M is for More Stationary

Picked these up the other day, planets in The Range, and the cacti in TKMaxx, actually looking for Halloween or Christmas stuff, drew a bit of a blank on those, but these were worth a punt, given previous things seen here!

 

Tinc again, on the small ones, the larger are an unbranded generic, and I'm beginning to think the originals of these must have been Iwako, just because of the number of other items pirated from them, and the number of these cacti I've seen, we saw two lots a few years ago, one lot I cut-up and 'painted' with marker pens, to make Wild West scenery, the other set I may have only shelfied, but these two sets, in different sizes, were in TKMaxx on red-tickets the other day, so it was a no-brainer, as the expression is, these days!

 

While The Range was carrying these (CDS Group), and they were nearly out, in two stores, so I must have just missed them on previous visits, they are in remarkably subdued or nondescript packaging, so that's plausible, and because the carrying cartons were nearly empty, I don't know if there were more than the two designs seen here, an Earth-like planet and a Saturn like ringed-world.

 

But it's what's at the core of these planets that got me purchasing them, not giant diamonds, boring! But, a shuttle-craft and an astronaut! Which, judging by the wooden-pick in the shots (which looks slightly longer than the one supplied on the packs?) are about 25/35mm, and eminently suitable for joining the stash!

F is for the Falcon Steam Pencil Works!

Not often we have a piece of Victoriana on here, so twice in one day, and another board game, is a bit special! I shot these on Adrian's table at one of the autumn shows, and it's a very unusual thing, as its primary purpose seems to be the promotion of pencils, despite being plaster figures.

 

Burglar & Bobbies, a lovely litho-print label which conjures-up Sherlock Holmes or James McLevy running about in the dark while some villain from the slums fires wildly into the night hoping to stop the chase!

 

Slush-cast from plaster of Paris, or possibly blank-de-moudon (it's quite hard) suitably painted, and not that big, maybe 55-mil for the Bobby and 60-odd for the burglar, I didn't measure them, but sort of standard chess-piece size!

 

The dimples in the centre were probably caused by a wooden dowel 'dibber', being used to push the material into the corners, such as there are, while the air-bubbles were being knocked or vibrated out?

 

There were five Bobbies and one burglar, so I think it's best described as a variation of Fox & Geese (or Pig and Mooses, as I believe they play in North America!), or Hare/Fox and Hounds, as far as the game-playing mechanism goes, but with a smaller playing area, vis-à-vis number of squares?

 

Given the age of the game - it's obviously older than 1952 - the 'Her Majesty,' must be Victoria? And I was clearly born decades after 'The Bank of England' pencils ceased to be a thing! E Wolff & Son, being the actual maker, or issuer?

 

Given the amount of mentions of pencils on both the box - outer and inner, and the paperwork, the feeling is that this was a promotional item, like the Seagram's Whisky game, and like that, might have been bought in, or at least the playing pieces would have been? Although, I think Falcon pencils were still around, when I was a kid?

 

I forgot to shoot the other side, which must have had the movement instructions! I have two good shots of this side, so I suspect I was distracted, and thought I'd tuned-it over when I went back to shoot the other side! Many thanks to Adrian for letting me shoot this.

H is for Haunted Hallows Halloween Hangable . . .

. . . Plaster Paint Your Own Kit! Shelfied in The Range the other day, this chalkware/plaster Witch comes with a half reasonable paint brush, which is excuse enough to part with a quid?

 

From two angles, just because of the flash, and the store's own lighting, there's not a lot else to add, it's a figural, it's seasonally relevant, and it's out there now . . . fun for kids! Purple and orange paints too!

T is for Two - More Machine Gunners

I meant to have a series of these posts off the back of a bunch of fleaBay and show purchases last autumn, but circumstances since have knocked that plan on the head for now, they'll all come out of the woodwork eventually one way or another, but for now I do have this pair.

The Atlantic Russian Maxim-type MG was quite a piece of work for those raised on Airfix's little WWI and 8th Army MG's, and the large scale one is exactly the same; the one reduced from the other - the master model likely being bigger still. However, in both scales it is ridiculously over-sizes and comes-in about the same as a 1:35 6lb'r might be! It didn't matter much to a kid, but must be frustrating for wargamers wanting MG's for Atlantic-sourced units?

