P is for Potpourri of Plastic Peeps! Wild West

Nearing the end of the surprise box from Chris, and we find a Sobre, but more on that at the end of the post! Wild West, large scale, small scale, plastic, metal, cowboys, Native American Indians, horses, premiums and cartoony stuff . . . let's see what was in the box;

 

All interesting; the one on the left seems to be a soft plastic version of an earlier hard polystyrene premium, it's not the first time we seen them, Betterware used some (Mayer-Lippenhausen and Commonwealth) for their little salesman's envelope gifts, the Australian (and others) Nabisco Dinosaurs are another. This chap is from the Siku sculpts/set, supplied in two sizes, painted and unpainted, and various plastic colours to various European premium issuers, so, here, is probably via . . .

 

. . .  the Dutch DS Plastics, they show them in their catalogue - code 455, as some of the moulds they inherited from Siku.

The many Hong Kong copies of Timpo/Britains/Crescent swoppets are common as muck, two-a-penny and usually pretty poorly executed, although there are better ones, and whole ones attributable to their packaging are useful, these two in the middle are unusual for being among the better, and all-polyethylene, where usually some of the parts are PVC, the locating studs/holes have larger diameters too, while the chap on the end is from a US maker; Ideal, and is meant to be a Canadian trapper I think? I bet the trappers of both nations looked pretty similar and paid little heed to a line on the map!

Home-cast casting of an Indian on the left, probably a Schneider mould, what is likely a Lone Star Metallion in the middle (Pat Masterton), but other makers covered them and the paint throws you off, while the chap on the right is similar to others I have, but I don't think I've ever seen an attribution for them either as Western originals (Spain, France?) or as Hong Kong copies.

I know the one in the middle is from the Crazy Clown Circus of Frazer & Glass (F&G) now, but he got shot with his extended family, which included on the left a horse which was marked, but I can't remember if it was LIDO (I think so) or AJAX?, while the metallised 'standard' horse of the family, is new on me?

 

Obviously we have seen metallised foot figures from the 'set', in different sizes, so I guess he went with them, but I haven't found metallised riders yet? I'm guessing it should be Tudor Rose or at a stretch Kleeware, and one of the earlier iterations of them?

To which, we can add four of the polystyrene foot figures! The painted Crescent/Lido chap may be from one of the West germen pencil shapeners, as he has  alayer of glue on his base underside?

 

The chap in the middle is my first, of a set I've been after for years, and have already missed-out on a boxed set of, coincidentally, the only reason I know what he is, which is an Exin Wild West figure. They are cartoon-styled, very-much like the Lucky Luke premiums, and I'm sure that was no accident, as Comansi handled the latter and both are Spanish companies, seeped in Spaghetti Western culture at the time?

Five more of the Lone Star shooting game figures, I think we may have all poses in both colours now, and a lot of them have come from Chris over the last few years, so when I get them all together we will have another, closer look.

A small sample of small scale Blue Box, it's all grist to the mill, with two of the foot figures and a horse from Britians Swoppet sculpts, along with a stockade-fort section, copied from the Marx Miniature Masterpiece fort.

Sub-Giant piracies from Hong Kong - always useful!

A small group of damaged Minimodels 25mm's, they will go in the tub with the rest of the damaged ones against the possibility of me having a conversion session one day, as being polystyrene (the reason so many are found damaged) they are easy to cut, glue, sand and fill!

The figures Brian Berke remembered were in Lucky Bags back in the day, and lucky he did, as no one else had! The colour scheme remains pretty constant, with the Indians in the warm/hot colours and the Cowboys in the cold colours. And I think this sample balances out the bigger sample somewhat, which was getting a bit Indian-heavy!

There are new cowboy poses here, and the pose-count keeps growing, I think we may well end-up with about fifty, five-each mounted and up to 20 foot figure sculpts, per. 'side'? Some of the Euro-premium sets ran to similar numbers.

While this was a lovely surprise, a bagged Sobre, from Sobreplast, a name new to the Blog and the archive, if not the Hobby, an old kiosk toy, of more substance than the Montaplex type envelopes we usually look at here.

 

The figures/horses look to be Comansi copies, but they may be actual Comansi, until I can compare with the real-deal's, I won't know, but the wagon is not the Comansi one, so I suspect copies. A really nice 'sopresa', cheers Chris!

P is for Siku, S is for Pola . . . no, they're all DS Plastics!

