N is for November's Sandown Park - Civilian

Welp. Cleared some crap out of Picasa yesterday! But I'm running-about today, so don't expect the same posting rate! Here's another bunch of the odds from the recent Sandown Park show, and it's the civilian stuff.

 

I'm pretty sure these are French Dinky/Hornby (Meccano), but a quick Google just questioned that belief, I couldn't find them, although Google is so commercialised and generally shit these days, that's an indicator of nothing!

 

I have a larger sample in storage (these aren't that rare), and have had them for years, and I'm sure I found them or someone told me they were French Dinky, but they could be someone else? They are O-Gauge railway figures, and a vinyl rubber, of the old-school, quite dense/rigid, but stable (no weeping oily shite) type, and there were two tranches/issues, one with the little domed, concave cavity in the base, the others flat-bottomed.

 

Not sure on these either, I'm pretty sure they aren't the Marx set, one's similar, but the other isn't, and orange isn't a colour that associated with Marx, but they are more likely a US maker, than Hong Kong, just from the detail level?

 

One day I'll have to bring all the American Football players together, which will force me to research them properly, at which point I'll probably find a web-site with many more than me, that ID's all of them! And thanks to Gareth Morgan for these two, he let me pick through a mixed lot he'd found.

 

Copies of the Marx Power Mite road menders (two to the left), and a knock-off of the Blue Box copy of a Dinky to the right. One day I'll have to do a page or post just on the three - Dinky, Marx, Blue Box and all the copies!

 

Merit newspaper seller from the magnetic Driving Test game, a pretty-good knock-off of the Britains farm-girl, and another cracker-sized athlete.

 

Another question-mark here, it's not the common Hornby-Triang set, still being issued today I think, included with most of the steam locomotives, and many train-sets, so maybe Playcraft, Bachmann, or someone like Jouef? Driver, fireman, and some accessories for the locomotive?

 

These are also a bit of a mystery. The figure sets, as accessory sets, were vinyl, and issued on small runners, so I think these hard polystyrene examples must have been from a gift-set of some kind, it needs a Corgi expert, which I'm not!

 

Four bits of metal, the first is probably a coalman from one of the British minor-make wagon/cart toys in slush-cast lead or die-cast mazac/zamak, the little lead/whitemetal ringmaster, might be a cake decoration? But doesn't look to be that old, while the other two are obviously modern, aftermarket accessories for model racing cars, being Graham Hill in white, and . . . Andretti or Villeneuve, senior? Looks like Senna (again), but the helmet would/should be yellow?

H is for Holy Self-Signed Toy, Batman!

I bought this at Sandown Park, I won't tell you what it cost, but suffice to say it wasn't cheap as chips, and I was initially a little disappointed by it, suspecting a mug had been seen coming, a little buyer's remorse crept in, but, like last night's cartoon, that's something which often accompanies the post show sort-out!

 

Holy boxed battle-taxi, Batman!

First, it was sold to me as AHI (Azrak Hamway International) when it's not, it's the later Australian reissue from Len Hunter Trading, and dating from 1989 (AHI carried this in 1977), and that it was signed, which I quickly convinced myself was a bit dodgy? However, having seen the prices of a few unsigned ones, and enough samples of Adam West's signature to be slightly more convinced by its sloppiness, I'm much happier about the purchase now!

 

 Holy facsimile figurines, Batman!

 

The main body of the Batmobile is all-plastic, so it ticks one box, and has two figures, of The Batman and pesky Robin, The Boy Wonder, so it ticks another box there, and is clearly a scaled-up copy of the Corgi die-cast, where that was 1:43rd, this is closer to 1:35th/32nd scale.

 

Holy Batbath brum-brum, Batman!

 

The boat is the same, and while I initially though they were blow-moulds; so many of the bootlegs and knock-off's have been, it is actually a couple of lumps of polystyrene, the frangibility of which means they are far worse survivors, than the original Corgi die-casts.

 

Holy crime-fighting combination, Batman! 

 

I think the figures can be used in the Batboat, but the seats are closer together, so maybe only one at a time? I noticed, before purchase, the blister had been off at one point, and not replaced brilliantly, so there's an option to remove it again, in the future, photograph the combination in close-up, re-set the Batboat in it's trailer properly, and try resetting the blister a little better?

