F is for Follow-up . . . "Bestest follow-up ever, Mr Gruber!"

So, I posted the soaps and the Cherilea tank, quite close together, went off to work, came home to a cryptic comment and these in my inbox! It's only the US take on our Peruvian friend Paddington and his jar of marmalade, courtesy of Brian Berke in New York!

 

Three main views.

 

A somewhat pro-washing propagandist piece, obviously written by grown-ups!

 

Brian tells us Eden Toys held the US merchandising licence for the BBC series, so Bioessamce might be the maker, although only describing themselves as 'distributor'?

 

"Careful, you could damage a chap's nose with that!"

 

A much better sculpt than the British one we looked at earlier.

I hope Brain doesn't mind, but I've tried to get a better colour balance into the photographs, they had that slightly yellowish tinge you get with indoor digital photography sometimes, I've been getting it with my new camera, and while I took the blue of the box as the best guide, they now all look a little washed-out, but I think the colours are truer?

 

Best bear soap ever!

C is for Cleaning Up!

Having seen the guardsman the other day, I thought I'd dig these out of the David Pomeroy folder, not sure if he was involved in the sculpting of them or just had them for reference, but we have two more soaps to look at, and no convoluted plots, which require watching the extended episode on Friday!

 

The better of the two soaps, in the poorer box is Mrs Cobbit from Camberwick Green manufactured by Wright, Layman & Umney Ltd., of London (apparently still making Wright’s Traditional Soap for Smith & Nephew), and I have a vague recollection we might have had a pair from this set one Christmas, probably in our Stockings?

 

While the better box came with a slightly battered Paddington Bear, who wasn't the best of likenesses before his hat got so simplified, and dented! Made by Richard's & Appleby of Jermyn Street, they seem to be still trading, and still making novelty cosmetics.

L is for Last May's Lots of Lovely Loot - Military Figures

On to the second post of the plunder from May's Sandown Park (the next show's on Saturday), and it’s the military stuff, which was a quite eclectic assortment from across the ranges of scales, materials, and eras depicted.

 

This was a lovely find, a very, very clean Kentoys guardsman, with the correct (for purposes of identification of several vertions ) Sentry Box, in a near mint box which also shows how the stretcher-party was sold from the same carton.

 

And, speaking of stretcher teams, this Starlux set came home with me, I know I have the small-scale set in several configurations of base-type, paint, or plastic colour, but I'm not sure about the big one, I think I may have a stretcher, but no casualty or orderlies?

 

And these were a nice find, despite being the less loved of the company's output, they are every-bit as historical (as artifacts) as their earlier Nazi brethren, being instead, the East German, collectivised Lineol factory's production of Volksarmee Cold War soldiers, with both the Soviet-influenced helmet and side-caps. The sculpting is much more 'wooden' that their pre-war/wartime stuff.

 

This came with them; I always like a bit of scenery! But I have no idea which side of the border, or even which side of the war, this was made! The pack suggests West, the quality post-war, so probably Elastolin, but unmarked.

 

 

Grist to the mill with these, and the foot figures are a bit bashed, but it's all useful stuff, and these Culpitt/Wilton cake decorations are polystyrene, so paint and glue is probably in their future? It would be nice to do a few of the French/Hessian uniforms.

 

I can never resist these smaller-scale, early British mounted subjects (here, Cherilea 50mm'ish), as there are quite a few of them (Cherilea, Crescent, Rocco & Hill), they tend to come in various plastic and/or paint colours, and are often a bit play-worn, so making sure you have the best sample, means grabbing them whenever you can!

 

A soap guardsman! Needs a careful damping to lose the white bruises, but I'll save that job for a day when I have the time, space and tools for the task, as you don't want to wreak it! I tried an Avon search, and he doesn't seem to be one of theirs (which were normally ' . . . on a rope'), so a minor make, a seasonal or touristy novelty!

 

Chess set figure, seen before, I think, but all need bringing together and comparing.

 

And from Adrian's cheapie tray I got some nice, hollow-cast lead samples. Without the books in front of me I won't try to ID them definitively, but US Marine and colonial Brit', on the left, colonial and regular French on the right, and some of them Britains (including the small one, a B-Series?), maybe a French made one or two?

F is for Fruity!

Not figural in any way, but as we've just had a few eraser-posts and regularly cover other novelties here at Small Scale World, I thought we could tick this box on the way through!

 

Little fruity erasers, with fruity-smells! The larger one is actually a rather smoothed-off tangerine soap I've currently got next to the sink! Japan, no brand known, box-ticked, and I think these might have been a donation (in which case they will be credited somewhere on the Bog), but they may have come in a junk lot from an online-auction?
 

C is for Composition Page News

I haven't been snoozing; I just sort of lost my mojo! However, sitting around opening folders and closing them again with a mental 'nah!' I rediscovered my mojo for the Blogger-wreaked Composition Page (hands-up if you're now thinking of seaweed!), so I have been busy with that*.

Finding missing images which were mostly on the big 'unknown' dongle, re-writing the lost sections (still got to do 'composites') and so on, I found a few duplicate images which I'll use here to announce the publishing of the page in a week or two, and these, below, which have come-in over the two years since I lost heart in that page, and which I can't be arsed to slot into the article.

This is the most interesting; it seems to be a previously un-recorded addition to the Zang for Timpo 40mm civil range; a man standing in a dinner suit, perhaps being given a ticket by the New York cop we've seen previously (a second one of those has turned-up too, with an equally thin base to the first one, so he may not be Timpo at all?)

Same size but five to ten years older is this Panzer tank-commander/AFV-crewman with the distinctive pre-war floppy beret. I assume he's Elastolin from the base, my Lineol 40mm's have marked, oblong bases, painted grey, while this is green (obviously) and too small to carry a mark; Quality isn't up to Lineol either!

Maybe supplied to a third-party for a tin-plate toy, several variants of those clockwork Gama and Gama-like Pz.Kfw.I's had a little flappy hatch-cover? Equally: it may be - from the tiny base - that he's to stand in a staff-car or truck?

In the 'Other Materials section of the composition page I cover soap and sugar-craft, but as it's a short section with two better figures illustrated, this can go here! I don't know who Baby Brumas was**, cartoon? Kid's comic character? Regents Park zoo attraction? Logo/mascot for Cullingfords? Anyway - a nice little bear figural soap, probably of similar age to the Timpo figure.

 

* - And reading; I've been catching up with some reading, Ender's Game was a good read, the current book on Military Disasters (sorry: 'hinges') by someone I can't pronounce is heavier going, and a bit shit, seemingly lifted from other sources and cut together with over-excitable hyperbole and a bit of plain old inaccuracy!?

 

** - Upon posting - I do now! Awwwww . . . sweet!