About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 60-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.
Showing posts with label Commonwealth Plastics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Commonwealth Plastics. Show all posts

Thursday, June 8, 2023

S is for Sharper & Sharper!

Really, an 'F is for Follow-up...' on pencil sharpeners, but as the collection of these 'KT' and related figural pieces grows, there's a sharpness there to the sample as a whole! And I've said before not every title works, but that was my thinking, and if I try to think of a better one, I'll lose interest and can-it for another few months!
 
 
I managed to acquire the guardsmen on a sharpener, confirming a previous suggestion that he was part of this set, so I get to use the 'Told You So' tag again, which annoys my 'eemies' and pleases me! Anyone out there in the hobby who thinks I'm going away hasn't smelt the coffee yet. Anyone out there who thinks I can be cowed hasn't been paying attention.

In all the follow-ups, contributions and acquisitions of these I forget what's what and what I've got, but suffice to say we saw the boxed one a while ago, and I've now found the pair of non-pencil sharpener dancers, just for completion, there may be a connection with Magneto (post forthcoming), and if Christian Hardy goes and looks it up he could be a day ahead of me instead of a day behind, I'd say the same to Mr. Ripoll but he's too busy clutching the monarch's shaft! I had no idea I was being followed that closely, here and elsewhere, by all these nonentities!

I've also picked-up both the Asian dancers previously supplied as images by Brian Wagstaff, so there's more completion there, and despite looking out for others, it seems to be the same ones which keep turning-up?
 
Likewise, the Indian girl, who we saw last time we looked at these (a straight lift of the Commonwealth sculpt), was needed as a physical entity, but she does suggest a cowboy might still be out there (on a round sharpener) in addition to those we've seen from 'W. Germany'.
 
 
Comparison of the bases revealed that the new guardsman has a slightly different sharpener with an opening in the 'wall' of the sharpener's case, at the far end. Probably only a batch/age of design thing, or a KT specific thing, the guardsman is the only KT-marled plug-in, but I'm not about to start looking for another version of each found so far! The other four additions are the unmarked ones, with the base and figure as a single moulding.
 
 
Finally, I saw these, and thought they were fun, some age to them; 1950's I'd imagine?
 
And for those who missed it, or have forgotten it, here's a link to a completely different subject, which I posted elsewhere yesterday, in all innocence to help a chap out - seems to have caused a ripple, in the lake of idiocy!

Saturday, January 8, 2022

H is for How They Come In - June 2021 - 3 - Chris

I bought something off Chris in June, possibly one of the items in the previous post, and although he'd sent me a big parcel a few weeks earlier, also included these with the purchace.

All sorts, of which the highlight is probably the three Wild West (top of picture) which look Polish (bases) but are probably French 'bazaar' figures, but not common ones? The flocked donkey next to them is cool, he's a mini blow-mould under the fur! The pale-jade French firefighter is probably another bazaar figure, while we had two paratroopers and a . . . in a minute on that one!

A small group of margarine premiums (top left) balance a similar sample of Commonwealth 'world dolls' except these are the later sub-piracies. And speaking of pirates; the big brown fellah is a Brabo 'Parafool' missing his chute-loop and waving a short-short cutlass! Various cake decorations and mini's can also be seen, along with an oversized copy of one of  Arco's smaller sized Rambo figures and a nice pile of Kinder bits (bottom right).

That other figure - he might be a parachute toy, but I suspect - from the locating studs on his hands - that he is a swinger, spinner or revolver! He's some kind of superhero, with a possible sun-motif on his chest, but it could just be a runner gate-mark or release-pin blemish.

I asked the chaps and chapesses on Brian Heiler's Faceplant group if anyone knew, but apart from a suggestion he might be a "...Palmer Scuba Diver figure or VooDoo", both of which drew a blank, there cameth-forth an answer none, so if you can help? He's also a bit 1950's pulp, rather than '70's Marvel/DC?

Cheers, as always to Chris Smith, for the bag of bits, all really appreciated.