In the shenanigans I went through getting these lots, hinted at in the previous post, the gunner and gun ended-up in two different auctions, one of which went invisible for a while, but somehow I managed to get both pieces back together in the end!

 

The sum of its parts; it's probably the decision to go with a clip/pop-together assembly model which led to the over-enlarging of everything, certainly with the 1:72/HO version, as the hand-grip would be unfindable at a realistic scale, but that doesn't excuse the problem with the size in the 1:32nd range, beyond the fact that the operator needs to remain in scale with the rest, whilst still reaching the grip-handles?

 

 

This might be American, but is probably French in origin, and depicting a Brit' in Mk.I helmet rather than a Yank in a 'Brodie' version. And it might be chalkware or some other composition, but is I suspect Blank de Meudon, a hard plaster or chalk mixed with clay, also used for mould-making - particularly in the pre-production phases. Painting is simpler than some French chalkware though, so a basic penny-toy?

 

Also; while he might actually be a rifleman, I think he's trying to depict an Owen-gunner, so maybe a First World War figure?

M is for Mawkishly Meowy Moggies!

A bit of non-Toy Soldier self-indulgence today, but it is Christmas and if I can't post this sort of stuff at this time of year when can I?!!

I found - at the back of a cupboard - that I'd inherited a rather Disneyfied mug with two cracks in it, as I wouldn't normally give such a pinkly sentimental piece house room, and as the finishing of any drink in it would result in two ceramic ears butting your forehead, it rather had to go. But it was loved enough by my late Mother to be kept at the back of the cupboard, so the overly-sentimental Hugh thought something better be done to retain the memory, for another decade or two, gods willing, at least!

A sharp blow from a heavy kitchen knife seemed to be the likeliest move, so placing a folded towel on the floor and kneeling over it I'm afraid I gave kitty a bit of a sharp whack up the jacksie with said implement, which worked a treat! Glued over the glaze with a bit of slip, the slipwhere kitten popped-off with barely a scratch.

I then filled her (pink bow?) with tiling-grout, let it go off, causing it to shrink back into the hollow/cavity, repeated the exercise and gave the rough finish a bit of a carving and filing.

Ergo; one slightly surprised looking, pink-bowed, all-white kitten joins all the genuine fairings and 1950's 'mantle ornaments' in the cat zone of the collection!

Where she will be joining - among others - these Charity shop, 50p jobbies! Three chalkware (mother-cat needs replacement eyes) and one ceramic of the Siamese type, these have been in the queue since 2016! Siamese's were very popular when I was a kid, you don't seem to see them so often now.

Back when the motorway network consisted of the M1 and A1(M) and getting round the top of London involved long journey's through Berkshire, Buckinghashire, Bedfordshire and Essex (where you raced from traffic jam to traffic jam!), there was a house somewhere which had two straw Siamese cats sitting on its thatched-roof, I sometimes wonder what happened to them? There were others, one gatehouse had a peacock, another cottage had several foxes!

The ceramic one (right) was made in Sussex (but not the famous Joan de Bethel 1923 - 2017), while the chalkwear examples (left) are just 'British Made', all seem to be cheap, smaller attempts at the better known and more sought-after Goebel or Winstanley Siamese's? Which is why they are 50p, not 50-quid!

That's it, something more acceptable to the hardliners later!

C is for Composition Civilian Contribution

You may recall from previous posts on them that I have a bit of a soft-spot for these craft-oriented plaster (today's examples) or terracotta (previously seen) figures from India (which, after 43-years of 'Free Market' Tory policy which "will provide" has just overtaken us in the wealthy country register! Go Brwreakshit!), and these from Brian Berke are a particularly nice example.

I can't add much to the pictures, but they are all annotated on the base, probably by the owner rather than the maker, as they are a tad confusing, I will go through them, two at a time, as much for fun as anything else!

