B is for Bagged, Boxed and Blister-Carded!

Now, there's a title I should have, could have, aught to've thought of years ago, having decided to stubbornly stick with the 'A is for . . . ' trope. Especially when I could have dropped it the first month, after we got to zed, or the next month after we'd gone back up to ay? But, whatever, we've had it now!

 

February's Sandown resulted in lots of nice things being added to the pile, and these are all those - we haven't seen yet - which came/come with their packaging, there not being enough stuff for thematic posts, I'm finding other ways to run-off shots from the main folder!

 

This was an amazing find, on the nostalgia front, not because you can't probably find them regularly on feebleBay, but because I hadn't thought to look, having forgotten this for several decades, but this was my Brother's piggy-bank, when we were kids. I had the hard polystyrene 'pillar-box', with three black bands, numbered as a combination lock (which I have seen, but not while I was buying), from Hong Kong, while my brother had this, also from Hong Kong, imported by CODEG Productions (Cowan de Groot)

 

It's not exactly the same, as his was yellow plastic under the flocking, which came off quite soon, ears first! So our Rupert was plain yellow for years, probably until we moved house in 1980, while this one is actually red polythene, so at least two production runs for this.

 

We loved Rupert, and had quite a few annuals from the Church fête, it was all a bit Edwardian, prep-school and jolly hockey-sticks, but kids don't mind, same with the Enid Blyton stuff, prejudices are passed-on by grown-ups, kids just like reading that other kids are having adventures in a pirate cave with a pet mouse in their pocket, or - in Rupert's case - chasing a Bramble Imp with an Elephant in a suit!

 

Purchased purely for the card sample, we looked at the figure set a while ago, as I have them all loose, but at that time I only knew about the five or ten set cards, now we have pairs, for really poor kids!

 

Close-ups; Slinger (below) and Stinger!

 

Box-ticking, I now have complete sets of Romans, Greeks and Egyptians, and most, if not all the Wild West, but I only had one nurse from this set, maybe another figure? Although, looking at the card-reverse, I still haven't found the firefighters!

 

Unusually (especially when you consider there are ten firefighter sculpts), there are only six poses in this set, with four duplicate pairs and two 'uniques' for the ten-count?

 

Contemporaneous with all those magnetic novelties, was this, Falbala the Fakir, from Fairylite, who could be cut in half, yet remain whole, I say 'could', because his - probably - phenolic-based polymer has warped, and he actually falls apart rather easily and stays together only with delicate intervention!

 

When new, you would prise his two body-halves apart, enough to get the sword in, then, upon slicing downward, would push a locking key out of the way. There are three of the slightly curved keys on a revolving wheel (think the Coat of Arms [legs] of the Isle of Man), so as the sword pushed one out of the way, another would come round and lock in behind it, so the Fakir stayed together as the sword went right through him!

  

From the 'Empire Made', I'm guessing this was a Swansea-operation corner of the 'Kins universe, if it was the US arm of Marx behind it, it would usually be 'Made in British . . . Hong Kong, Crown Colony' and/or etc. The seller had several, some with two Fairykins, some with common window-box accessories like the dog-house, but I thought the semi-flat guardsman was a bit different, and needed to be in the master collection!

  

More Humpties here;

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/05/e-is-for-eggcellent-effigies.html 

 

100% sure this is Airfix, no pattern number, and no banner-logo, but in every other way mirroring other known examples of early Airifx novelties, plastic colours match the animal flat/building block/baby bricks, and the micro-aircraft I've also called as Airfix, while the card is very similar to the one the animal flats came on, and I bet those 'planes came from similar cards? I will add more imagery of it to the Airfix Blog, in a day or two.

 

Finally, a cereal premium Hulk, mint in 'food-hygienic' pack! Called 'Desktop Buddies' and issued in 2003 by various Nestle properties, including Golden Nuggets, it's actually a relief sculpt with a hollow back, but a packaging sample is always useful!

H is for Haskins Circus Baubles

I thought I'd posted these a week or three ago - I hadn't! A very themed collection of Circus baubles, to be found at the Haskins garden centre, between Farnham and Borden, not my thing, simply because there's too many themes and items already, but if I was just setting out on life's journey and had a tree to fill with memories, or a theme, I would be tempted!

 

They are mostly Gisela Graham so can be found elsewhere, both Redfields and Longacre had a few, but only Haskins seems to have A) ordered the whole line and B) ordered similar stuff from other sources and hung them all together.

 

A rather poor shot, or hurried-shot, I took of a hedgehog I left on the hook. I didn't like the landscaped base, it's basically a shelf-ornament converted into a tree-ornament, which is a bit naff on at least two levels, so it stayed where it was - there's definitely a 'personal' snobbery to ornament selecting!

