N is for November's Sandown Park - Erasers

And not just any old erasers, but that the bulk of them are probably Diener Industries, one way or another, the other factor being that they are also French premiums, but may, due to petroleum, also be British! I picked these up a few at a time, every time I passed the chap's stall, and wish now I'd hoovered up the last few, but they were mostly duplicates, I think!

 

These are probably not Diener, as they are proper eraser-rubber, but I thought they'd go very well with the Lik Be (that's LB of course!) and Holly anthropomorphic musicians, in a future comparison post / battle of the animal bands! They are also pencil-tops.

 

These are all clearly marked Diener Ind., with a '(C)' mark, and are a mix of generics, Disney, cute and a Fontanini clown-sculpt knock-off, along with an Easter basket of bunnies! And they may well belong to several sets, or even some of the sets below, as explained as we go.

 

These are unmarked, but are manufactured in the same smudgy silicon-rubber of all Diener's 'erasers', which were always shit erasers, as they just smudged pencil around the page, leaving everything looking awful! Again, they could be from more than one set, but the paint ties them into the premiums below. The red kitten is a slightly different sculpt to the yellow one in the previous shots - head moved to ease undercuts?

I can't work out if this is supposed to be some kind of anthropomorphic Viking, or a French TV character? Nor is it clear if it's damaged, poorly fettled or had a charm/key-ring loop removed?

 

These two, both Disney, are marked Esso and Disney Prod., and were a set of premiums, given away with Esso fuels, defiantly issued in France, the complete sets are to be found in the pages of Jean Piffret's book Figurines Publicities, but, as I think I've mentioned before, we had some when we were kids, not from this set, but from the set of woodland (or other) animals, some of which are in the upper shots.

 

Indeed, the slightly Beatrix Potter'esque pricklepin in the same flesh pink as the odd figure above, is one of the items on my nostalgia wants list, as it was in my pencil case until I was far too old to have affection for such things! And the three little pigs would also go with the other musical mammals!

 

While these are just marked (C) Walt Disney Prod., but you can see where the Esso has been obliterated on the tool, so there was probably a commercial issue too, at some point.

 

Therefore, I think a couple of the sets annotated by Piffret, as French, were issued here, also with Esso, at some point around the late 1960's or early 1970's, possibly without the paint highlights of the French and more commercial Diener issues. There were more sets issued as premiums in France, though?

 

Four other, non-Diener, non-Esso types, with, from the left a grotesque facemask pencil top, this was probably from the era of cereal-premium totem-pole funny-faces and the semi-flat African mask charm type premiums. Next is a vampire, or Dracula type, in his casket, and just waking-up, by the look of it!

The footballer is bigger that the Hong Kong painted ones, issued as either key-rings or pencil-tops, but may have been the inspiration for them, and he is a pencil top too! While the 'finger fright' rubber-jiggler just came with them to make a round-number! The first three being, again, 'proper' eraser-rubber.

T is for That Tortle, No, Turtapin, no, Terratoise . . . Doh!

Speaking of Holly musicians (as somebody might have been?!), here's a small orchestra of them from my own collection! I've mentioned this tortoise several times over the years, and I think we've seen him in a mixed-lot post, and this picture has been sat in Picasa since 2016! And, actually, he's got cartoon hands (four digits), so he's neither a turtle nor a tortoise, and definitely not a terrapin! While, maybe only two of these are Holly!

 

The two probably Holly are to the right, neither associated with the Gygax stuff we looked at recently, and not seen together, in a set, I mean, yet, nor do they have the 900-codes of some of the Holly funnimals. But on the left, are cruder copies of both, in the style of stuff by Diener or Imperial, but not marked to either brand, however, manufactured in the same soft silicon-rubber which makes for shite erasers, but excellent pencil-smudgers!

 

The pig will be a lesser-make cake decoration, probably a set of musicians, but maybe just three (the 'Little pigs'), I don't know, while the Topo Gigio character (another left-hooker!) could also be the Portuguese Balin, but I don't think so.

D is for Dinorasers - 3 of 3

The third part of this quick round-up/catch-up, is basically a comparison of older and newer sets, but the newer sets have a couple of extra tricks up their sleeves!

We start with a set which is basically a China-marked green set of the old Diener-rasers (geddit!) or the Total premiums from the 1970's, with a cheaper sub-piracy in blue (with a key-ring/charm loop), in the middle, which have come in recently, and that's it for a minute!

 

I also bought this bulk lot on a clearance price, and they are imported by an old favourite, David Halsall (now HTI). Each pack has one flat/block silhouette dinosaur and one semi-realistic erasersaur, except the pack which has two multicoloured extrusion 'slices' - bottom right.