Wednesday, August 28, 2019

News, Views Etc . . . Dancing Dolls Page - Contribution

I've added a nice contribution from Brian Wagstaff (near the bottom of the page) and some more Scot's dancing 'Gerrils' (in their section) to the above mentioned page

Dolls! - Rush Job!

Sunday, August 4, 2019

S is for Shilling

The following appeared in the letters section of Plastic Warrior magazine - issue 170 (1st quarter/March; 2018) just over a year ago, I reproduce it verbatim below;

" Dear PW
Re issue 167, New Zealand figures. As well as collecting toy soldiers I also collect cereal toys. I wrote to Craig L Hall about the New Zealand figures: he has written and published a book called Breakfast Barons, cereal Critters and the Rosenhain & Lipmann Legacy.
I enclose the letter he sent me in reply.
David Pye.

We quote from Craig's reply as follows [Ed.].
"I think the author of the article, Paul Stadinger, has done a great job on the research and is correct in what he says except that these were not made by R&L, as there was another company, more established in the 1960s, called Consolidated Plastics, who made this type of toy."  "

Now, if you live in an entirely non-digital universe, it may well appear to you to be pretty straightforward, although you might - almost at once - use your own logic abilities to ask A) why would a modern publisher be operating in a non-digital world and B) why do these two seem to need to hold each other's hands . . . it's not quite kosher, is it? Still, this post is in the digital world, so presumably these two idiots (above named) won't see it!

And - on a purely obvious level; nice plug for one's book, by the other! Why only quote a section of the reply, why the middle man? Plug your own book! Well, the answer is, shilling! Not the currency; ex-Empire and still used in Kenya, but the issuing of an aggrandising shill letter, to support TJF, probably (no evidence!) with the knowledge and/or input and/or instigation of The Jabbering-Fuck himself?

The facts are;

21st February 2016 - After much independent research over about three years, and with full acknowledgement of all relevant sources (and a few irrelevant ones!), I published the Dolls of the World/Dancing Dolls page. I didn't acknowledge Mr. Hall's book, as I haven't got it, haven't seen it and therefore hadn't used it in my research (and still have no clue what he has, or has not said on the subject). As part of that research I revealed that the [still] mentioned elsewhere as 'Unknown Australian' figures, were from three sets of figures issued with Sanitarium breakfast cereal, AND, on the separate, supporting A-Z Page entries published three days later, posted links to some of the Antipodean sites that were doing great work publicising the Sanitarium stuff we (in the West) had missed.

November 25th 2016 - TJF published his colonist's set, pretty much claiming to have solved the problem of his unknown figures all by himself, and discovered Sanitarium . . . with the help of an Aussie seller, of the kind I had pointed out! We now know - after early denials - that he follows this Blog '...very closely...'!

June 16th 2017 - I posted the Colonialist set on Lodoprimofiles - nicer figure-colour spread!

June 19th 2017 - I posted the NZ set on the Blog as well - new photo's more text, box ticked!

June 2017 - The naked emperor reposts his article in PW167 with no new imagery and no new blurb.

July 7th 2017 - Stadinger (TJF) mentions the dancing dolls, still describing some of them as 'unknown Australian' (they're New Zealand!) and claiming they don't interest him!

March 2018 - the shill letter appears, crediting TJF with the work actually done by . . . well . . . quite a few other people!

If these two muppets knew so little about the background to the reposted article, why did they feel the need to put pen-to-paper? And/or to have the results of that mutual cud-chewing published? It's not like we see a mass of letters congratulating all the other authors of all the other articles for their '...great job on the research' in either PW or all the other magazines; whether the articles are accurate - or not? Nor - it has to be said - do we see a regular stream of such factually inaccurate letters!

If it was to get the book plugged, then it only needed one of them? If it was to get the book plugged, then; well done, it's got another mention here; three-cheers for me!

If it was to correct the false accreditation to Rosenhain & Lipmann, it fails, as it only seems to 'suggest' an alternative? I looked at a couple (of possible sources, to which you could add Toltoys) in the original article and we mentioned a couple more the other day (January posts) - there were lots of plastic manufactories in that part of the world at that time. If you are to correct someone, you need to be firm in your correcting, the last line in the quote only seem to offer 'an' alternative? And again - only requires one author!

