A is for ♪♫♪♪♫ All-in-All, Theyyyyy're All Just Bricks in the Wall ♪♫♪♪♫

Definitely ticking the 'other collectables' Tag, these are a fun novelty which seem to have been with us forever, or at least the mid-1970's, when I got my first, but, being a magpie, I now have four! Fake sponge bricks!

 

The collection,

"More than two of anything . . . "!

 

My original Christmas stocking brick, one of the 'practical' gifts which were always included; novelty soap, toothbrushes, combs, wiggly straws, things which, however-much fun they were, were also meant to be used daily! It's a soft bath-sponge material.

 

This was my second, it's a harsher foamed polyethylene, still a batheable foam, but more like garden-game balls, or pet-toys, and was given away at corporate newspaper events, or even with a daily-paper? I can't remember the promotion now, but I dare say, given it's The Sun, that they were for throwing at 'Lefty' politicians, or foreigners?

 

Once I had two, the track was inevitable, and over a few years I picked up two of these, more modern brick design, and made of recycled foam-rubber granules, much heavier, and not so good for washing!

 

In the US, they remain a strong, current phenomena, with corporate logo's to the fore, I think they are for throwing at referees' in disgust at their decisions, although I've never seen a clowud of them hitting the pitch, so I guess, once you've paid money for one, your desire to retain your investment in bricks & mortar, mean you hang on to it and just shake it threateningly toward the Man In Black?

 

While this is Art! A design by Alexander May, for a concrete-block sponge!

 

There was a trend for mattresses made out of the same heavy, granulated-foam, of my third brick, but often in greys or neutral colours, and they were a favourite of early fly-tipping when they started to break up, and you'd see this stuff in the rubbish pile, odd-shaped lumps, which looked exactly like concrete!

 

A very commercial one here, from Milton Bradley (MB Games - that's almost like LB for Lik Be!), and hitching a ride on the trend . . . nay, 'craze' for all things Karate, back in the 1970's - "Ah, Soh, Grasshopper!".
 

Contemporary one, available, new on the Internet as I write, this is expanded-polystyrene, and looks to be pre-coloured, so a few chips or a knocked corner would only add to its aura of realism!

 

Also current, but a bit naff, and more of a face-cloth? There's a sponge-foam core, but it's covered in a printed-pattern fabric 'pillow', sewn-flush, and over-printed with crude holes, I'd leave this on the self, as the point of the collection is that they look vaguely like bricks, and this doesn't! Although, I guess it does, if you don't display the 'holes'!

C is for Comedy of Errors!

About eighteen years ago, Andreas Dittman said he'd dropped some stuff off with a mutual-friend, and subsequently a small bag of bits turned-up at the flat in Berkshire, which, while interesting, didn't seem to fulfil the promise held by the description, as given by Andreas!

 

Anyway, you've probably guessed the rest . . . they turned-up the other day, when the third party was having a sort-out! So, with thanks to Andreas for all sorts over the years - both before I had the Blog, and in the early years of the Blog, I didn't post everything as it came in, like I do now, so a lot got sorted into the collection without credit - let's have a look at this little lot!

 

Both sides of a nice coach, probably from a transport set, I like the busy legs of the horses! I didn't record any of the brands as I took these, and they were sorted away, awhile ago now, but Cleverstoltz, Heudebert and Wagner were featured among them, I think, with quite a few unmarked generics.

 

Might be Manurba, but issued by several brands, Peter Konrad's books can help there!

 

Snowballer and snowscene, probably the same set?

 

Buildings, not sure the stage, front-right, goes with them, it looks like the kind of platform Americans might use to try or lynch slaves or cattle rustlers?

 

 

 

There are only a few of the very early Wiking vehicles which had a figure/driver, I have the jeep and a sport-car, Mercedes, of course, but finding I've had the other two for years without knowing it, was a treat! Of interest also, given the 99% 'styrene of Wiking's production, is that the forks of the fork-lift are a flexible polyethylene moulding?

 

Two more of the dancers, we've seen before, and indeed looked at several versions of!

 

Interestingly, the 'plane may be a British export, or a mould swap/borrow, with someone like Tudor Rose or Kleeware, as we shall see in a future post, where a Made In England set carries the same aircraft.

 

The train will join all the others, away from the flats, 'Euro-premiums' often involved transport, and trains were common, but they are all slightly different, especially in their means/method of coupling, and they all have separate bags to be added to, piecemeal, with items like this!

 

There appears to be a lot of wooing going on here, with a possible proposal on the left, an invitation to dance, the 'young people' doing a duet in the salon, and a basket of fruit being offered! I am reminded of the interminable first chapter of War And Peace (which I have never got past), and the never ending (because I give-up reading, before it ends) ballroom scene, where just about everybody comes across as insufferably arrogant, eager to die for an idiot flag, or just a bit bloody stupid!

 

Three colourways of the same beer/bier premium, possibly hung round the necks of the bottles on a little string-cord? One of the most depressing threads on the old HäT forum, was a thread on beer, and how all the brands I'd enjoyed 20-years earlier had gone! Pfauen-bräu, which you could only get in a few dozen bars in the streets, or surrounding villages of Tuttlingen! Henninger Bräu was out of Frankfurt.