One of which must be near the end of the run and is totally unrecognisable as an anything, leave-alone a dinosaur! Obviously the streams of different-coloured polymer have shoved each-other out of true? The other though, is a quite clear Triceratops.

The fully round ones are also harking back to the early sets from my own childhood, but again have charm-loop/key-ring holes, which - in this material - wouldn't stand up to a day's wear & tear? There are also subtle differences between the older and newer (these will be no earlier than the mid-1980's) versions.

 

This was the sample just as it went to storage in March '22, and includes all past posted stuff and everything in these three and the Iwako post, but not the stuff in last Thursday's post, which is the most recent stuff to come in.

 

And you can judge for yourself how size differs between the sets, erasers have a small-hand rule and don't vary much (beyond that huge blue lump, in the centre, from Flying Tiger, I think?). But there were those sets of little micro-mini's which were everywhere a few years ago!

R is for Return to Rubber Robots

From time to time, I tend to hit feeBay with a bee in my bonnet and grab a bunch of cheap BIN's and a couple of unfought auctions with a low start. So about a week later I start to get all these relatively economic packages arrive in batches (it also illustrates how Parcelfarce and Royal Fail work, not daily, but in batches); last week was one of those weeks!

 

These guys turned-up first, new packaging and two new colours of the one we originally saw from WHSmith as a clearance a few years ago here, I presume this Songyea from China is the originator brand for the stationers 'generic'?

With them arrived a set of printed, cartoony 'flats', which - as with the similar 'Dinorasers/Erasersaurs' - I collect for completeness rather than any realism in sculpt! They seem to be printed out of the same varnish-base'd waterslide-transfer stuff used for temporary tattoos?

The next day, this Toei 'Voltron' behemoth arrived . . . I had expected it to be much smaller; not, perhaps, as small as the others, but certainly as small as some I have, which we will look at next, but this six inch beast, who is really five earsers plugged-together, turned-up!

 

Branded to Lootcrate, from The Loot Company LLC, and further credited to/licensed by ClassicMedia; it may be a hark-back to other erasers (next post's lot), or just one of the many giant 'Bot toys which were around at the time (late 1970's-early 1990's)? This is actually dated 2021, so relatively contemporary and a 'retro' collectable for kidults.

 

Close-ups of the pop-together newbies, for some reason I shot the two colours we've already seen, although I had to shoot the blue one as his card/flap has different artwork.

 

And the flats, they are a bit too happy for my liking, but it's another six robot erasers to add to the pile, so . . . whatever! It's funny, you get fixated on something, because a few have come in by accident, and before you know it, you have a better sample of them than you have of 'proper' somethings, like Arab warriors or Japanese infantry! It's just the same with the Dinorasers, novelty guardsmen or any other 'side-collection'!

 

These two were a day or two later, the orange one has separate arms, but I think they still belong together; just that it was a chunkier sculpt, maybe test shots proved it wouldn't mould properly, so they redesigned it with separate arms?

 

Another size comparison, by the time these had all arrived I'd bought/won the large lot with the silver/gold stuff (and much else for another/other day/s), which gives us one more shot, also a sizer . . .

 

. . . being a couple more of the Macrobots pencil-tops we saw here, the three metallic ones from the mixed-lot and a couple of Diener's (one of which is an alien humanoid, not a robot!) which have come in separately over the last few months! All roughly compatible with the smaller three in the previous shot.

F is for Follow-up; the Mailman Called!

So, further to the previous two posts, the other sucker-toy spaceships turned-up, as did another larger lot of mixed erasers, pencil tops and fridge magnets, so a quick follow-up here, a return to rubber robots later and then something else, because you can have too many multicoloured infant toys in any given period!

 

Three new ones and a duplicate of the evil-looking crab-like, bomb-shaped, claw-armed one! I have no idea how many there are, or how many colours they come in, but I think I have seen them in the background of other fleaBay searches over the years, and there are a few more to find . . . or one or two maybe?

I shot them twice as it'll be a while before we see them again, I don't doubt! And as I said the other day; they are made out of a polymer which doesn't seem to be aiming at erasing anything! So potentially capsule toys, sold as 'sucker' novelties rather than erasers?

They still stick to windows, but the sky was less interesting today! The act of photographing them against glass with the background at infinity (photographically speaking) makes them looks slightly fake, Photoshoped or an animation cell!

The other set which came in, contains various themes, some of which I've been aware of (spaceships and robots) some I wasn't, while the two 'mineral samples' (or asteroids?) came with a different lot a while ago, but clearly match the rest.