Or they were for a while! Continuing the season of occasional model railway figure posts, with one of the more esoteric and hard to find in any guise set of figures, originally issued by Siku, used by Pola and passed-on to DS Plastics in Holland where De Gryter definitely used them.

How they are believed to have been issued originally by Siku, and as such they may have had a margarine-premium type issue as well, that being where a lot of Siku's output was going at the time (1950's), but as these fleshy-tan colour they were probably issued as model railway accessories.

I've only picked a few up over the years (the above is an old auction shot), and most are damaged, they are hard to find, in part due to their age now, and the material, they will be 70+ years old now.

Equally hard to find are the painted versions, these from Jon Attwood being the only ones I think I've ever seen, although I recognise the chap with skis as one from my 'unknown' zone! Possibly given to me by Peter Evans or Adrian Little? And almost certainly actually Pola, or technically Pola-Quick, down to the fact that the colours match the catalogue images!

 

Those catalogue scans, the figures are very similar to the Layla/Kibri set, copied in Hong Kong, being semi-flat and somewhat cute in the sculpting, indeed Siku may have been behind some of that too (?), they were very busy with small/novelty plastics alongside Manurba and another one I can never remember the name of, and while the above are all a hard styrene, there are soft-ethylene versions to be found, which look very Hong Kong'y, but they aren't . . . 

 

. . . they are De Gruyter supermarket premiums from Holland, first brought to our attention by Jan Boers in Plastic Warrior magazine many years ago. Here seen, rendered as artwork, in the DS Plastics trade catalogue where/whom De Gruyter would have commissioned them from. DS having inherited a bunch of Siku tooling.

In fact, going on dates, Pola probably had to go to DS Plastics too, unless Siku had a duplicate set? Always more questions than answers when building these networks of clues from fragmentary evidence!

O is for Olympics!

So, one of my earlier purchases did a get shot before I sent the box up the road, and it raises a point I didn't mention in my 'lots' of 'wrong' history the other day, but it was pretty obvious if you studied the photographs.

It is that with some of the figure sets, the contents are, to say the least, assorted, with duplicates, often the same pose/colour - pointing to a lack of mixing before packing, or an incomplete pose-count.

Note that this set has a set number/order code, most do, but some are on the fronts and some are on the backs, and the reason I listed them alphabetically is that I couldn't find enough images of both sides of the cards to build a decent list, I will, when I get my seven/eight out again, probbaly find them all. If you read anywhere "the card has a stock number which many of the other cards do not have", be sure - you are reading bullshit.

The seven poses I've ended-up with, as stated last time these are the 'Euro' poses, not those issued by Marx, and not those issued in UK Cereal, neither of which have a torch-bearer, so are all just 'athletes' against this set's Olympic figures! I suspect there should be eight?

That's a question mark because I don't know for certain, it could be ten or more, I'm not sure, you see, Kent, Paul, Stadinger, Fuckwits Anonymous . . . if I wrote there were eight [as a fact], and they supplied them to Choco-tag-nuts in brown (because Choco-tag-nuts had them in brown), I'd be making things up as I go along, and I try not to do that kind of shit here!

 

These were offered by DS Plastic in Holland / the Netherlands, and are probably 35/40mm flats/semi-flats, possibly soft polyethylene, and which may well have appeared in De Gruyter lucky/gift/surprise envelopes, and I wonder if anyone has actual examples they could send to the blog . . . or send it to a leading magazine - Plastic Warrior has recently covered all the other athletes?

 

I had a go anyway;

• 1008 - Action Athletes
• 3006 - Antique Cars
  
• 3002 - Comic Animals
• 1001 - Comic Moon Figures
• 1007 - Comic Pirates
• ???? - Dogs - Mexico
• 1003 - Dolls of the World
• 3004 - Dune Buggys [sic]
  
• 3009 - Historical Transportation
• 3003 - Horse-Drawn Coaches
• 1011 - Robin Hood Figures
• 1022 - Soldiers of World War II
  
• 3001 - Super Motorcycles

Put in numerical order;

• 1001 - Comic Moon Figures
• 1003 - Dolls of the World
  
• 1007 - Comic Pirates
• 1008 - Action Athletes
• 1011 - Robin Hood Figures
• 1022 - Soldiers of World War II
• 3001 - Super Motorcycles
• 3002 - Comic Animals
• 3003 - Horse-Drawn Coaches
• 3004 - Dune Buggys [sic]
• 3006 - Antique Cars
• 3009 - Historical Transportation
• ???? - Dogs - Mexico

So, it's not 'many don't', it's all do! Stadinger was making it up as he went along . . . again! Hahahahaha, fuckin' unbelievable, isn't it? It's fuckin' unbelievable! But they keep doing it, in the desperate hope they may, one day, really catch me out!