 

Colour is not common with premium or margarine flats, and while coloured plastic does show-up from time to time, paint is even rarer, so these with their one, two or even three-colour spray-painting are a real treat, they are also particularly fine sculpts.

 

A few odds and damaged examples for the spares/TBS tub, it looks like the two gnomes (who clip into the larger moulding, bottom/near-right) are designed to be clipped to a baby's pram, pushchair or safety-pen metalwork/tubes? Although it's a bit fuzzy, I think the Elephant is market Mamot Berlin, a bar or club perhaps?

 

Many thanks to Andreas, better late than never!

J is for Johnnie Walker

The iconic 'Striding Man' logographic has been used to market the 200-year-old whisky brand since 1908, now owned by drinks giant Diageo, the walker was commissioned by another; Sir Alexander Walker, the grandson of the eponymous Johnnie Walker and is counted as one of the earliest corporate marketing mascot/symbols.

 

Marx produced several of these figural mascots, as 'toy' figures, in different scales, presumably as presentation pieces, or some kind of promotional freebie? We've seen the Dewar Highlander from White Lable whisky, as a small scale one (30mm) here I think, back at the start of the Blog, while the 60mm one needs his ceremonial mace fixed before he appears here, but this is the Johnnie Walker, in the same style and probably from the same Hong Kong factory as the Warriors of the World, hard polystyrene, factory-painted figures, and there is a 30mm scaked-down version too.

The latest version has been plagiarised by the Right-wing misogynist 'Proud Boys', Trump's storm troopers, although the brewer is threatening to take them to court. I also have a lead semi-flat (from Britains - I think) somewhere, so one day I'll try to do them all in one post!

16th - Brain Berke has sent his, so he can go here, I've cropped him out of a larger image which has left him a bit pixelated, but you get the idea, and he's reputed to be supplied by Britains, as a 35mm, solid lead/tin, semi-flat.

H is for a Handful More!

Back with key-rings, keychains, key fobs, they are different things to different people! I think this lot was a charity shop lot a year or two ago, I can't honestly remember, and I made the mistake - a mistake I regularly make - of trying to shoot them on a red background!

 

Several catering firms had similar dough-men mascots, this one - Turkstra - is Dutch, and appears to have awarded itself 1st and 2nd place in something, at the same time, their biscuits must be bloody good!

And I thought this was fun, as you could remove the chain-ring and have a perfect egg-box for a dolls house! I'm guessing, from the lack of a mark, that it's missing a sticker, and if it had a sticker, may have been offered to several egg-producers, so could be missing any one of a number of stickers?

Common 'Jig Toy' design of the family saloon, made key-ring, my experiance of this kind of key ring is that if you actually wore in on your trouser loop, you quickly found pieces missing, so it's nice to find it in one piece!

 

Not really my thing, but it will join the other novelty key-rings, alongside the other novelties and next to the figural key-rings, paperwork-wise! Quite a survivor too, as it's quite delicate, especially the visor, which has two little ethylene pins, and there is plenty of opportunity for loss, breakage or cracking, not to mention the sticker going missing, so a bit of a find I guess!

 

Relief-flat - a cockerel and grapes, is it a French regional mascot/logo thing? A winery? Or just a generic? Again, outside the main collection, but early plastic ephemeral, novelty/plaything, it has its place.

 

Another automotive subject here, with a small base-metal old-fashioned racing-car, might be based on an Edwardian board-game moulding? Not Monopoly, a lesser thing? But fun anyway!

 

Looking at the pre-'publish' close-ups, I think it's actually plastic, not base metal, and while possibly still from a board-game piece, is more likely to be taken from a charm-bracelet thing? Could even be homemade from a Christmas Cracker prize!

 

Another relief-flat of a cat and kitten, a bit bitter-sweet right now, I still miss Boysey-Boy every day, but these are black, and it's many years since we've had black cats, although once Dad brought six home in the staff-car, in a catering-sized cornflakes box, after rescuing them from the bin-stores at Browning Barracks!

 

Little Topo-Gigio, the Italian kids TV puppet, I wonder if some of the several similar small versions I have may also be ex-key-rings? I'll have to investigate them for loop-removal. This one was so hard to shoot on the red I gave-up and pulled up the winter cover, complete with cat hairs, only to find one of the red shots was actually useable!

M is for Multiple Manufacturers Mascots

A quick round-up of a few of the smaller corporate mascot stuff on hand, I think one or two have been seen here before in show-reports or such-like, but as a group they make an interesting diversion!

Starting with the all-important beer mascots!

This is a vinyl/PVC key-ring charm of the mascot of Brickwoods Ltd, a brewer from Portsmouth, founded in 1851 by Fanny Brickwood and acquired by Whitbread's in 1971, the last pint left the brewery in 1983.

