies; the MB Games Axis & Allies ship in the centre is a much smaller scale, being a tramp steamer, and both the Montaplex vessels are military ships of larger scale size.

Back to the medium sized rage, for more naval vessels, the Lido set are all roughly the same size, but obviously one of them is a much scaled-down battleship, as is the MB Games Axis & Allies one.

03-09-2016 Unknown (bottom right, along with two pale grey subs above) is now known - Silvercorn

The ocean liners are all from the bigger end of the MPC stable and match the Rosenhain and Lipmann (R&L) for Kellogg's cereal premium pretty well. The kit is scaled by collectors at 1:3640 and is missing two very fine mast mouldings, I suspect it's a tad smaller than the MPC mini ships, being the larger vessel in real life?

Quaker also had a go at Ocean liners and their little set are scaled smaller that both the MPC ones and the Kellogg's import. A Direct comparison with two versions of Liberte (Europa for most of her eventful life) showing a lack of accuracy as well!

We looked at these Quaker liners here and there's more here.

Shades of blue above with three each from MPC, Quaker and Hong Kong above, the HK vessels being - I believe - copies of the old Triang Minic waterline series.

I forgot (or meant...) to label this shot, but the red one is Tina Onassis the only cargo-ship in the Quaker set and I've done a comparison with similar vessels, the HK one being a militarised version of the original Triang mail or packet steamer? The USS Eddy Country looking like a cargo vessel and the SS Varicella being a tanker.

The Hong Kong set were looked at before in the post linked to above with the Quaker and other smaller ones, but I've since got some more, so a new line-up of mouldings and colour variations is above with a look at the various tugs.

There are three tugs from Hong Kong, the one I've numbered '1', is a full hull model which I suspect goes with these from Lucky Toys, sort of confirmed by the unpainted pale one, going with the unpainted versions of the larger vessels in the linked post. The number 3 (two designs) goes with the similar blue-grey and sea-green copies of Triang Minic vessels, while the charcoal grey one I've numbered as '2' seems to be from a third source or even a kit, it has better detailing and a smaller superstructure.

The MPC version as a higher prow, and probably isn't a copy of the Triang one, this was a standard design of tug-boat and years ago the harbours of the world were full of them, indeed we've already seen MPC produced two, dated a few years apart, but they're all but identical.

C is for Chad Valley

One of the older names in British manufacturing they were formed in 1823, but would not get round to making toys until after the second World War, having purchased Burnett Ltd., (Ubilda) just as war was declared!

Chad Valley ceased to trade in 1978 with the name being purchased by Woolworth's in the 1990's (?), where amongst other products issued as that brand were some re-boxed Corgi play-sets! I don't know what happened to the name when Woolworth's folded in 2008/9, but presumably it has been acquired or is on some claimants negotiation-list with the receivers!

These are probably the item they are most known for among Toy Soldier enthusiasts, and I believe there was quite a range, mostly of ceremonial/parade type subjects. The two foot figures are almost certainly from another (Light Infantry/Rifles?) set of foot figures, and a mounted figures is missing, probably facing to the right as you look at the box, and maybe a Lancer, Horse-guard in blue or RHA...I'm just guessing now, with a little help from the box-lid!

B is for Boys Toys

This is in my mothers attic, I don't know or remember when it was given to us or how long it was in the games drawer, as both my brother and I were not 'football' kids. I have a vague memory of playing it once or twice but as to who gave it to us and when I haven't a clue...

...but if you were a Football Kid, this would be the best under the tree on Christmas morning, a big box printed in two colours with the magic word "soccer" writ-large!

From the late 1960's judgeing by the hybrid tin-plate/plastic construction, although I think it soldiered-on for most of the 1970's pretty much as an unchanged design, however, the box got more colourful with each generation.

Close-up of the players, the ball - if I remember correctly - was a Subbuteo-sized thing but of lesser quality in a browny-orange? Chad Valley was resurrected a few years ago by Woolworth's, I don't know what happened to the trademark after Woollies demise?