The 1xxx's are probably numbered-in with other toys/novelties/playthings, the 3xxx's suggest other Italian/R&L type clip-together kits/funnies may still be to find?

F is for Follow-up - Space Flats

I don't know how I've ended-up with all this space stuff, it was supposed to be vehicle-figures-vehicle-figure post and then move-on to something else, but there's a folder full of the stuff and I just carried-on working through it! In the meantime, I shot this to confirm an earlier comment . . . 

. . . re the green semi-flat chap having been issued by Montaplex unpainted, and here we see two in yellow, they seem to be from the same tool, so someone must have bought a bunch to paint-up and sell at a different price-bracket, because you do see them like this from time to time?

 

Posed with two contemporary figures from Torgano (grey) and an unmarked white version of the Linde/DS Plastics (Plasticraft) spaceman we looked at here. The helmet is a non-canon one which happened to fit . . . 'ish!

11-Sep-2023 - definitely not French! He is pathetic, isn't he? "Neh! I got one too and mine is blue!"

W is for Walking Wounded!

A quick seasonal return to the Dutch, DS Plastics egg-animals from Theo, following the mending of the legs so cruelly snapped in transit!

A reminder of the catalogue image, the dog belongs to another set/catalogue item, but 437 is the 'egg animals' and while the concept, as a joke, works well for the birds, I'm not so sure if you can associate the hare with eggs, beyond the obvious Easter reference, hence this seasonal post!

It was the red duck and the green chicken which lost their legs in transit, and speaking as someone who has little bags and trays of mending or finishing-off 'projects' all over the estate, it does help if you do any mending when the breaks/damage are fresh, as clean breaks glue better!

The chicken, cockerel and hare are illustrated in the catalogue, but the presence of the duck-sculpt, suggests there may be others, I suspect not, only because I can't think of another obviously Easter'y one . . . goose, hedgehog, so maybe this is it, but you never know?

Other seasonal items offered in the wholesale catalogue include 014, a large egg which will be half opaque, coloured plastic and half transparent, it would have contained mini, chocolate eggs or a selection of small novelties, such as those also supplied by DS Plastics to De Gruyter 'lucky bags'.

Items 010 and 026 seem to be similar smaller 'capsule toy' eggs, but are found on different pages, so may have size differences in the accompanying price-list, missing here? It should also be mentioned that research by Dutch collectors has revealed some (but not all) of DS's catalogue were ex-Siku tools.

Invisible mend! I wasn't happy with the size of the ducks in the collage, but collaging three items is never as easy as two or four! Many thanks to Theo van der Werden for both the animals and the catalogue scans.

H is for How They Come In - Theo's Parcel 2 of 2

So, continuing with Theo's donation to the Blog . . . I wrote as the opening to quite a bit of blurb, Monday night, for the finished article, which I then managed to delete!

Not the first time, it has to be said, but doing so brings with it both the depression of being very silly indeed and the knowledge you won't manage to re-write the article as well, in your own mind, a second time, it's one of those things, but I got the arse with myself, and sulked for a couple of days, then is was flat-viewing, then car trouble . . . then!

Anyway, we're here now, and continuing with Theo's donation . . .

. . . we'll quickly skirt-over a nice pile of Xandria key-rings, as there are full articles coming on them, but in the meantime and on the right, we have a mouse mascot/premium for the Dutch Frico (Friesian Co-Operative) cheese maker, they're still going and with both Edam and Gouda on their books, what's not to love there? Some warm sourdough rolls, salted butter, a few grapes and an apple . . . heavan! He's lost his nose though!

The other two are Germany's 'Swergs', can't remember if the Gnomes/Dwaves are Manurba (via Peltro or Fontanini, we had a link to a page of them once but I can't find it?) or someone else, although these days the caveat with Manurba seems to be 'Might not be, or might be Dom Plastik or Heinerle', and no one is as sure about all-three now, as they were a decade or so ago!

I think Theo explained the Indian to me but I can't find the eMail! Another mascot/premium type I think? The dog looks to be composition,but it's just playwear, and he's missing a hat, while the clown is hard make much of, he shares some properties with the Xandria stuff, but not the central core and could also be a mascot/premium type?