E is for Everything Else - Odds & Sodds!

There were a few smaller pieces and loose figures picked up at the Last Sandown Part show, which was, in some respects, one of my best yet for purchaes, but in conversation, there's a feeling that while prices are down, this stuff is coming out of the woodwork at the moment, I got a really nice, never seen before piece off of that evilBay the other day.

 

I've never really followed this stuff, nor felt the need to, poorly acted 'C' movies, for kids, in the 'over the top' style of kids programming, never grabbed me, but there is a big following for the whole Kaiju, Gojira, Ultraman, Atomic-boy stuff, and these are probably quite modern 'Ultramen', and may be from one source, but two are realistic 54mm'ish solids, well within the scope of the collection, the other two are a super-deform (right) and big-head (left), both of which, leave me pretty cold.

 

A Christmas cracker bike, and two micro-trucks from Italy, another 1-ton Humber knock-off, too close to the Dinky original to be considered the donor for all the Hong Kong copies, but could be based on the Pyro/Kleeware minis? And a post-war US 'duce-and-a-half' probably an M39 era/generation?

 

Very obviously an ex-Giant chariot, we looked at them on the Romans page (above), and eventually will look at them again on the But is it Giant sub-Blog, in greater detail, but for now, this one needs a good clean, or at least, the horses do!

 

A couple of bags of odds I picked up on a wander, the gum-ball robot will go in a bag with several others and bits, in the hope his arm turns up one day! Two lesser characters from the larger, 'styrene set of Noddy figures, a Fozzie Bear pencil top, and another of the Rupert Bear pencil-top torsos, I think I have four now, two Kinder and an LB for Culpitt spaceman!

 

Adrian found these two for me, French clowns in hard plastic of the polystyrene type, but being French could be Phenolic or a formaldehyde resin of some kind, although both are stable. Cyrnos, Clairet; someone like that?

 

A bit of fun, it links a common-enough piece of scenery to a specific animal, so not that useful, but it also links marks together.

 

Swoppet knock-offs!

 

A nice, early piece of, probbaly German composition, around 45mm, and unmarked, he's obviously a WWI-era German soldier, and I rather like him, as a possibly very old survivor . . . 1920/30's?

 

Isaac gave me these two lots, the Cherilea 60mm's are clean, but have lost 90%+ of their paint, while the karki infantry might have all been home-painted to match, or are a new-to-me paint scheme, the radio-operator is Benbros.

 

Seen in a recent book-post, useful little monograph on Selwyn Miniatures.

 

I'm guessing this is American, but it could be French, or from down the road! It's a solid lump of die-cast Mazac / Zamak or pure aluminium (not light enough?) with wooden wheels, and may once have been a penny-toy . . . a whole penny!

 

Make your own caption! How cake-decorations are born!

P is for Performing in the Spotlights Candle Light!

Why has it taken me nearly eighteen years to work out you can use basic HTML tags in the title bar? Doh!

 

Just a quick box-ticker, I bought these at a Squires garden centre, last autumn (2024) and got them lost in Picasa somewhere, a set of novelty circus candles, by Smiling Faces, a bit cartoonish, but fun cake decorations, with wooden icing-spikes!

 

 

That's it really, they are what you see; a set of Novelty circus candles, by Smiling Faces!

 

A is for And so, to Reading!

While I'm playing catch-up with the big shows (after PW, there's another Sandown to cover), there have been other incomings, with both my own and Peter's car-booty to come, various new-production results of shopping trips, and this, a quick pop-over to the teeming metropolis of Reading in April, for the BMSS's annual show, where I found a tub of Circus awaiting me, courtesy of Adrian little, some interesting stuff on Steve Vicker's table, and a few other bits.

 

Another sample of wooden ceremonials, probably from Germany, but not necessarily, these things are pretty universal, and the red/blue of Danish guards is also the standard paint-job, a bit damaged, but that too, is par for the course, with wooden toys this small.

 

Another of the Dunbee-Combex era, Marx Disney figures in PVC.

The Britains Lilliput OO 'Trooscale' Centurion, compared with the Airfix 'readymade', bottom-right, a nice find and cheap because it has a few paint-chips, in the die-cast world things are either mint, and pricey, or gash! It's clean-enough for me.

 

On Steve's table were a bunch of Athena ceremonials, and I grabbed one of each, three sentry/guard duty types and eight bandsmen, there was a 14th but he was damaged, and the cymbalist only has one cymbal, but as a catch-up sample, they'll do!