Starting from the left we have a chap described as a clerk, on the base he is further marked Momarir, which seems to have no meaning, Clerk is Kalaraka in Punjabi, Kērāni in Bangla, Kārakuna in Gujarati or Marathi, Klerk in Hindu or Lipikaru in Sinhalese, yet Google wouldn't suggest it as a personal name either? It (momarir) is however 'Architects' in Arabic?

The figure next to him is described as a water-carrier, with Pan-Harin or Pan-Harim in brackets, both of which claim to be Indonesian (under 'detect language') but with no further translation of meaning, pan-harim with an 'm' further claims Turkish as it's mother-tongue! However, water, oil or gee is clearly being carried!

The third from the left is described as a begger-woman (Binka-Rin?), but looks more like a musician or entertainer of some kind, she seems to be holding a form of drum or percussive instrument? Also while plainly-dressed,  her shawl is egde-decorated, qite colourfully ad her undershiry is a bright red, so hardly giving-off an aura of destitution?

The chap in scarlet is annotated as Peon (Chipras-si?), which comes up as a Marathi word, but again no translation and Google's desperate to make it Alexis Tsipras of the current Greek opposition party!

A peon is a lowly peasant in South America, but this guy is dressed as a minor prince from one of the semi-autonomous states, or a palace flunky / senior member of the native-recruited civil or military service in his Delhi Durbar finery - with all that scarlet and gold?

The last two are straightforward and make perfect sense; she is described as Queen (Rani) and a Queen is a Rani in Hindi, while the last chap is titled Washer Man (Dhobi), and you should all be familiar with dhobi wallahs being the laundry staff of the British in India (and elsewhere once the word was assimilated and carried throughout the Empire by the Army) via 1970's comedies, if nothing else, along with punka-wallahs who operated the big sheet-fans!

The fact that the last two are correctly titled/identified and the few other clues suggest to me they might be the cast-name characters in a post-colonial, Indian-written play of the 1950's or '60's which was popular enough at the time to produce a set or two of plaster figurines, but not lasting enough to leave a footprint on Google sixty or seventy years later?

Lovely figures, and from the bases (different design and plaster colour), two part sets? Scaler looks to be a Britains' hollow-cast from set 2095 French foreign Legion. Can anyone shed more light on the various names/titles? Many thanks to Brian - top feed for Small Scale World!

P is for Poundland's Plastic & Plaster Prehisterror!

We had two ways to go after the last post, on to more shelfies, or stick with Dino's, and as there's a bit of the month left, I thought we'd stick with dinosaurs. While a 'Set II' never appeared to partner the Set I 'Prehisterror' mini-pairs we originally looked at (I think the single larger sculpts we looked at some time later were the equivalent), Poundland stick with the brand-marking, and this is their latest offering.

Plaster-block 'dig for dino' sets, or Dinosaur Fossil Excavation Kit, still with 'Total Xtreme Action'! Two blocks per set makes these better value for money (£1) than the Puckator pirates of 12-plus years ago; at a-quid each! Funnily enough, I think Pucator did mini-dinosaurs in plaster, and I thought I'd Blogged one, but I'll be damned if I can find it anywhere!

Tools on the left, the little hammer is a polyethylene solid and the chisel and sculpting tool have joined the modelling tools, they may prove useful one day!

On the right, one of the less salubrious things I've inherited; silver-smith's acid, and one of the best ways to get rid of acid (PH of 0-1), is to neutralise it with an alkaline substance, such as chalk or plaster (PH of 6 or 7), so that is what I did! By the time the tub had stopped fizzing I had four dinosaurs, and to make sure the job of work had been done I poured the remaining liquid on the bonfire ash at the bottom of the garden, potassium-potash-ash are other neutralisers!

One duplicate gave me three mini dinosaurs; a dodgy-looking upright who could be a veggie or a meat eater, a large sauropod and a 'ceratopsian who might be a Styracosaur or a rather stunted Triceratops?

They probably match other mini's we've seen here, and while they look to be glow-in-the-dark, they aren't, they're just a rather insipid hue of day-glow transparent'ish green. Poundland now - a pound a pair!