On the right we have two Oriental types with faux-antiquing, similar to other Euro-premiums, while we saw 'Bad Santa' the other day. The MacDonald's Dragon is interesting as I'm pretty sure I have another in a different pose, possibly two, so they must have been a Happy Meal set, but some time ago? And I like the blow-moulded mouse, reminiscent of some Soviet-era Russian/East European stuff and maybe also a mascot/logo premium?

Mostly Kinder and the hard plastic cartoon figures who have their dedicated collectors but aren't that rare, just fun! The fold-up/curl-up animals on the bottom row are modern versions of the older wheeled '90's one, while the sloth-bear is part of the current trend under MPG for realistic or semi-realistic (some have doe-eyes) wildlife sets.

Some more Kinder and other egg/capsule toys (Onken, Nestle), mascots and premiums, I rather like the grey bear who looks to be someone's logo-character? And the rail or bus/tram worker looks familiar? The four down the bottom (orange warthog to blue elephant) are rubber and similar to Schleich 'mini' animals, but more cartoony, and probably part of a larger set/series?

Loving the little tree and I think the sheriff's badge (from the typesetting/font) is for Desperate Dan, mascot of Dandy Comic for years, while the little green man may be an early (1970's) Kinder prize?

Above will probably go on to charity (in storage at the moment) as I can't start on Action figures, no time, no space and the wrong generation! Although - see below - for a exception, but they all get recorded as they come through and the little Playmobil-like character may be an early Maxi-Egg prize?

While the stuff below used to be a single takeaway tub, but are now sorted into a stack of thematic tubs; traffic lights, road signs, other street signs, traffic cones, pumps & dispensers, street-lights/lamps, barriers, other street furniture &etc! All grist to the mill and one day I'll get an ID page organised for them all.

Only recently covered the integral-moulded wheel minis', but there's a few here (and I found a lot from a loyal reader in Finland I left out of the recent posts, so follow-ups coming!

In this lot are three nice Kinder old fashioned cars (middle left) and a die-cast from the same source, several earlier trucks (top row) some of which may be Siku, which might actually make them DS Plastics of Holland as they inherited a lot of Siku's 1950's novelty moulds.

Nice Land Rover (sans windscreen) and a teeny-tiny Transformer type with a double-barreled turret, and I think I've seen that Grand Prix racing car, either on a card, or in a board game?

This is lovely! Modern (1992) and made by Bandai, it's a near perfect 1:76/72nd scale, pull-back motor Thunderbird 4, and will look good on a shelf with those Captain Scarlet conversions from Airfix cowboys; I know they are different franchises, but one show's 20mm puppets are good enough for another's!

Almost saving the best for last, these are action figures, but they will stay, as they are plug/pop-together, soft polyethylene (think Airfix or Jean), and when I first saw them I thought either the Plasty-Airfix figures to go with the tee-pee we saw here a while ago from Gareth, or maybe Jean/Manurba.

But the Plasty-Airfix figures are smaller and there's nothing useful or obvious on Google for either Manurba or Jean, and both Theo and myself have drawn a bit of a blank. The problem being they are totally unmarked. Also they wet to storage before I measured them, so I can only say I think they were about between four and six inches.

The closest I've found is several models of Wild Bill Hickock (and a Wyatt Earp), from the Legends of the West set by Exel Toys of Hong Kong, which are apparently both marked, and dated 1975, but the figures seem to be joined/jointed with steel-tube rivets, while the donation samples are all-plastic, take-apart/plug-together?

The best I can come up with is that they must be copies of the Exel set (itself ripped-off/resurrected in 1991 by Imperial, with fatter polypropylene figures), probably by an anonymous rival a few blocks away from wherever Exel had their plant? Or; an earlier/later version of the Exel set? But any help from Action Figure aficionados would be appreciated to tie these down, or even just add a bit of background however shaky?

Many thanks again to Theo for all these, I hope I've done them justice shareing them with you, lots of interesting stuff, and we're starting to build a nice picture of DS Plastics here at Small Scale World, with gap-fillers and Kinder bits for future posts . . . Xandria next, then London, then Chris's lot, Peter, Sandown Park, more capsule updates, more other stuff . . . and canoes! Cheers Theo!

H is for How They Come In - Theo's Parcel 1 of 2

This lovely parcel of Euro-treats (all the more so since the uneducated mass voted Brwreakshit!) arrived at the start of October . . . where's that gone? I don't know about you but someone's just stolen more than six weeks from me, that's nearly two months-full!

