100 is for Real Little Dolls!

A follow-up to past posts, most notably this one from February '09, which looked at my two incomplete samples and a few oddities, tying them to the Euro-premiums, some of which some of them were pirated from!

From the archive are a couple of newspaper clippings, one is Dept. DL, which might be a clue to the Detroit Lakes Tribune being the carrier paublication? The other is a more generic PO Box number similar to those used with the comic-giveaway Ad's these 'dolls' also appeared in, but both came to me already trimmed

I played with the pictures and ended up with two usable images! I can't remember why I numbered them, there may be a missing list somewhere! But basically 1-10 are taken from the previously flagged European margarine-premium 'dancers' set, 11-20 seem to be taken from other sources too, 21-29 are more unique to the 'comic' set and 30 is the Santa I'm still missing!

Mentioned in the past, they came with a PVC/vinyl sticker set from which you were to fashion hats, skirts, shirts, collars, capes and bows - for the deer! Like a lot of old vinyl, they are sticky and shrinking now.

Now; I do have this set somewhere, but I'm not sure if these are my scans or someone else's off of that Wibbly Wobbly Way? If they are yours and you want me to remove them, let me know, it's not a problem, I'm just losing track of all the imagery on the dongles!

The missing Santa in the upper shot, and the Berserker doing some scaleing in the lower shot, all the figure images are courtesy of Brian Berke who sent them some time ago, well, about two years ago, it's a long queue now!

The same artwork being used in a rare branded Ad' for Palmer Jones, you can see why some people conflate these with the Giant-branded stuff - there's very little connection beween most comic-stuff and Giant, the exception being the 'board games' by Lucky Products and Helen of Toy, where some components are the same as those used by Giant of New York, World Toy House and others.

There is more on the sets in a brief entry on the A-Z blog here, while I looked at a few of Betterware's versions in this Blog's second ever post!

F is for Feeble Flats in Fancy Foot-locker . . . Not!

There's a tendency to think these were all from the same outfit, believed to be Cossman & Levine Co. (later Uncle Milton), but it's clear there are two or three sets of tools (USA and Hong Kong) and several issues/issuers.

Packed in this Footlocker! Said the advertising, with a smaller 'pasteboard' toy storage box underneath, variations of the wording exist, but the snake-oil seller's intention is clear, you think you're getting a footlocker (large kit-trunk at the end of your bed in basic training) and what turns-up is a small cardboard box!

Made of Durable Plastic. Each with its Own Base . . . said the advertising, the snake oil seller couldn't stop with the foot-locker, he further disguises the fact that that the figures are anatomically cartoonish flats with stirring-artwork and waffle about bases!

However, that was then and many a disappointed child received their 'footlocker' full of polymer shite with agast in the early 1950's, by the 1970's ) when they were still being advertised in Marvel and DC), we know from the grapevine that it was a shit rip-off ad, but come the 1990's and as adult collectors we were desperate to find some!

My sample above - branded to Lucky Products Inc., of Long Island, contains a conglomeration of several sets, which fit in the one box, but mostly don't belong in it!

We'll start with the 'senior service' (although how that happened - when the navy always comes after an army - is anyone's guess?), they get a battleship and a PT Boat, or four of each to be accurate!

They are both Hong Kong copies of the - probably (and hereafter;) Nosco - originals and the PT boats are all so poor I don't know what they looked like, but there are good shots on the Internet of the US-made originals. The battleship is more of a frigate with added turrets!

The Infantry; Again all HK copies it's impossible to tell which the 'rifleman' is and which is the 'infantryman' but they are both in the bottom-right corner with darker variants. The kneeling firer is probably the 'marksmen', while the 'sharpshooter' is the prone firer, the other two are obvious, a full set should have . . .

4 Battleships

4 Bazookamen

4 Bombers

4 Cruisers (PT Boats)

4 Infantryman

4 Jeeps

4 Marksmen

4 Riflemen

4 Sailors

4 Tanks

4 Trucks

8 Cannon

8 Jet Planes

8 Machinegunners

8 Officers

8 Wacs (Women's Army Corps, US Army, WWII)

8 Waves (Women Accepted [for] Voluntary Emergency Service, USN, WWII)

8 Sharpshooters

To which was sometimes added other items instead of the mythical footlocker, but it lead to a reduction in the contents; 'Fighting Force' of Broadway, New York sent out 50 items with a 51st cardboard gun which fired (rubber-band mechanism?) while Homer House Products issued something in their 21 Piece Task-Force, which looked a bit like the Pyro space-gun and fired plastic BB's.