This is a solid piece of polystyrene, another key-ring and mirrors the larger ceramic one which is quite common on evilBay. As a brand they (Flowers) only date from 1952 and seem to have brewed their last pint in the 1990's, whether that was a pint of Brewmaster brew is your guess, but you can blame Whitbread for the demise . . . again!

As an aside . . . while our (the UK's) much-loved beers all disappeared in the 1980's/1990's being replaced by gassy chilled shite like Fosters, Heineken, Coors &etc . . . the same thing was happening everywhere; back when you could have a decent chat about non-platform stuff, we were chatting about favorite beers on the HäT forum, I mentioned my favorite Phauenbrau from Tüttlingen and someone from Germany said "Disappeared years ago!", it turned out that all the old, little-town, local brands (and even some of the bigger ones - Herforder I think?) had been swallowed up in the same process, and not just in Britain or Germany, but everywhere - it's called globalisation, and has almost certainly lead to Trumpundbrxit, but it is also 'progress' and; like it or not, you can't turn the clock back, for good or bad 'progression' is a one-way trip; we won't get the old brands back by voting for populist reactionaries and disrupters, but we may well get war!

That's enough beer (I think?), and proselytising! But still sticking with beverages; I think this was a soft-drink (although several beers seem to have Lutin in longer titles - or Lutine?), maybe a carbonated thing, or a yogurt thing and while I thought it might be German (I bought it in Germany) a vague attempt to find it on Google resulted in a possibility it may be a Spanish drink? As the little bear supping the Lutin looks like he could have been manufactured by Manurba or Jecsan, it's no clue!

The bear looks a dead-ringer for Mary Plain, a now rather lost and forgotten children's character, one of my favorite books is Mary Plain in Wartime, which takes us neatly to the next entry in 'mascot of the day'! Seems to be a stand-alone figure, and is polyethylene.

I thought this chap was some DIY superstore, hardware or plumbing maskot, because of the tool-box, but a slightly deeper search revealed a darker history involving IG Farben and Courthold's (the Ford Motor Company may have made some army trucks for the Nazi's, but apparently one of our biggest pre-war concerns was making plastics/fabrics for them!), slave labour and all sorts of stuff - which may be a red-herring - but it seems Diolen was a man-made fabric brand of a Vereinigte Glanzstoff-Fabriken AG, in the polyester group, to which the forenamed companies were connected?

As a result I think the 'tool-box' is a US style lunch-box and that hideously patterned set of matching checked-hat and dungarees are in fact his 'mighty, hardwearing, comfy, Diolen' work wear? Another stand-alone figure, it's the sort of PVC thing that might have been contracted from Heimo/Bully?

Sugus is a survivor brand (over all the above?), being now owned by Wrigley's where it is used in several territories, but only Spain in Europe, although when I bought it several German collectors recognised it as having been a brand of their younger days. It's another key-ring, PVC.

Also it only seems to survive as a fruit-flavor brand of wrapped, boiled-sweet (candy), while this mascot pertains to the liquorice variant, which even if it survives as a brand, won't use a mascot which might be misinterpreted in these PC times - look at the trouble they are having in Holland with the innocent Swartz Pete, or what happened to our Robinson's Golly mascot?

Again "It's progress", again problematical [in the moment] for some, but I'd rather lose a few mascots or traditions, than be a part of bullying, whether deliberate or sub-conscious, whether meant or as a bi-product of cultural activity . . . after all we used to have the happy 'cultural tradition' of burning people at the stake, after church on a Sunday; usually for living alone with a few cats!

I don't think even the execrable Mr Mogg hankers back that far - although he's a 'landowner' so he'd probably jump at the chance to add a few empty cottages to his estates, after the owners' have been immolated! 'Vote for my idea, I've got a silly accent!'

We ended-up with more proselytising! Who'd have thought I could find so much rant in five little polymer novelties, but they've all got a history! I haven't measured them but they are all between about 30 and 45mm

T is for Tony Tigers . . . They'rrre Grrrrrreat!

Obviously I've had the Kellogg's box out and while I was shooting the Magic Roundabout and knights I threw this together!

The badge is probably from the 1970's, but I don't know, the five Ashford Mouldings semi-flat Sports Tony's (there's a skier missing) were quite recent as was the Coach Tony; a larger box 'exclusive' from the 1st Monster Wrestlers in my Pocket promotion.

The one's I remember from our childhood were the little (probably R&L) model-kit Tony Tigers, but they are harder to find than most of the above!

M&B is for Maia & Borges

A Portuguese company, very much the equivalent of the now defunct Comics Spain or France's early Papo, producing ranges of original or licensed figures and animals, they've worked with Schleich and Kinder/Ferrero in the past while also providing a go-to for local companies or organisations wanting a small production-run of something like a luggage-tag or corporate logo . . .

. . . or show/event mascot, as here with the - now 20-years old - Lisbon Expo '98 chap . . . or chap'ess? The lack of shoe-laces points to the male of the species; who appears to be some sort of ocean wave-based lifeform! It's moulded in white PVC and over-painted, with an additional stenciled logo, and key-ring fitted.