Anyway, I'd all but forgotten that Theo van der Werden asked for my address ages ago, and despite his own real life tribulations, he managed to send these to the blog and there's a fair lot to look at so let's get stuck in!

I actually came home to this on the doorstep, as it came via a courier, not Royal Fail, so it hadn't been with whatever came that morning and by the time I came back from town (with a dinosaur in my grasping mitts) it was sat there, "Hey Dude; look at me!" you will notice that Theo put his beloved Snakes & Ladders game on the top, a gift I appreciate more than the rest of the contets of the box, which are all lovely.

As an aside, anyone in the UK notice Collectors Gazette managed an article on Snakes & Ladders a couple of months after I'd posted the subject twice? They just did military trains too . . . again; a month or so after we looked at them here, twice . . . filed under the 'fancy that' news department! But then we've had ten-years of their A-Z trope, which began about six months after this Blog was born with, err . . . an A-to-Z trope! [whispers . . . they also seem to use Moonbase for ideas, but at least they sometimes credit that site!]

Now, these are really Easter gear, but a donation report is a donation report, so here they are with two broken legs courtesy of the courier, easily mended the same day, but we'll look at the close-ups next Spring. On the right is the catalogue image from DS Plastics (also courtesy of Theo - the dog is from another set), which lets us know who was behind them! Aren't they sweet; they're all little Easter-eggs!

Evolution! My town purchase the same day!

Also from DS Plastics, these are smaller (60mm), soft polyethylene versions of the footballers we saw both marked to Pak-Me-Mee (white plastic) and unmarked (flesh coloured) in a 110mm (four inch) size, whether this means DS Plastics made the [earlier?] original hard polystyrene ones is still anybody's guess, but is seems more likely?

Next to them, on the left of the upper image are two of the Manurba athletes, but when I say Manurba, there's always the caveat these days that they may be Dom Plastic or Heinerle, and no one seems quite as sure as they used to be about all three!

Ancients and Medievals include a small soft 'ethylene Marx mounted knight from the late window boxes (picked-up two interesting ones at Sandown on Saturday), a larger silver Marx, Supreme sculpts from two of their sets (top left) and the copies (middle and bottom row), a really nice catapult, Jean rider in the less common black plastic and a Hong Kong horse taken from Timpo.

A wodge of Revell WWII figures (with WWI French) in 1:72nd scale, mostly US forces; Infantry, Paratroopers and Marines) and some British Para's in need of some paint stripper.

Army Men and Astronauts, accessories and a large roller! The ruined wall is particularly interesting, being a single moulding with a 90° turn. A couple more Supreme copy knights are joined by the small combat  soldier (top left by the barbed wire) who might be French 'bazaar' production; he's got his sleeves rolled-up and a M1 carbine which could put him in Vietnam, but as a fighter in the earlier Indo-Chinese conflict I suspect?

Note also the Arifix copy 'Afrika Korps'-man who's converted by the simple expedient of adding the Infantry helmet to an originally cap-wearing sculpt!

Wild West and a unusual superhero type who is a solid, and probably from a blind-bag or capsule line/rage? The two painted cowboys are new to me; similar to those you can find in the UK, whether Herald, Lone Star or Crescent copies, and in the same pale plastic of some oblong-based figures I've got, but here (two Swoppet copies) with cloud-bases and brighter paint.

The flesh-coloured trio are Airfix 1:32nd set copies, but not in the usual creamy-white either, I may have brands (or set titles) for them on one of the dongles, I know I have had some luck identifying two lots of the paler ones and may have ID'd these too?

These premiums are lovely, and a whole set; to my shame I thought I'd scanned the Albert Heijn insert sheet and accidently put it with all the other capsule stuff, but I can't find it, so I must have forgotten to? Anyway they all went off to storage weeks ago, so we'll have to return to them another day, I think I have another set by the same maker, so we'll do them together with their inserst, in the meantime - they aren't the Ziani set (12 rather stilted figures), nor the Kinder set (a basic 10 figures), but 15 main/supporting characters, 17 if you count the chipmunks!

Many, many thanks to Theo, he has sent lots of images to the blog, but usually one's and two's waiting for me to get round to them, or around to them again, and I know he's having his own real life difficulties, so it's very kind of him to go to such effort right now, if at all and I'm very grateful - Cheers Theo!

Missed Sunday by a hour; Doh! Part Two sometime tomorrow later today hopefully!

DS Plastics is for Jumbo, Linde, Plasticraft and Thunderbirds - One Way or Another!

This is a post which has been 15-odd years in the gestation, and by way of correcting myself on this post . . .