 

Does the fact that the autograph is 'To Robin' from Adam West, give it a little extra caché? And, as I said to the seller, with all its faults or potential faults, when was I going to see another one? Holy philosophical fuckwittery, Batman!

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.

P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Animals

The penultimate post on the wonderful Christmas package from Chris Smith finds us looking at the animals, large, small, and daft, vintage and current, prehistoric and more recognisably 'out there now'!

 

A nice, but play worn blow-moulded Tiger, I thought it might have been flocked, but there's enough evidence of painted stripes to suggest not, rather the sort of thing we've seen in Argentinian Tarzan sets, or similar jungle fayre? Behind it is a bendy . . . . Panther? It's a bendy, and it's brilliant, whatever it is; lioness maybe?

 

Slightly damaged (possibly removed from a larger vignette), the grey-pyjama'd chap in a fez, is an old bisque piece, possibly an Edwardian cake decoration, but I suspect from something larger? The chap to the right is a budget toy, aiming at Schliech or Papo I guess, maybe ELC or Wilko, both gone now!

 

While the other dude (assuming they are all male, for the sake of conversational blurbage!), is in brown plastic, which is unusual, and my immediate thought was Dulcop Tarzan sets, but he's not as 'wavy' as the Dulcop one, so I'm guessing Dom/Heinerle or someone like that?

 

Interesting handful, the Dimetrodon looks a bit earlier than the others, and has a very good head, while the big chap is a classic 'gape-mouth' Chinasaur! The other three may go together, but the blue (metallic blue!) sauropod is a little more catoony than the other two, smaller Dino's?

 

A mix of vintage and modern, some were marked I think, but I didn't take notes at the time, the two/four at the back may all be from one modern toob/tub, and at least two of the piggies are new to me. The larger bath duck is a nice piece, with some age, while the red one was usually found in sets of incrementally sized 'duckies'

 

After the jumping feet and FFL scale-down, this obviously 1960's (or even late 1950's) octopus is the third favourite, and a lovely survivor, he originally had green eyes, but all the paint is a tad play worn. The red stretchy lizard is an old capsule toy, similar to a very oily, leaching one we saw here at Small Scale World years ago.

 

The green lizard may be a companion piece from a larger 'pink/purple' action figure or fantasy play set, while the Sperm Wale and rather unusual shark, are probably from the same tube-type set?

 

Mixed bits, the green teddy almost certainly was flocked once, the lion is rather fine and the dark horse/pony is a Corgi job, I think. The small grey elephant is new to me, while the faux-ivory one with a charm-loop (probably Christmas cracker prize) still has both tusks!

 

Loving the shooting-game, target ducks! A home fairground sideshow! I think the big blob is an 'Angry Bird'? The last one on the right is a Yowie, and there are several posts in the long queue on them, which will be done, sometime! It's an interesting range, which has come and gone in fits and starts in different territories and with different issues, and there are some very unusual animals in there.

 

The next day! Does he think I'm an idiot? He's got a lesson coming, anybody can raid eBay/Worthpoint/Scalemates, for anything, even TV21!

 

Two cats from a relatively recent, budget set we may or may not have covered, there are quite a few! The middle dog is the Corgi farm dog, the pale one may be from the Blue Box hunter/cowboy/Tarzan sets' one, which is often separated from the base, being only attached by a portion of one rear paw! And another poodle, there are so many poodles out there, they may get their own page one day!

 

The small scale includes a piece of fence which could be from the Airfix Zoo, or a copy, quality is poor, but memory (and the stash) reveal that the fence sections got flashy very early in the run, so it probably is Airfix? The three animals to the right however, are further piracies of Airfix Zoo animals! A Corgi (Husky/Juniors) calf  and a small duck bring us to the end of the animals, thanks as always to Chris for sending them to us.

H is for Hot Off The Press

 

 

The new Corgi Stingray model's images are off-embargo,

and available for pre-order!

Just in time for the British Toy Fair at Kensington Olympia

 

The torpedo-tubes are a bit kwartch! 

What it should look like!

Product Information

The flagship of the World Aquanaut Security Patrol (WASP), Stingray is a renowned combat submarine piloted by Captain Troy Tempest and his hydrophone operator Lieutenant George Lee Sheridan, also known as ‘Phones’. 