 

A - probably commercial - BR Moulding behind, and a chap in front I don't entirely know, he looks familiar, in a sort of Cherilea fashion, but is too small for them, can't be either of the Charbens ones (oval or round bases), so Hilco from hollow-cast? He's soft 'ethylene, against the BR's hard 'styrene.

 

East German at the front? Reamsa reissue of a Mountie, probably from Marksmen, Gulliver copy of Atlantic's Apache hunter, a Poplar-Tudor Rose (green) and Crescent hollow-cast copy in yellow at the back.

 

The hard plastic chap in white is a ceremonial from the Principality of Monaco I think, but probably a French-made figure (there was a plastic maker in Monaco, but they made Britains and Crescent copies!), while the other two are Spanish, Reamsa 1st version, I think.

 

Some unpainted Britains Deetail ACW, also on Steve's table, someone recently posted the bugler, in similar nakedness on the Friends who like Plastic Warrior Faceplant group, you do find them from time to time, usually old out-painters stock, filtering their way to market as sheds and cupboards are sorted-out!

 

While Adrian's tub of Circus (his third in two years) was very useful, none of the rarer mouldings, but something more useful, confirmation!

 

The third image is sadly fuzzy, and I only realised when I edited this, last night, so there’s no time to reshoot it, but a very useful sample for showing three tool-cavities, with long, thin left foot (shorter figure), rounder foot and short foot, and with the bases being one Maysun, one 'Hong Hong' and one blank, confirms that most of these Crescent copies are the same Marty-Maysun--M Toy production,

 

For years, I've kept these in two or three lots, due to obvious differences, especially among the standing-tub markings of the Elephant and the Lion's box. But getting these three together, the same quality, plastic colour and paint, means they can all be unified now, and I can thin them out, to a better 'overall' sample.

 

One Crescent original among them, the right-hand elephant, with the beach-balls in two colours, a very useful addition to the whole sample.

 

While a couple of Corgi's Cinderella Coach horses w=also work for circus animals, the jockey is a Hong Kong copy of Britains jumper, and the Charbens clown has been repainted! Many thanks to Adrian for the freebies!

O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Circus

Because I made a major purchase the day of the show, there's enough for a Circus post this year, instead of shoving them in with the civilian/sports post, and what a purchase it was, and very welcome, even though we've seen all the separate elements before. Fingers crossed they load in the right order . . . 

 

. . . and they did! Wouldn't want to re-sort these one at a time, plays havoc with the formatting! A nicely labeled Crazy Cown Circus from Frazer & Glass (F&G . . . like LB for Lik Be, just sort of works, always has!), lovely 1950's (or late 40's?) lining paper/gift wrap on the box, and similar to some Italian stuff we'll be seeing in these show-plunder posts soon.

 

How you bought your cheap ['er] plastic toys in the years immediately before I was born, loose in a box! Or singly from glass compartments in Woolworth's! A complete set, the seller admitted it's made-up to completeness (I think he has a perfect one in his collection), but after 70-odd yeas I'm not complaining, and would have made it up from my loose ones, if it was incomplete, anyway.

 

One-ring circus!

 

Always nicer when it's yours, rather than an Internet image!

 

Balancing and Tumbling Acts, I don't know what I was thinking the other day, of course you could get a single one, without any signs of glue - the A1 Clown! But here with base, unlike the baseless one we saw the other day.

 

Three in line, and note: different spots, shape, base v baseless, cone hat size &etc.

 

Juggling Acts.

 

Ringmaster is a standard clown with no top-hat?

But he does have the red trousers.

 

Equestrian Acts.

 

Seller had added the band! I have recently come-across a dog, with top hat, in the same vitreous 'styrene, which I believe may be another late addition to this set (to go with/accompany the hoop-clowns?), it's in a forthcoming post, somewhere, I think, if not, I'll dig it out and get it up here with a few links back and forth. On the subject of links, the last time we looked at a few question-marks and variants, on these, was nine years ago;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2016/07/c-is-for-crazy-clown-circus.html

 

But the F&G Tag or Crazy Clown Circus will get all the thoughts/posts in one hit! 

Another marked Maysun set, of Crescent copies, adding confirmation to previous utterings here about them/that! With a couple of loose horse that have good paint, and one will need to be used to replace the brittle on in the bag, whose lost it's legs!

 

Charbens, a nice clean sample, with opposite colours of both clowns!

 

Late Corgi, I think, on the left and another M-Toy on the right.

Thanks this year go to, alphabetically by surname, Issack, Graham Apperley, John Begg, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Peter Evans, Adrian Little, Michael Mordant-Smith, Trevor Rudkin, Steve Vickers, and with no emails since the intro-post, anyone else who gave me stuff, I've forgotten to add! Thank you all.