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2022/01/1967-dutch-thunderbirds-game-by-jumbo.html

. . . and other people's utterances, elsewhere, they aren't Linde, they're DS Plastics (Dutch) copies of Austria's Linde coffee premium copies of the US Plasticraft spacemen, for a Jumbo (Hausmann & Hotte nv.) board game!

Which has cleared that up, so; what next? Some Spanish Romans I think, or more Historex wagons? What? You want more? Alright then, if I have to . . . but first go and read this;

https://www.lindefiguren.at/fotogalerie-linde/science-fiction/

For which link these are the English translations :-

************************************

"Die Science Fiction Serie umfasst 6 Figuren in sechs verschiedenen Grundfarben (blau, grün, rot, gelb, silber und gold) - macht also 36 Variationen. Die Kennung befindet sich am Sockel und nur bei der Space-Woman (Nr. 5) und der knienden Figur (Nr. 2) auch am Rücken. Die Nummerierung (lt. Katalog Stukheil) entspricht den Figuren am linken Bild von unten nach oben".

The science fiction series includes 6 figures in six different basic colors (blue, green, red, yellow, silver and gold) - making 36 variations. The identifier is on the base and only on the space woman (no. 5) and the kneeling figure (No. 2) also on the back. The numbering (according to the Stukheil catalogue) corresponds to the figures on the left picture from bottom to top.

"Die Figuren dürften ohne Helm in den Kaffeepackungen gewesen sein. Originalverpackte, ungemarkte Figuren mit Helm im Blister sind mir bekannt und auch im Katalog von Peter Konrad, erschienen im Peko-Verlag, abgebildet".

The figures may have been in the coffee packs without a helmet. I am aware of unmarked figures with helmets in the blister in the original packaging and they are also shown in Peter Konrad's catalogue, published by Peko-Verlag.

"Die goldenen scheinen auch die seltensten zu sein".

The gold ones also seem to be the rarest.

"Noch ein paar Details: Es gibt diskrete Farbunterschiede: hellblau, hellgelb ..."

A few more details: There are subtle color differences: light blue, light yellow...

"Es gibt deutliche Unterschiede in der Gussqualität - siehe Oberkörper und Helm bei den Figuren links. Daneben ein typischer Gussfehler bei diesen Figuren: beidseits Einkerbungen am Sockel".

There are clear differences in the casting quality - see the torso and helmet in the figures on the left. In addition, a typical casting defect in these figures: notches on both sides of the base.

************************************

Now, the rarity of the gold ones, seems to have been answered by Geoffrey Peeters, in part in his post here . . .

http://geoffstoys.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-plasticraft-mistere.html

. . . and I say 'in part' because while they come from Spain, there's no actual branding or brand-mark. Meanwhile to finish setting the scene, here's three of the Plasticraft originals with card;

https://vintagetoyarchive.tumblr.com/post/72606158389/plasticraft-1950s-space-expedition-spaceman/amp

They are a hard polystyrene polymer in the dime-store style, unlike the soft polyethylene of all the others.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, I had four, which I'd photographed as I was putting them away in the storage unit, in part for what - in my head - was an earlier and far simpler draft of this post, because I knew Theo Van de Weerden had sent me the answer in a catalogue illustration!

Here they are in the DS Plastics catalogue, clearly silver with blue helmets but rendered in watercolour sketch style rather that photographs, common in catalogues until at least the start of my childhood - the mid/late 1960's.

I first learnt about De Gruyter (a Dutch supermarket chain) in an informative article by Jan Boars in Plastic Warrior magazine about 25 years ago, although it was probably an even older back-issue? He told us expressly about their small-scale premiums, but in fact they were supplied by DS Plastics who had a wide range of 'dime-store', infant and rack toys, picnic ware, beach toys, construction bricks and other items, in the manor of Bell, Merit, Tudor Rose or Kleeware here in the UK, the German Manurba, or the US's Lido, Pyro, Empire or such like, with some of their tooling being bought from Siku.

Now I've had the image on the left since at least 2006 . . . 2007? Anyway, I had mentioned it in passing once or twice, but had forgotten I had the four loose ones, hence my photographing them against the side of a shipping container, when I realised I did have them, just has their box was going into 'the vault'! The thing was; I hadn't recognised the Jumbo logo, so have just referred to them as the/a 'Thunderbird's game' in past mentions.

