N is for Not Phidal, Oh, No, no, no, no, no, or Not?

By which I mean I would happily put a small wager on these having come from the same factory and/or design team who work with or supply Phidal, but they are not sold as Phidal, but rather as total generics in blank packaging - some warehouse somewhere is shifting them to anyone who wants them, and there are several sellers on evilBay, and Amazon I think.

This is not to say they mightn't be clearance from Phidal, there were a lot of early sets about which I know little, as the style, painting and bases are all very reminiscent of some of the Phidal output we've seen here before, but they are unmarked and direct copies (pose wise) of a Disney Stores 'exclusive' set (which are marked), which suggests unlicensed knock-offs? A third near-identical set exists, with metallic painted figures.

How they arrive, six heat-sealed pockets in a rolling double-sheet which is then cut and stuffed in another vacuum-packed bag, causing the warped bases on what are otherwise quite substantial figurines; and a hideous carbon footprint, and they are a little larger than typical Phidals at around 65/75 mil.

When I say "unmarked" I mean they don't even have a '©Disney', which is a pretty good sign of some Chinese (they don't have 'China' either!) ner'do'wellness! But they are nice for what they are and will go OK (not necessarily perfectly, but 'OK') with the larger Marx and other more modern figures by Bully, Kaiodo, Schleich etc.

Those unmarked bases, just for completeness! As hinted at above, the packaging will likely leave one or two requiring some hot-water reshaping. And you may have noticed; the Cheshire Cat's a peculiar colour . . . that's never going to make a Bagpuss!

H is for How They Come In - Cheap Deals

This post deals with stuff I picked-up while out and about last April-May, or at least that's when I shot the photographs, sometimes things get shot same the day sometimes they don't, nor do they always get photographed in the order they came in, so March may be the start-date of this little lot, but it hardly matters!

This must have been a previous (2020) Christmas range, on clearance, from the same Hobbycraft decoration line we've looked at here recently from the year just gone (2021), which are themselves now on clearance! Not the best sculpt, it seems to be channeling at least two species, but what do I know, the cake-decoration deer have their own box (there's so many of them) and he'll add to that 'archive'!

Erasersaurs, we may have seen them before as another iteration; I haven't checked, but, even if we have, they may be new colours. There is a post on Dinorasers in the long-queue, but these aren't in it?!! Asda supermarkets, and close-enough to the now ended Walmart ownership for them to possibly be findable over the pond in that establishment, but probably not now?

This was 20p in Paperchase! They had a table with tons of stuff, most of it one-offs, some of it quite dusty and had obviously had a serious five- or ten-year stock take and cleared out the forgotten corners, and 'behind the shelves' areas of the storeroom? You can see from the chunky pen that it's a largish beast and had a lovely metallic decoration. 'Bronty' the Biro!

This was in the same Paperchase pile, and also the only one, missing it's cap and not something I would normally give house room to, but A) it's cats! B) I had, only a few days earlier, split the cats, dogs and elephants into their own tubs, and C) 20p!! Soft-foam calico cats with a Biro up their arses!

Flying Tiger gave up this for a quid, the same day I think? It was my first trip to Basingrad since before lockdown (a year or so?) and is just for the archive, to ID in the future, to box-tick the brand and items, fun, silicon 'rubber jigglers' in the old-school style.

These were on clearance at TKMaxx, and you know by know I really like these, the . . . start again; We are about to look at three of these sets of Nano-Metal's from Jada, two of which (probably these two) were on clearance at TKMaxx, the other - I think - came in a few days later, either from eBay or Asda stores? But . . . it may have been a donation and because the amount of stuff which has joined the long-queue in the last 14-odd months is vast, I'm not 100% sure on the history of these now! So I'll thank the two obvious candidates - Brian Berke or Peter Evans - for everything they do for the Blog, and carry on as if they were three similar retail/clearance purchases a few days apart, nearly a year ago!