Keycraft did a skeleton fossil version

H is for How They Come In - April I - Chris - Intro.

So, back to the folder of folders! This was a lovely lot from Chris (none haven't been!), with some very interesting items, and as I'm struggling to populate these opening paragraphs with words on all the similar posts; let's just get stuck in.

On the left are things which caught my eye in the minutes after opening, on the right what I am carefully picking through to add to the left-hand display, you can see another racing car in yellow, another turtle, a nice small-scale hay-cart . . . parachuting paratroopers!

Sorting into thematic piles gave (clockwise from top left); Military, civilian, historical/ceremonial, medieval, cartoon/TV & movie, Wild West, Space & Sci-Fi and finally; animals - the gold lady in 7 should really have been in 5, as she is a superhero character!

The fruits of my sorting (and Chris's labours), from the vehicular genre; the two racing cars were probably cake decorations, but they can also be found as rack-toy fodder, usually with a simple slam-plate, sprung-launcher, the sports-coupe is fun and the wagon has a series of six articles in preparation for the Giant Blog, this one having been given what looks like a Lledo horse and is most likely from a Christmas cracker?

The jig-toy lorry needs no introduction and the two rubber boats (Kinder? Behind and kit piece forward) are grist to the mill, while the Kellogg's submarine is missing it's conning-tower details, but they ARE the four stumps of the earlier moulding, and the plastic colour is very unusual?

And the liner is superb! I thought it might be a missing piece from the probably Zang set we looked at a while ago, but Chris pointed-out it's plaster, not harder composition, so an old chalkwear cake decoration, but not one I'd seen before - lovely! The three funnels suggests an attempt at RMS Queen Mary?

Some of the civilians included two larger racing drivers, a really nice pair of safari explorers (presumably from a modern play set?) and a better copy of the Corgi copy safari guide than my broken yellow one, seen here before. I think the two large ones had a markers mark but I've forgotten it so I won't make an arse of myself by guessing the wrong one!

The lower shot shows to reissued Marx linesmen (which I wish I'd had when I photographed the telephone-truck! Although it was a much bigger scale), along with an ambulance man who looks similar to a weird military stretcher crew I have - as parachute toys! Final item is an interesting and probably home-made figurine of a woman carved from a close-grained softwood - maybe for a nativity scene?

Some of the more interesting sports figures and a Dinky-copy firefighter who clearly had a push-on hose. The blue lady was manufactured with ring-hands and may be a Hong Kong (or minor make) take-off of the Marx / Cherliea types? But she's polystyrene which is not 'palyable'.

The two running figures may be from those board-games I've mentioned before, where a larger figure/target throws things down a 'mountain' to knock the players over before they complete a task or circuit of the board and start climbing up the sides to get the 'target' figure?

Don't know anything about the skateboarders, (next day - but Chris does; “Tony Hawk” McDonalds happy meal toys 2005/6 each came with a ramp or half pipe to do stunts with) but there are a lot of toys like them around the place at the moment, and they will encourage me to satrt a skateboarder section as I have a few now, mostly cake decorations but others like these. The road-worker is a particularly nice one and I think the 'diver' with a spring is actually a footballer from an interactive board (or 'tray') game?

Drivers and seated; as I've said before, like paratroopers, these are always in mixed or junk lots, or rummage trays at shows, divorced from the vast number of die-cast and plastic vehicles and novelties made over the last seven-or-so decades and the ID'ing of them will be a major job - one day! There are two versions of fork-lift driver here for starters (painted - top left) and I hope to ID the large motorcyclist at some point.

Thanks as always to Chris Smith for sending this stuff to the Blog to be shared with y'all, and it's animals next.

R is for Remaining Resin Rowdy Released

Another search over is the missing Puckator pirate, although you may remember I found him a while ago (March 2019) sorting other stuff and when taking everything up to the storage unit a few months ago, I finally broke him free, to give me a full set, loose.

I don't know if you can remember when we looked at them in some depth (2012) but I was worried about how he would be buried in his block, with or without resin rope (as the box scan suggested), but he wasn't, and the anchor was quite a substantial piece, moulded against his shin, so - in the end - he's one of the least likely of the six to damage!