While - following the post on Moonbase and the after-discussion, I managed to find a set on feebleBay for a reasonable amount (there were two at the time as well as the one on Marktplaats linked to by Paul), which I bought (image on the right), triggering this fuller post! There were none today when I checked, but they do turn-up reasonably regularly, if you keep an eye out, but you might be bidding against me as I still need two helmets!

The lack of a pair of helmets meaning I had to shoot these as two groups to do them full justice! Not Linde but DS Plastics for Jumbo, all after Plasticraft. Six poses, (as per Plasticraft and Linde) including one female who wouldn't look out of place with the Airfix space-lady, sartorially - and a comparison will appear on the Airfix page in the future. Three more casually posed; three apparently in combat and all betraying their 1950's pulp-matinee roots!

Looking at them here, I wonder if the same sculptor who produced the Lido 'Captain Video' figures didn't also have a hand in these?

So, having sorted them, we might as well cover the game, it's a funny thing really, obviously designed (cobbled-together is a better term) to tie-in with the Gerry Anderson TV series (which we can be sure the Dutch were mad-for, from the Xandria key-ring figures!), it's basically a glorified game of chase or a variant of the Snakes & Ladders mechanism, with added jeopardies on the asterix'ed squares. There is also some further trickery with the obtaining of a helmet before you can progress to the darker side of the board!

Note that snakes and ladders are footprints, dotted lines or rocket trails, and an attempt to please players either side of the board by having half the numbers upside-down only confuses everyone! And that's why it's a 'funny thing', and funny - peculiar, not funny - haha! But still; a fun item.

Jumbo are a huge (to this day, and now pan-national) jigsaw-puzzle manufacture, not a board-game maker per se, and it shows in this game which was obviously rushed together and rushed out, but lucky for us that it was, as it means sets of six DS Plastics' figures (less the odd helmet or two!) have survived, where the loose or bagged retail figure issues, whether De Gruyter premiums or DS Plastics direct, probably haven't, in the same way or numbers.

In order to further enhance the added-value of the set, the board rests on a raised card plinth which is a cut, fold & glue 'paper model' of Thunderbird 1, shorter than the folded board it creates a box or trench for the six figures and the oversized dice.

Someone has started cutting mine out, but not tried making it, nor - as far as I can tell - lost any pieces, so I will try finishing it sometime. Being silver-foil laminated, it was hard to photograph and may prove hard to glue to the facing surfaces?

Theo also kindly translated all the bumpf from the bi-lingual (Dutch/French) instruction sheet, and as this post has become a bit of an opus, we might as well have it all, these are the front and back covers.

While this is the six sheets inside, which translate as follows :-

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Board game for 2-6 people

Jeff Tracy lives on a deserted island in the Pacific with his sons Scott, Virgil, John, Gordon and Alan. Jeff Tracy is the founder of International Rescue, an organization that aims to preserve world peace and rescue people around the world, in sometimes the most impossible places and ways, at risk of accident.

For this they have at their disposal fantastic means of transport and communication, designed by the genius scientist Brains. Furthermore, International Rescue has a highly skilled secret agent, Lady Penelope who, along with her driver Parker, forms a dangerous duo for any criminal.

International Rescue's worst enemy is "The Hood", a very clever criminal who is always out to threaten humanity with new disasters.

The object of the game is to capture "The Hood". Each player chooses his own playing figure. Before starting the game, remove the space helmet from the head of the figure. One starts at the launch site for the Thunderbirds. Whoever throws the highest dice gets to start. One advances as many places as eyes are thrown. The first player to reach number 100 gets to capture "The Hood" and wins the game.

It is necessary to acquire a helmet while playing, otherwise you cannot get further than square 50, where the universe begins. You get a helmet when you land on one of the spaces marked with a helmet, i.e. 4,7,9, etc. If you arrive on space 50 without a space helmet, you go back the same number of spaces in the next turn or turns when one has thrown eyes, until one ends up on a square with a helmet. In the next turns, you move forward again. If you land on one of the following squares during the game, something special will happen!

No. 3 Thunderbird 1 makes an extra fast start to square 27.

No. 6 Thunderbird 3 rises almost perpendicular to square 44.

No. 8 Alan Tracy takes a little spacewalk and goes to square 16.

No. 10 Thunderbird 3 has to get to Thunderbird 5 on square 66 as quickly as possible to relieve Scott Tracy from his monthly watch. If you do not have a space helmet, you may not go into space and must continue your journey across the board.

No. 18 Jeff Tracy calls Thunderbird 2 back to square 1, to pick up another container.