Does that make sense? What I'm saying is . . . IF you know; correct the idiot TJF's "... strong working knowledge..." (he was calling early Zang-Herald "Crescent" the other day - it's tragic!), but if you don't know, why the need for the fucking letter in the first place? It's the idiocy of people in a very small hobby pretending they have no knowledge of and/or haven't seen several large chunks of it (the hobby generally, and/or specifically; the war with me!), when they almost certainly have intimate knowledge of it!

No; this was a concerted effort to 'big-up' TJF's self-appointed 'legend', with ignorant or deliberately unfounded 'facts' which bore no relation to the actual course of events. I've never met either of these fools, they've never communicated with me - as far as I know, and therefore their actions were designed to credit the one person who did the least research into the matter!

On the way; subjugating the efforts and integrity of Mr. Hall himself, the other Antipodean website or blog-owners and myself, and - call me a conspiracy theorist if you have to (TJF has - several times without justification - at least this time he has good reason to scream 'fake news' like a deranged president!); it is damaging to the hobby. Damage I predicted would be forthcoming, two and a half . . . nearly three-years ago.

Do you see? I found - and credited - the Aussi and NZ sites in my research, they in turn may or may not have used Mr. Hall's book in their web-building - and/or credited it. Equally he may have used them? While Mr Standinger played no part in any of it, except to use the existing, published information, but then tries to take the credit, with the help of a ('the') shill letter; I - as always - claiming no credit for myself!

Apparently written by people drawing lines or choosing sides (within the hobby) they didn't need to or have to, because the naked emperor or his minions' asked them to! Worms; they're a couple of worms!

Let Mr. Paul Stadinger have the last word . . .

1st Quarter; ACOTS; Aussie Toy Soldiers; Cereal Givaways; Cereal Premiums; Colonial Dignitary; Consolidated Plastics; Craig L Hall; Dancing Dolls; David Pye; Dolls of the World; Farmstead Couple; Issue 170; Maori; March 2018; Native Levy; New Zealand Figures; Plastic Warrior Magazine; PW Magazine; Rosenhain & Lipmann Legacy; Sanitarium; Sanitarium Colonial Set; Sanitarium Premiums; shitestuff; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Stadinger; Stads Stuff; Stadsshite; Stadsstuf; TJF; White Settlers; World Dolls;
Is that like a very small Tribble? I don't have any Tribbles, I gave them all to that 'Bones' chap, I don't know what he did with them, but I heard a Federation Spacefleet engineer ordering an awful lot of Starship corridor ducting-plates and inspection-hatch covers the other day? Spacefleet list Tribbles as vermin, you know? If only we could likewise register TJF, the PSTSM and their associates!

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

News, Views Etc . . . Bits

Show Dates
The ladies at Vectis sent me a press release yesterday with three images to add to the 'Forthcoming Events' post, published last Friday, so I've added them to that post alog with the auction contents blurb.

eMail
I had a mammoth session yesterday afternoon/early evening and I hope I've caught-up with all outstanding eMail traffic, if you think you haven't had a reply you should have/were expecting, let me know - maverickatlarge[at]hotmail[dot]com

Faceplant
Apparently the mob behind TJF have started a rumor somewhere that I tried to join a FaceBook group for toy soldiers and was refused, I can assure you I am only a member of two such 'groups'; Friends of Plastic Warrior and Plaid Stallions, both of which were by invitation and I'm not terribly active on either, by dint of not having much to do with FaceBook after my initial, over-exuberant enthusiasm back in 2013/14.

Things disappear off the bottom of a FaceBook feed quicker than they do off a blog, and - without decent tagging - are subsequently harder to find, nor do they get picked-up by Googlebot, so don't tend to appear in search results.

You won't find me re-posting things which appeared on a FaceBook group two-days earlier either, but then - being a collector - I have plenty of stuff to produce my own copy from!

I did see the Group in question on my feed once, about three or four months ago, but given one administrator's name, I thought I'd leave them to their own fate, they have been warned here (with empirical evidence) about his fairy-tales!