 

Spaceships on the top row, the fighters may be re-issued, I know I've seen the F14 Tomcat in other colours (Diener?) but they may be bigger, likewise, the vehicles in the bottom row have 'vintage' counterparts. Another clue to their being re-issues is that markings differ between them, while the quality of the mouldings is good, due to their being from Japan rather than Hong Kong or China.

There's also some robots, here compared with a previously mentioned Diener chap ('Gill Face'), nicely compatible, and again I don't know how many there are, do they go with the spaceships, or are we looking at several part-lines here? I suspect various part lines, re-issued in gold/silver elastomer and sold out of shop-stock grab-trays? Certainly I do know the robots had a vintage issue, in primary colours, and there are several more to find in either iteration - a lop-sided 'duckting' one and a couple of Diener-alikes!

R is for Return-to - Chinasaur Dinorasers

I know I've said it before but it is interesting how quickly things catch-up and indeed; pile up, even after you think you've covered 'for a while' what you think of as an ephemeral side-bar to the main business, it happens here with motorcycles and paratroopers, bendies and dinosaurs . . . insects, fish and these chaps - 'Dinorasers'!

We have looked at this in passing once I think, we'd already had them in a small container from The Works, when I saw them carded for the same pound, but with two duplicate poses for a six-count in Poundland back in the autumn . . . I got one!

These two are unmarked, but look to have a degree of vintage about them, found in the bottom of Peter Evan's January donations-to-the-blog bag; they are a good colour for dinosaurs, but possibly not for selling to little-ones as pencil rubbers? They are an older, solid/heavy 'rubbery' rubber too!

I liked them so much I shot them twice but didn't find this earlier shot until after I'd done the previous one! It's a better shot too, gets the texture of the animals very well. Cheers Peter!

This [the above] post was going to be it . . . a third - short - post of the day, and a bit thin on blurb; but there's not much to add to eraser dinosaurs when you're visiting them for the umpteenth time, then, this afternoon (Tuesday) I dug some more out of the garage . . .

. . . where they've been sitting, hiding, since their release from storage. I didn't actually have many dino's of any kind in storage, mostly mini-types, but I'd got these while searching for Diener'saurs! Geddit? Diener Industries . . . ohh, never mind!

The 'T-Rex' (which from my limited knowledge of skulls is more like an Allosaur) has lost his tail's tip and need to be replaced one day. They are marked CHINA in largish letter stamps, they weren't Diener (but are similar-to and based-on) and stayed as some of my larger dino's for some time, not in the Dinoraser zone, there wasn't one . . . but there is now!

Colour study of the sauropods; are they dip'ies or bront'ies?

The reason I've grown this collection so fast (other than the likes of Brian Berke sending us mini-micro ones!) is that there is a very real charm to them, which hits the nostalgia button in several ways, and in less than three years we've gone from these - hiding in storage - to a whole box of multicoloured, multi-specie prehistoric animals, in mostly bright, primary or 'neon' colours, reminding us of the sort of stuff we used to get in our stockings on Christmas morning, or as a treat on the way home from the dentist, or sellotape'd to our favourite comic!

I wasn't only seekeing Diener'saurs, I was (still am) also looking for the dino's given away by a petrol company (Esso I think) in the 1970's which weren’t really erasers, being made of a silicon-rubber, but they were simplified sculpts and slightly cartoonish, so look a lot like these Dinorasers, in the course of which I picked up this chap (left, blue) who is a copy of the previous set, or for another contract (but his trunk's much heavier-moulded).

 

The yellow spiny 'kerthunkersaur' came in recently (Jim or Chris Smith - thanks to both!), and may or may not have been seen here, or was waiting for a follow-up but got missed when I wrote the short version above!

Luckily I found him while marrying all the others up in the new box and he has the same block 'CHINA' mark. This new pose suggests a set of ten in either set? So I'm still looking . . .

D is for Diener Industries

These little fellows (well not that little at 50mm) are made of a still uncommon - but becoming more common - material; Silicon Rubber. When I first saw them nestling in the bottom of a large tub of quality crap at a car boot sale I assumed they would be Pencil Toppers, something I also collect, however they have no hole! So they are probably 'Pocket Money' toys or Christmas Cracker novelties.

They are all marked on the back (C) Diener Ind and carry a name on their tummy; Brack (blue); Dard (orange); Zama, the pink one. They may be characters from a cartoon or comic strip, any ideas?

For those who like a little left-field gaming they would make nice adversarys for a 1950's pulp wargame using say...Roco Minitanks and their US Soldiers Combat Group. Diener also do a range of fictional dragons/dinosaurs in a more conventional PVC vinyl rubber and a smaller size/scale.

Turned-out they were meant to be erasers and are part of a larger set, silicon makes crap eraser material, and like other Diener products they only smudge pecil!