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?

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.

F is for Follow-up - Kit Cars

I'm definitely in an unproductive phase, not a lazy phase, just an unproductive phase - as far as the Blog goes; I'm busy sorting the various bits of the collection together, photographing like mad and dealing with eMails in a vaguely timely manner! This week I'm shooting Airfix readymade AFV's for what are well-overdue pages!

There are a few follow-ups I'll try to get-up here, over this week, this one comes from the De Gruyter post the other day,, not the best photo's but they're sufficiently illustrative of the pints; it struck me the unknown green one might be the Jet Petroleum premiums, so I dug out the near complete set we looked-at a while ago, and the part set in storage (pleased to say I had the missing '3'), but the question-mark car wasn't one of them!

Eight of eight Jet premiums to the left, manufactured by Rosenhain & Lipmann. The other three - from the other day - on the right.

Colours for the jet premiums tend to match the colour of the cars' artwork, but there are shade variations, and left-field alternatives like the orange '4' (the black bits have been painted on by the previous owner) and a black '7'.

Kellogg's (in the tub - for a whole other post another day) introduce a pink, but seem closest to the green of the unknown car.

D is for Dutch Daimler from De Gruyter

I'm not sure if it's pronounced 'greweeter' or 'groiter' or even 'grew'it'er', but I first learned of De Gruyter many years ago in an article in Plastic Warrior magazine, penned by Jan Boers, on this issuer of little novelty playthings (with coffee) in the same vein as German Wundertüten (they actually carried the Jean knights with De Gruyter bases I think), Spanish Sobres or our own 'Lucky Bags'.

I have to say they have proved hard to track down, but I do have the same church as was included in Jan's article somewhere (in red polyethylene) and this (polystyrene 'mini-kit') came into the pile a year or so ago, I can't remember if I bought it, if Mr. Little found it for me or if Mr. Evans chucked it in one of his bags, but I'll thank Adrian and Peter just to be sure!

In the same format as the Kellogg's stuff made by R&L 'down under', but seemingly a locally-produced item in Holland (similar stuff comes out of Italy) the 1899 Daimler model has only eleven parts of which eight are wheels and hubs!

Packaging to the left while on the right I've shown a couple of the R&L/Kellogg's models for comparison, both have similar part counts and the same pin-through wheel/hub arrangement, and the same basic size. Indeed - packaging is everything as all this premium/giveaway/freebie stuff went around-and-around!

If I were to find another I'd take one off the runners and assemble it, but then the chances are it's more likely to find a started/finished one anyway, so I won't ruin this unnecessarily!

I say the other two are both Kellogg's, but I only know the blue one is the 1896 - The First Ford from the 'Century of Transport' issue we looked at here (link), the other is unknown and while I suspect another Kellogg's set it could be a second De Gruyter?