No. 25 Lady Penelope takes her fast FAB 1 to square 49, her spacious country house.

No. 39 Gordon Tracy needs his spacesuit. However, this is on s square 67. Without possessing his space helmet, he is not allowed to do this and must continue his journey across the board.

No. 41 Thunderbird 2, attacked by enemy aircraft, moves to square 34.

No. 42 Thunderbird 1 searches for a suitable landing plate and finds it in square 45.

No. 50 John Tracy contacts Lady Penelope in square 77.

No. 55 An urgent message from Jeff Tracy, via Thunderbird 5: "Proceed to square 73"

No. 77 Lady Penelope has a code message from John Tracy, taking it to square 50.

No. 81 Thunderbird 3 goes off course and lands on square 71.

No. 83 Parker gets airsick and has to fly lower; goes to square 60.

No. 86 John Tracy digs into square 46 with the 'Mole'.

No. 93 Brains needs to pick up tools and goes to square 87.

No. 97 Thunderbird 3 has a malfunction in the nuclear reactor and has to go back to square 5.

No. 98 Scott Tracy sees Thunderbird 3 has a malfunction and guides it to square 74.

No. 100 THE HOOD. Whoever arrives here first gets to capture him and wins the game.

A build plate of the Thunderbird 1 is printed on the table in this box. It can be assembled as follows. Cut out all parts along the outer black lines. The dotted lines are fold lines. Always fold from the outside in, so that the metal-colored side forms the outside. Nose cone a is glued to the hull b; this hull is closed from below by circle c. The thickening of the hull, d, is pasted with the number 1 under the word Thunderbird. Round e closes the thickening. The narrow strip f is glued to the circle f in circle e. The top of the motor g is glued to f. The strip with the letters TB 1 (engine block) is indicated as in the figures g and i, folded and glued under g. Figure i closes the engine block from below. The wings k1 and k2 are folded, glued to the wing holders j1 and j2, and the whole applied to the stripes j of hull b. Finally, the stabilizer wings l are glued to the 4 protrusions of the engine block. In this manual you will find a drawing of the complete Thunderbird 1 after it has been assembled, to which the letters have been added according to the build plate. Good luck with this beautiful model!

Dutch Thunderbirds fans, ask your shopkeeper about the accurate Dinky Toys, scale models of the lightning-fast FAB 1, with its automatic rocket firing direction, with the imperturbable driver Parker behind the wheel and Lady Penelope in the evening toilet and the Thunderbird 2, the super-technical cargo plane of International Rescue.

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Note the advertisement for a Dinky toy; were Jumbo the agents for Dinky in Holland at the time?

To cover all the bases; this is my QA slip, the one in the Moonbase set was a yellow elephant, mine's dark blue-black, I suspect there were others (red, green . . . black?) and that they were randomly added to each box. Unlike the game instructions this is quadri-lingual, and presumably came with all the games, puzzles and any other products?

I would add that while there is a copyright date of 1967 on the lid, I suspect that's for the licensee (Century 21 Merchandising Ltd.), and is the date of registration of the TV series, rather than the game, which is probably later, the series was repeated several times in some territories, or when the Dutch got it . . . mid-late 1970's? Even as late as 1981, when it was resurrected in some areas? The game is quite common and the box and board quite glossy, while the whole thing is a bit glam-rock in it's look . . . maybe around 1974/5?

As you may recall from the Fireball XL5 post, I've been using an old Dr Who location for some of my space photography, or was it Blake's Seven? Not! The local gravel-extraction beds!

The figures are slightly to markedly poorer (my standing with two side-arms) quality that the Linde ones, and indeed, looking at the Linde ones makes you wonder if they weren't the first as the Plasticraft ones are of the same quality, maybe Linde (who were known for copying) actually got the old Plasticraft tool? But it's fair to say the DS Plastics are copies.

But, pulling everything together - it would seem that both the Plasticraft and Linde are sharper than the DS Plastics figures, the Spanish set may also have come from DS (same quality, also unmarked, but different colour figures and helmets), which would give us an origin, but we'd probably still be looking for a local [Spanish] brand-mark / importer.

Thanks to Theo, for the catalogue image and the translations/correspondence on this one, nods to Geoffrey Peeters and whomever (Herwig Oberlerchner?) is behind the excellent Linde site which I think I've used before, and a wave at Moonbase Central's post, which spurred me into snaffling a set and correcting my comment over there, fully, over here!

[Edited the same day to correct my confusion between DS Plastics and De Gruyter!]