I made him a rope out of that thick thread people use to make little pictures; cross-stitch? Although I realised afterward I should have tried to match the blue shank wrapped round his torso? As I've found a whole box of those threads in hundreds of colours, I will do so sometime.

Going over old ground here I think; [checks old post] No, I described the water treatment, but showed the dry-digging which did more damage! Anyway; this is the gypsum block after removal of a shrink-wrapped sheet of polythene film.

As I said last time, stiff nail-brush, running water, work slowly so the plaster clears the u-bend! FIND THE BASE . . . once you know where the base is it's much easier to free the figure without damaging him.

And then find the back and work round the finer details, a toothbrush comes into its own at this point!

Puckator pirates . . . the full set, released from their - pretty crude - unprocessed gypsum-plaster graves! Smallish (35mm) but nice sculpts, and if you've followed ITLAPD here for any time you'll know there are plenty of similar sized figures in each scale, indeed - a few years from now, we'll maybe have so few new ones (or new old ones) to track down we may have an ITLAPD-year of size-posts!

F is for Faber Figures' Foppish Foreign Forpersons in Formal Finery!

Another set of esoteric, early British composition and again it's thanks to Adrian Little (Mercator Trading) who let me photograph them.

These are a little later than the other sets we've been looking at though, I think, and were issued by R. Briton Rivier, as Faber, alongside the slightly later-starting Matchlock range of military subjects, Faber being technically civilian, also contained court subjects such as the regal pair in this box, probably sold through heritage sites and museum gift shops, along with Hamley's, Harrods (?) and the toy soldier dealers of the West End.

The box opens in the style of CGB Minot's display boxes - but without the decorative background lining-papers - to reveal the royal couple in all their (plaster rather than pumice I believe) finery. The Orange King looks a bit pale and rather surprised to be King of England (as well he might!), but she's looking very Queenish, if not; actually haughty!

From behind; the painting is 'Toy Soldier' style and they have a deep gloss varnish finish, for toughness/protection as much as for pure decoration, and I think William the III has a card or matchwood disc under his plaster-base to prevent it braking or chipping.

News, Views Etc . . . Stuff!

Apologies for this morning's post, it was pretty thin gruel but I literally had 15-minutes to change plans, stop writing tomorrow's article on Guards, find something else and blurb-it-up, so you got a little toy with a big gun!

Anyway, tomorrow's three articles have 24 images in 14 pictures over three posts and should prove interesting enough to be worth the wait, unless you're TJF, then you'd probably rather the posts weren't there at all, but he wanted it and I've plenty to dish-out!

Checkered Liver Chicken Banners!

I had an amusing spell-checker suggestion offered-up by Blogger back in the Autumn!

From the 'look what turned-up' Department

I found these in storage, as we looked at the stuff Peter Evan gave me back in 2013 (after they had gone into storage), these must have been from Poundland or Pounstretcher back in 2009-10, and the chap with the rope is present - we've seen the other five. While I ought to keep a complete set intact, I fear that by September 17th he will have been dug-out; curiosity killed the cat, but I'm not a cat so that should go swimmingly!

N is for Naturecraft

Naturecraft were a set of Christmas crackers issued back in the . . . errr . . . 1990's? 1980's maybe, but I think the 90's is closer; they do appear on evilBay on a regular basis, usually a sign that they aren't that old, which is not to say older crackers don't regularly appear on sales sites, but the frequency with which this, one, particular set turns-up, suggests it wasn't that long ago since it was retailed, and it probably only ran for one or two Christmases?

Painted, washed and varnished chalkware animals, I think there are eight in a set, maybe ten, but I seem to recall it wasn't a full-twelve; annoyingly I have all the details on the damaged dongle, but I'm putting-off the task of delving into it with the icare and testdisc software as I think it's an all-day (or many-hours) job, so I can only work with the actual loose sample, who are six!