As these latter sets had no footlocker, and the more ephemeral pices have long since bitten the dust, it's hard to know if you're looking at them, but I suspect they are here in the post somewhere!

Artillery; three clear variations here, with the larger Nosco having a heavier appearance/calibre and a higher firing-elevation, a Hong Kong version in the darker olive-drab and a less-detailed clone with smaller base and more tapered barrel.

Two tanks in my armoury, again a heavier Nosco and the poorer Hong Kong-manufactured pretender, looking a bit like an M22 Locust air-portable it probably wants to be a M24 Chaffee!

Transport is provided by a generic 6x6 'deuce and a half' which has clearly been made from a half-track's cab and some milk-crates, no winch, no bumper (fender) and no un-ditching roller! Looks more like an einheits / ersatz Mercedes!

The Jeep! Best bit of any set, Nosco on the left of both pairs with the fine-edged base and HK on the right; a particularly crude copy.

The officer, there seem to be various versions of this sculpt, even the Nosco (centre pair) come in thick and/or thin legged/bodied, while the HK clones have two clear versions, with a reversed chamber on the bases, and the right-hand ones having a little mould-release, pin-hole

Junior service ("With good reason . . . crab air . . . fussa-russa . . . "), a sort of generic 1950's jet, more pointy from HK; a bit Sabre-like (but not really a Sabre) from the US maker. The HK ones also have much smaller tail-plains and fin . . . they would paint-up as nice additions to a Trigan Empire air-fleet!

Ah! Yes! The B46½! The most schizophrenic bomber in history, not sure if it's a B36 Peacemaker or a B52 Stratofortress, it exhibits features of both! It also has a hollow-body to keep material costs down.

Duff, duff, duff! After the disappointments of a footlocker being not a footlocker, and the whole set being less than accurate flats, little 'Buddy' (he always seems to be Buddy in the movies) had to contend with the fact that over a quarter of the contents were shit poses! In addition to the 8 officers we have all these, eight-each of the two women and four matelotes!

The simplicity of the poses helps to identify at least three variations again, the Nosco (left pairs) being well-fed, the two Hong Kong versions much slimmer. I think the WAVES are the ones with a Sunday church-hat, the WACS have the pill-box headdress?

The sailor looks like Beetle Bailey!

Brain Berke sent these shots from New York over Christmas (triggering the post's photo-session!)*, and aren't they lovely; if you collect plastics for the material (as I think I do?), you can't not be impressed by an aqua/jade/turquoise marbling, as of these!

There is a hint of this colour in the tail of one of my Bombers, while another has the signs of black marbling embedded in the wings, so these were probably run at around the same time as my green ones.

I'm also pleased to see that the Lucky/Nosco 6x6 truck has a much better front-end, although it has the same high-sides, so a cargo-specific wagon, not a troop-carrier, and now wearing a White's scout-car cab!

*Which is how everything-else in the queue (400+ articles) gets pushed-back one place!

132 is for Roman Soldiers

A bit of a a box-ticker, to get something up for Monday AM, anyway; there's plenty on the Internet if you look and the figures aren't than rare, although the hard plastic, earlier versions tend to a bit of damage.

Nine poses, flatter than semi-flat, but thick-enough to have some substantiality about them, they come in two colours, blue and yellow, why no - obvious - red is anyone's guess! Following the pattern of other premium flats, the mounted figures are a different scale to the foot figures . . . or further away!

Hard polystyrene plastic on the left of both colour-pairs, softer polyethylene on the right, the soft plastic ones are heavily marked HONG KONG along the edge of the base with an engineer's stamp, as they were all supplied by the same advertisers I think this was probably an economic thing, although there are subtle differences between the two sets of mouldings.

I only have soft-plastic catapults, whether this is due to the hard plastic ones all breaking over the years, or a sign of an addition I'm not sure, I think the ad's always mentioned them? Even in soft plastic they have lost their 'springiness' and settled to the low position so you can't effectively flick them any-more!

Mr Hur and his competitors! You can see clearly here how the soft plastic set are much heavier sculpts that the older styrene ones.

The effect of massed formations is - I suspect - one of the reasons we stay interested in these ephemeral playthings and keep collecting them?

The flyer, I'm not sure where this one came from, but I do have the originals somewhere, Peter Evans gave me one years ago and I've had a couple out of cheap comic buys at car-boot sales, so I will replace this shot with a high-res scan, or add the better image to the A-Z entry.

150 is for Comic Book Flat Civil War Soldiers

These have been Blogged elsewhere, so really just a box-ticker, I've said before, that "It will all appear here eventually", and from time to time that means covering stuff covered elsewhere, today it's some 'comic book flats'.