The first set (above) was a straight tie-in with the Incredibles movie, or at least Incredibles 2 which I haven't seen, but I thought the first one was fun and they have that lovely metallic paint which makes this range so lush, while there is a duplicate pose in the second set which is a sort of Disney 'starter' set with figures ancient ('classics') and modern (Pixar joint-productions).

I don't know who Baymax is (actually I've just Goggled him! Big Hero 6, which had totally escaped me?), but there are characters here from seven franchises, with pairs from Monsters Inc., and The Muppets.

The one I'm not so sure about, I think it was reduced in Asda, but . . . which definitely came in a week or two after the other two sets and, again, another 'starter' set to get you wanting more Disney "100% diecast" Nano Metal's, with a lovely pair from Alice in Wonderland, two Scrooge McDuck characters and little Lilo.

E is for Educational Supplies

I think most of us have a grail of some kind; I'm talking about that thing from childhood we've been looking for ever-since we last saw it, or possessed it; or something which we let go back at the start of our collecting; maybe a bargain someone snipped-us to with a longer or faster arm on a dealers table; those things which tick something bigger than a mere 'box'.

This could be considered mine, or one of mine, there are a couple of other things I'm still looking for, but it has been one, since before I was a collector, or, since we are talking my having deciding I was a collector in '77 (the sponsored silence story I've bored a few people with already!), maybe the thing that actually got me collecting, subconsciously, in the first place?

In point of fact; I don't think we've had the story here on the Blog, so at the risk of sounding repetitive to my mates, I'll tell you now; I 'knew' or realised or decided I was a collector while playing with my tin of soldiers during the hour's sponsored silence for the Queens Silver Jubilee at Heckfield Village Hall . . . Church Hall? At Heckfield Church's 'Village' Hall!

Yeah! All the parents getting together and shutting their kids up for an hour - in both senses of the word! Except for my mate Miles from Laundry Lane who got told-off for whispering three times, then got chucked out! How do you get chucked-out of a sponsored silence?!! He only had to keep it shut for 59-and-a-bit minutes . . . someone thinks Miles' is a newsreader now, on the flickering cod's eye, which would be rather apt!

But anyway back to '77 and the parentally-enforced, angelical silence of a hall full of children; we had all been told to bring something to keep us amused or occupied (in silence Miles; silence!) for the duration (an hour is very long at that age, especially when doing something enforced - I can still remember every minute of it), all the sensible kids took a book or a puzzle or some comics . . .  I took my tin of soldiers.

Now, this tin was an old army bulk-biss'quit tin - large, silver, square thing with a big round lid like a works coffee tin - full of small scale toy soldiers, and - in a silent (or near silent - Stop it Miles!) hall, every move of my hand produced a noise which seemed to eco round the rafters like a grenade going off!

As a result, I decided that rather than play with them (I was thirteen, and girls were watching!), I'd tip them out quickly in a single crescendo,  and then sort them into piles, as it was a while since I'd last had them out.

In the sorting I ended up with various piles, and realised (or decided) that it was looking like a collection, and decided to collect, an 'occupation' I got seriously started-with later that autumn, buying some old 1st version Airfix blue-boxes and a square-boxed Strongpoint at the Swap Shop in Saffron Walden, which I followed with six sets of Atlantic WWII from the Toto Lotto in Neuhausen ob Eck, the following January!

On the day, my piles consisted of Airfix, Hong Kong, Marx Miniature Masterpieces, some based AFV kit-figures and a few odds such as Minimodels cowboys & Indians and a small red polyethylene pick-up truck with white wheels, I'd nicked from primary school!

So we go back about another seven years;

Way back to when I was six or seven and attending Heckfield Village Primary School (Mrs. Nash's class), long since sold-off and converted to posh dwellings for the Tory-faithful under Thatcher, there was an old, round biss'quit tin full of little things which would have failed the modern tests of H&S inspectors.

Due not only to the 'choking hazzard' but that several of them were of a size where jamming up the nose or in an ear was an equal possibility! However, there they were and they provided hours of time-wasting for moi, as you could hide behind the low-bookcases and play quietly with them until going-home time!