Toy Soldier HQ
Looking for Russians the other day I noticed that Kent Sprecher has greatly increased the content of the Marx combat/military section, indeed - it's now two sections with the commoner stuff on one page and the oddities on another; both can be navigated-to from a landing-page here.

Help
I don't want to set a precedent and turn SSW into a swap-shop, but I had a nice exchange with a lady from the US who is looking for a 1st version Commonwealth Scots Dancer (painted highlights over flesh-coloured plastic, single backing-card if possible), and if anyone can help her; I can put you in touch.

The reason I'm 'reaching out' is because I get a lot of 'how much is that' eMails (with a link to something on the Blog), I always answer politely that I'm a collector and it's not a sales site, so the things aren't for sale, never to hear from them again, not so much as a 'thank you'!

However Bonnie came back with a nice 'thanks anyway', and explained that she'd got most of the set and hoped to track the Scottish lady down, so I said I'd look out for one, but if you have a spare, I know where it can be loved.

Barney Brown
I've missed two updates from Barney over Christmas, quite a bit of the new stuff has already sold but there are still some choice pieces to be had on his website Herald Toys & Models.

What?
You want a picture of some toys?

Oh go-on then! 'H is for How They Come In'; Today (Monday)'s run up the High Street of the teeming metropolis of Fleet (two horses and an out-of-sequence post-code!).

Astronauts; Bully Indians; Bully Wild West; Charity Toys; Fairy Figurine; Fairy Tales; K&M; Luna Buggy; Luna Rover; Mixed Lot; Mixed Playthings; Mixed Toys; Native American Indians; Novelties; Novelty Erasers; Pioneer; Robot Erasers; Robots; Rocket; Small Scale World; smallscaleworld.blogspot.com; Spacemen; Totem Pole; Wild Republic; Wild West;
Three purchases from two charity shops, for a total of less than 3-quid which gave me 15 items from six sources!

As it was a couple of months into 2018 that the first fairies came in we still seem to be in a fairy-year, that's the fourth or fifth recent 'lot'! She's made of a sort of foamed 'new type' eraser rubber which gives her a slightly furry surface! And what is it with me and eraser robots . . . from charity shops! They aren't going to fit in the new tub, I've only just given it to them, we've only just looked at it and they've already outgrown it!

The flag goes with the tree little astronauts - which I suspect will prove to be Pioneer - while the rocket and Luna Buggy (or Luuar Rover!) go with the three big chaps - all marked K&M (Wild Republic animals). I must have a session on these as there are a shed-load, but while I've found the lose ones, the boxed examples are still buried in the garage somewhere.

I was only musing on re-doing the old Totem pole posts the other day in an eMail with someone and a new one to the collection (Bully) arrives out of the blue!

I walked away from two Papo knights at £2 each, one dragon-head crested horse and rider, one unicorn pairing, but they were a bit big . . . actually; they were huge! But I may grab them if they are still there tomorrow (Tue.).

Links
The Simpson's finally have a Toy Soldier episode!

Good news story - I'm not the only one to receive presents of toy soldiers!

Mending Dolls

Friday, February 3, 2017

C is for Contribution Fortnight! - VIII - Commonwealth Street Light from Susan

Susan Chadwick sent me these next two images with a question...

"Great information on your blog about Commonwealth Plastics.  Very much appreciated.  I found your blog researching the Lamp Posts.  I have a Blue one that isn’t listed on your blog.  See attached.  Wonder if they made other colors…any idea of boxes for these items or how they were sold?  Were they sold as part of a kit? Thanks in advance."

To which my rather poor reply was...

"I'm guessing they were sold for model railways Susan? Sort of O or G gauge, 'carpet', tin-plate type, toy trains? But possibly for dolls houses? H"

But what are we on about?


It's a combined glow-in-the-dark street-light/lamp-post with street sign and mail-box. I've since remembered that there are some more on these somewhere on the Internet and after a bit of a search . . .