Lesser items; The guy second from the right in the middle row is - I think - supposed to be blowing a bugle, but all mine (on both sides of the fratricide) are moulded in such a way as to be open to interpretation, and it seems that taking a drink off a southern 'Belle' (actually a nurse) is preferable to swallowing a wasp or poking himself in the eye with a Remington, the other obvious explanations for what he looks like he may be doing instead of blowing a bugle!

You get a whole bunch of charging chaps, some of whom tend to have miss-moulded bayonets, there are quite a few cavalry and well and a second sword armed soldier; an officer to the NCO or dismounted cavalryman of the previous view.

Meanwhile you can send no less than three USS Monitor-class 'iron-clads' into maritime action against the same number of CSS Merrimac's! They should be  CSS Virginia's - the original built on the USS Merrimack (with a 'k'), comics huh? Like the Daily Mail but with better pictures!

The opposition come in an electric blue polymer and apart from the three different vessels are the same mouldings in the same numbers.

USA          ●           CSA

   Monitor Ships x3 - 3x Merrimac Ships

Gatling Guns x3 - 3x Gatling Guns

Coast Mortars x3 - 3x Coast Mortars

Scouts (binoculars) x3 - 3x Scouts (binoculars)

Officers (Stetson) x3 - 3x Officers (Stetson)

Sergeants (kepi) x3 - 3x Sergeants (kepi)

Hospital Wagons x3 - 3x Hospital Wagons

Hospital Nurses x3 - 3x Hospital Nurses

Buglers x3 - 3x Buglers

Cannons x9 - 9x Cannons

Sharpshooters (kneeling firing) x9 - 9x Sharpshooters (kneeling firing)

Infantrymen (advancing) x15 - 15x Infantrymen (advancing)

Cavalry x15 - 15x Cavalry

P is for Picasa Clearance

I think we've had that title before and we will definitely have it again! I keep muttering about clearing stuff from Picasa but I keep adding to it, not just article folders but the 'other images' folder which had just under 500 shots a few weeks ago and now stands at 700+. A lot of it is shite, but here's some I can clear as a random post, alphabetically;

Britains

Simple shot of Hong Kong produced Britains cowboys, showing some of the colour/base variations in the Herald range - note that the orange one (they all seem to be wearing mechanic's overalls!) has only detailing  three paint colours (black, silver, flesh) while the other two poses manage four each with the neckerchife blobbed-in, in yellow.

Charbens

Thanks to Paul Morehead at Plastic Warrior for ID'ing these for me the other day, I'd scoured the PW 'specials' I have here and checked various websites, but of course my Charbens special (for that is who they are by) is the old B&W one in storage - Paul came to the rescue the other day. From my attempts to find him I'd say he's not too common?

Cofalux

I don't know what these Cofalux are doing in Picasa as we looked at them before everything went into storage, I think they must be latecommers from Samwise/Pascal? I like these French 'bazar' figures (because they are sold in bazaars), they have something of a cross between US production (seen in the UK through Marx or Thomas) and Hong Kong rack toys.

Hornby-Meccano

A Hornby rail-staff figure repainted to represent some fat, rear-echelon, staff-donkey; ready to send a hundred-thousand lions into a hailstorm of Ruhr-moulded lead, at walking pace!

JB Models - now Airfix

Ah, yes; "Would you like a model kit with that fresh-air, Sir?" - The other kind of 'box scale', not an odd-scaled ship or aircraft designed to fit the box size, but a box design resolutely happy to be filled with 5/6ths atmosphere! I don't think they were 'US' either; it's an Australian expediency-design born pout of marrying the turrets of retired Saladin armoured cars with M113 APC's to provide a bit of oomph in Vietnam, which it did quite well I think, albeit while being a bit top-heavy.

Lucky-Giant-Helen of Toy (and others!)

Scans of old photographs that never got used in One Inch Warrior magazine, one of each pose, both colours, err . . .  That's it! Comic offers in the US, they replaced earlier flats.

Norev

Plastic fire engine (dusty) with figures, there should be four outriders, two are missing and one was wedged in the delicate plastic ladder and I wasn't going to force him. Also you have to ask why they are riding outside when they have a lovely crew-cab with two bench seats!

Italian Texas Indian on the left

German bubble-gum premium on the right

All covered before, two random Euro-figures closing a random figure post - call it 'magazine Sunday'! Tomorrow we start a short season.

T is for Truck Part 1; Overview and Odd Sizes

There are trucks that are lorries, trucks that are vans, trucks that are wagons, trucks that are big cars and trucks that are rigs, there are even trucks that are small wheel assemblies on skateboards, and then there is the US Military 'Deuce-and-a-half' 6x6 two-and-a-half-ton General Service Vehicle...Now that's a TRUCK.