Each is marked on the rear with a Naturecraft England mark, and I think each cracker had the picture of 'its' animal contents glued to it's main . . . drum? There must be a whole nomenclature for crackers . . . sleeves or grabs? Drum or compartment? Snap, motto, gift, hat, what about the scrunched pinch-points?

I have a half a thought there was a charity or some fund-raising (WWF/WWFFN?) behind the crackers?

J is for Japanese Highlander - Black Watch!

Title says it all!

100mm, plaster-filled, blow-moulded, celluloid lump of Crimean warrior (the French were actually on our side in that one, probably why it went so badly! No offence Berthoux!), or colonial era 'type'.

I guess these were sold as cheap ornaments to poorer - yet house-proud - citizens wanting a [patriotic] bit of 'Meissen' or 'Spode' for the mantle-piece/shelf, or perhaps as 'ersatz' polymer fair-ground prizes (fairings)?

T is for The Thin Grey Line

Having looked at our own ceremonials this morning, let's look at someone else's this afternoon, with some undated, unaccredited stuff from the archive, I believe it will date around 1950-54, from the other stuff that came with it, although the article would appear to say 1952 precisely! And it may be a syndicated piece from a Floridian paper of the time.

Coming from a lifetime in Florida's Keyes has resulted in humidity/damp damage to the pages- as a pink staining

Text reads . . .

The Colorful Kaydets

Realistic figurines, here pictured for the first

time, form pageant of West Point uniforms

IN HONOR of West Point’s sesqui-

centennial,  which  is  being  cele-

brated  this  year,  a  series  of  21

small   military   figures  has  just

been completed, to show changes in

the  U.  S.  Military Academy’s uni-

forms since the first was adopted 150

years ago.  Standing  approximately

10^[*^] inches in height, the little cadets

took more than a year to make. They

were originally sculptured by T. H.

Jones of the Heraldic Branch of the

Quartermaster General’s office in

Washington, D. C. Later, they were

cast in plaster, and then meticulously

hand-painted by two of the Branch’s

artists, Jack Ocenasek and Jackson

Buchanan.  Often,  because  of the

plaster’s porosity, the painters had to

apply several coats to make details

stand out realistically. Following its

unveiling at the West Point Museum,

the collection is slated to be sent on

a tour of other museums. Ultimately

it  will  be  returned  to  the  Point,

where it will be a permanent exhibit.

NEWS COLORFOTOS BY ROBERT CRANSTON. DANIEL JACINO AND FRANK LIVIA

. . . * Ten inches is approximately 260mm

Text reads . . .

Here's [the] uniform [that] U.S.M.A.s

first grad [uate], Joseph Gardner

Swift of Massachusetts, wore

in 1802. It was patterned

after those of engineer offi-

cers in [the] Revolutionary War.

PAGE 4

Text reads . . .

Between West Point's original 1802 dress uniform (below, left [now above]) and the

current 1952 one (below right [now just 'below']), these uniforms were worn, at one time

or another, by Academy cadets. Their dates are respectively (l to r.)

1814, 1825, 1840, 1840, 1857, 1875, 1886, 1890, 1899, 1220 and 1930

. . . the 1899 looks surprisingly 'Confederate'!

Text reads . . .

Today, cadets have special uniforms for various occasions. Left to right:

Summer full-dress "50/50"; Summer chapel attire ([model/model's painting?] to be revised because

of inaccuracies); hop manager; all-white; lst sgt. in dress gray; sgt. in

"50/50"; officer of the day in "f. d. gray"; yearling in overcoat with cape.

I presume (like 'assuming' but using the circumstantial evidence in the text!) that they are still to be seen in a cabinet at West Point's museum/visitor centre somewhere; has anybody seen them? I also bet the current wardrobe at West Point differs greatly from that of 1952!

While I am on the subject; I can't recommend The Long Grey Line by Rick Atkinson highly enough, along with Chickenhawk (Robet Mason) and the one by a tracked-carrier officer I can't remember; it is one of the seminal memoirs of that era, helping to explain not only the Vietnam conflict (as the other pair do) but also the mess of the mid-to-late 1970's that may well have contributed to the truck-bomb catastrophe in Lebanon a few years (1983) later.