On Binn's Road Website It doesn't add much, but there are other colours! Meanwhile on a short-lived link (so copy it now if you need it) there's this on Terapeak with its original envelope/label!

Thanks for the pictures Susan.

Sunday, February 21, 2016

News, Views Etc...New Page

I have posted a new page:

Dancing Dolls

It has taken 18 months to research and collate (on and off) and four or five weeks to unload, finish and edit, so I hope you enjoy it...understanding - of course - that most toy soldier fans couldn't give a feckin' heel for small plastic 'dolls'!

I will add the four companies histories to the A-Z pages tomorrow and add the links here and to the DD page when I've done so.



Two day later....Needless to say I didn't get that done yesterday and Vodafone (the Prince of Internet Darkness) have decided I'm library bound again! I have got a Van Brode draft up though, and a Clinton Mfg. cross-ref., so it's slowly hapening!

Commonwealth on the A-Z
Sanitarium on the A-Z
Van Brode on the A-Z

All done!

Sunday, February 8, 2009

W is for World Dolls/World Dancers Part 2

Actually the first subjects are called 'Dolls of Our World' but like the 'Dancers/Dancers of the World/World Dancers' they are known as World Dolls. Clearly meant to be touristy keepsakes, sold individually from tourist attractions and gift shop/kiosks, they would - most likely - have been marketed by salesmen and through wholesalers catalogues.

The original figures as sold by the Commonwealth Plastics Corp., Leominster, Massachusetts, USA, in a phenolic resinous flesh-coloured factory painted plastic (top row) from - I would guess (from the nature of the rest of the contents of the collection they came with) - 1930's-1950's. Later production was unpainted (bottom row, far left 1950's?) and finally the figures were made available in multi-coloured polystyrene (rest of bottom row 1960/70's?) with thinner bases.

Commonwealth seem to have been owned/operated by/as part of the Aero Plastics group by the Catalucci family, who's decendents have recently opened another plastics factory in Leominster called Phoenix Inc.! Research however leads to an apparently unrelated high-tech plastics company with a near-dead website called Phoenix Co.Inc. (rather than plain 'Inc.'!!) in Texas!!?!

These are copies of the Commonwealth Plastics, almost certainly from Hong Kong and came either in the ivorene plastic of European giveaways (top row) or in various shades of off white (bottom row), pantographed from the originals they are slightly smaller.

Here we have some World Dancer figures, as well-moulded as the Commonwealth ones, but by a company called Van Brode, operating out of Clinton, also in Massachusetts (so - given the size of the States - some clear connection there!). The strange lozenges are missing from the base underside which is now smooth, and they are clearly marked, most on the rear edge, but the West Indies guy has a larger marking on the underside, so at least two issues?

The connection hinted at above is not quite as clear as say - they bought the Commonwealth moulds. First; the Van Brode figurines are in pairs (like the Britains 54mm/1:32 Ethnic Dancers) with one being the musician the other the dancer. Second; the Van Brode figures are reversed (where similar to) Commonwealth poses. Footnote; Van Brode manufactured C-Rations during WWII and these figures were almost certainly a premium given away in the breakfast cereals from their mill in the (late?) 1950's. [Kent Sprecher (toysoldierHQ - link above) now has them actually putting the figures in ration packs for the Korean War - Given the number of Asian looking figures in a full set and speaking as an ex-soldier; I can think of nothing worse, while freezing in your fire-base on the Imjim River, than finding a Koren looking figurine in your Chili ConcarneMRE!!]

Here are more modern copies of both manufacturers products in 30 and 20mm. Top row; Four hard polystyrene Commonwealth poses, two with a chrome/silver over-spray, an unpainted and a basic factory paint-job. Bottom row; a soft polythene Commonwealth, probably from a Christmas Cracker, a vinyl factory painted doll I'm told is a Portuguese food premium and a baseless copy of the Van Brode Hawaiian reversed version.


Size Comparison shot of some of the above, top left to bottom right they are; Commonwealth; Early, late and 20mm copy, Commonwealth; Early, mid, late, 20mm copy and lastly; a copy of Van Brode's reversed Hawaiian dancer.