Made by everybody (GMC, Studebaker, Ford, International Harvester, Chevrolet, Mack etc...), they have carried countless body types, taken weapon mounts, towed everything and in so doing - have become an iconic symbol of American military power, as they growl past in a cloud of blue exhaust fumes.

Here are some of mine (one day I'd like a real one, but I'd paint it gloss black, I'm no combat wombat!)

From your 'six' going time-wise; Polistil, Marx, Heller/Airfix, Marx, Airfix 1st version readymade, Hasegawa, Airfix 2nd version readymade, Jonny Lightning, Roco Minitanks, Marx, Comic advertised flat, MPC 'Mini' and Skytrex/Davco (?).

Missing; The T Cohen truck (just colour variants of the Airfix 1st version readymade), the new Pegasus and Academy kits and a bunch of kits from the new Eastern manufacturers. Plus various resin/white-metal efforts.

The Marx trucks, two dime-store quality toys and a Roco piracy made in Hong Kong. The copy is almost identical, but is spoilt by having lose axles, that also - in the case of the front wheels - are far too long.

Here she is next to her originator, clip-together construction meant you could have it open or closed, cab and/or body. There was a tractor version as well, and various body types were issued over the years. As far as I know the Marx copy only came as a GS body.

The rest; The Politoys one is around 1:48, but the crew are 1:76/72, the Johnny Lightning version is a bit long for it's width.

The comic book flat looks more like the front end of a half-track grafted on to a farm trailer! MPC's Mini is a single moulding, while the Skytrex/Davco (I'm not sure which trade mark this is) one has a removable tilt, unusual at this scale (1:300)

W is for World Dolls/World Dancers Part 1

Right, sorry for the delay, but personal stuff has kept me away for the last few days. Having learned to do the second part first in order that they run in sequence I should have done this the same night as the Commonwealth/Van Brode post, but hey, better late than never. Tonight's post concerns the World Dancers/World dolls known to those in the States from the adverts in comics which ran from the 50's through to the late 70's/early 80's? To Europeans from the margarine give-aways, and to the citizens of the UK from, er...I don't know what!!

The first to make an appearance were the 'Tanzerinnen' or; Female Dancers. A set of ten different figures given away as premiums with K's, Schipka and Voss (not Fri-Homa as stated on the US Comics Website [link to right], nor is there any evidence that they were among the sets manufactured by Siku), these figures (above) are not from those sets which tend to have different bases and greater detail, but have been separated from the US comic set to give an idea of the European sets. A further word on origin; While Siku did produce a lot of the premium flats in Germany in the 1950/60's, there were many other companies in Germany, France and the Low Countries producing these, selling the product, selling/leasing the moulds and the designs and copying each other's work. Moulds (both originals and copies) ended up in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Mexico and Brazil, Singapore and Macao/Macau. Not forgetting that the early plastic flat history includes the WHW winter/war relief sets, and running plastic through 'Nuremberg Flat' moulds!

They next turn up with the US comic 100 World Dolls set, with the addition of 20 new poses, missing from the above photograph are a clown and Santa Clause on a sleigh. The US issue additions are a less quality sculpt, being much chunkier. Over the years they were sold by a number of (apparently) different companies, which are all on the US comics website.

During their lifetime the figures have turned up elsewhere, and here we see a few, on the left are two factory-painted examples, the Chinaman had an umbrella glued into his hands, both figures have the remains of card/paper and glue on their bases, and probably came in little tourist gift-shop type vignettes (these two were found separately, several years apart). Then the two on the top row - centre and right are different colours, hard plastic and may have been premiums or Christmas Cracker novelties. Centre of the bottom row shows a figure who's release pin has become stuck mid-way through the moulding process, leaving a rod of plastic sticking out of his back. Finally a soft plastic Cracker gift. [And I covered some other copies of this set under 'B is for more Betterwear' in November '08]

  This is the real mystery, containing 7 of the ten dancers, and 13 of the twenty US dolls. You might think "Well the others are just lost in the mists of time?" but the group 'as found' contains exactly two of each of the figures present, making a total of 40, those two neat numbers add-up to more than a slight coincidence, so I think it's a complete 'sample'. The question is what? There are undocumented rumours that these may have been issued in UK breakfast cereal or biscuits, while the possibility remains that they could be the unsold (complete) contents of a shop-stock box as supplied to a bakers or cake-decorators? They are in a pinkish plastic. Indeed, the pink flesh colouring of this set and the subject matter of all the sets are the main links with the sets discussed in part 2 - Below.