The vessel was considered the most advanced submarine of the 2060s and was central to the WASP’s discovery of many advanced undersea civilisations, including the city of Titanica, ruled by the despotic King Titan and his warrior followers, the Aquaphibians. 

Measuring 85ft (30m) long, Stingray’s nuclear reactor powers a Dual Drumman Hydrojets Ratemaster Turbine that gives the vessel a surface speed of 400 knots and a submerged speed of 600 knots. This raw power also enables the ship to breach the surface and ‘jump’ out of the water for a short distance, a useful way to evade enemies. 

Stingray can safely submerge to a maximum depth of 40,000ft, comfortably above the deepest known point of the world’s oceans. A pair of landing skis can deploy from the underside of the hull to enable the submarine to safely land on the ocean floor. 

The submarine is armed with a complement of sixteen Sting missiles and carries several other small vehicles onboard for maximum operational flexibility while deployed. Most noticeable of these are a pair of Aqua Sprites, small submersibles located on the exterior hull of Stingray to port and starboard. 

The Aqua Sprites feature dry interiors for the pilot, detaching from the main hull and allowing for closer docking with other vessels underwater. In the event of an emergency underwater, the Aqua Sprites are also the primary means of evacuating Stingray. 

If the crew leaves the vessel in underwater equipment, they invariably use handheld Sea Bugs to enable speedier propulsion and movement while underwater. Above the surface, compact single-seat hovercraft called Monocopters are available on board to provide much quicker and safer movement over the invariable rough terrain.

Nothing about scale, price will be an eye-watering 40-quid!

M is for Many Moulded Malleable Mammals!

Part three of Jon's big box brings us to the Mammals, although a bird snuck-in under the radar while I wasn't paying attention, and the rest are definitely from the Zoo/Jungle/Wild zone, farm and domestic will come later!

Big cats, 1 of 3, cheetahs and leopard'ish critters, I like the big cats but there is a tendency to use the same moulding for different cats, or just not pay much attention to the things at all, so while the Britains one is a 54mm leopard, also found in black as a 'panther' (melanistic leopard), the pair in the next size up look more doglike, as does the orange one to the right, he has quite a hyena'ish head/jaw!

There was a bit of a comedy involved in this image, as I shot what I thought was all five Cheetahs, then reshot 'all' six, before finding another one under the dinosaurs! The big, dark, stretching one (lovely pose) is Triple-A (the 'AAA' mark), the others, all generics, for now.

A pair of colour variations of the same toob' animals, and a larger one which is actually a lighter-weight than either of the smaller brethren, being manufactured of some slightly-foamed polyethylene?

 

Big Cats 2 of 2; hunting! They don't often bring down any but old, infirm, or very young, lost giraffe's, who otherwise enjoy a relatively blessed existence. The larger lion is a China-marked newie, the other, a similar sculpt, is an older Hong Kong toy.

The giraffes are three old HK's, probably from different tranches of the Corgi Chipperfield's Circus giraffe carrier, and two larger modern chaps, one clearly marked KS in a similar oval to Toy Major, the other a generic for now.

 

Three generics here, and the really big one is a Toy Major, probably from a pick-box/counter-display. And when I say 'Generic', the hope is a fair quantity of them will be attributed in the near-to-medium-future?

 

Smallies; seem to match each other with plastic type, sculpting, size, China-mark etc . . . and probably came together in a toob or small-tub, but sometimes the small ones are chucked into tub-sets with larger animals to make-weight, or add to the item count

 

Big Cats 3 of 3; The big orange beast at the back is a Toy Major animal, marked Cheetah! The cub to the right is another AAA, while the flocked guy to the left is just lovely, but of unknown origin, with no dinks or worn-patches, he really is sweet!

 

Three generic elephants, one of which was marked ELEPHANTCHINA and for a moment, just a moment, I wondered if I'd left it out of the prehistoric animals post! And, all three newish sculpts.

 

Thanks again to Mr Attwood for sending us these, they make a nice change from 'armymen', Wild West or space/fantasy, especially as we head into the Christmas season - Fleet had its night market tonight, nothing on the council or Fleet BID Faceplant pages . . . of course!