I have to confess I once stole, filched, pocketed, palmed the aforementioned little pick-up truck, (which I now seem to have misplaced but I know it's somewhere in the stash), however I was always looking for the rest, remembering them as 'something to have' for 'the collection'.

And earlier this year I spotted them on feebleBay, on a buy it now, lost them - even as I was eMailing Bill from Moonbase about them - only to find the next day that they'd been relisted at a reduced BIN, which I promptly coughed-for . . . this is them!

As they arrived; I think the croquet mallet is a Christmas cracker or gumball-machine, capsule-prize, I don't remember them in the tin, but then I'd forgotten most of these, especially the racing cars, which I have been collecting separately for years!

I had in fact seen them several times but not put two-and-two together, while I've always remembered the tin and the delight I got from its contents, apart from the fact that there might have been some horse racers, and that there were other vehicles besides the pick-up (which remained familiar due to its being around!), I couldn't remember what the figures looked like; for years I thought they may have been the same as the Hong Kong Kibri/Leyla copies I had in that other tin (the sponsored silence was years after I'd left 'primary'), but the truth was, there were no figures to speak-of, apart from the race-horses which were the only accurate part of the memory . . . and explains why the six-year old me didn't filch a bunch of people to go with the pick-up!

So, animals first and we might as well go clockwise; elephants; little lambs (which look like horses, except the accompanying horses look more like horses! Cats, which are standard capsule-prize fare with a charm-loop; Scottie-dogs - ditto, but lacking the loop; the horses themselves; these would later get small charm 'bars' down their backs and finally; the pigs, one of which - in orange - we have seen here as a Question Mark, you may remember me highlighting the truncated trotters.

Clearly these are also capsule toys, they are also Christmas cracker novelty-inserts, they were probably thrown from windows at kids in the streets of Malta on hi-days, holidays and Holy days , they may have ended-up in Piñata or Sobres, but bulk, as here, they were supplied to the old Local Education Authorities (LEA's), or county-council stores (?) to issue to primary schools as teaching aids - sorting and counting probably . . . not that I remember doing anything more than fiddle with them in a more aimless fashion . . . maybe I was indulging in a subtle self-exercise of hand/eye coordination!

None of these have any mark beyond the odd mould-release, pin-disc remnant. Both the cats and dogs are quite common as designs with many similar ones out there.

These have definitely also been supplied to board-games, in which capacity we saw them on the old Other Collectables Blog, now merged with and hidden somewhere on this site! But new colours have extended the number of team possibilities in the project mused-on last time we looked at them.

I had half-remembered the mounted jockeys and again I suspect they may have been supplied to games companies in the past, but as - these - learning-tools, they - like the racing cars - come in a wider palate of colours.

The rabbit is actually a hare, and he's an old design, I have a polystyrene one from a probably earlier tranche of these, and a phenolic or cellulose/celluloid one clearly carrying a stop-watch, who must be the Mad March Hare, late for his very-important-date and possibly from an early (when did the book or movie come out? 1940's/50's?) board game, so this mould might have been inherited by whoever was behind all these.

I had already picked up a few of these over the decades, but due to the fact that this was one of several bags of capsule/board-game riders, they hadn't triggered a memory by themselves, most of the ones I've picked up in the past will be board-game rather than school lot, looking at the colours?

Transport; The little 'Lake Geneva' pleasure-boat was Bill's 'pick-up truck' memory, he could remember err . . . 'liberating' a yellow one from his primary school, and he's North of the Watford Gap, so it was clearly a common item in the late-1960 to early/mid-1970's inventories of LEA's all over?

The London taxi-cab is another which has seen service as a capsule-toy, and I have a clear-plastic one somewhere with a charm-loop. The Pick-up truck went with the five in the bottom left shot, but I've also managed to get some green ones from Adrian Little a year or two ago and another lot this autumn, so they are below now - this shot was the better ones in the June/July bulk 'school lot' this year

Back in 2015 I took these from an evilBay auction, I had bookmarked it intending to bid, but things intervened as they do and it slipped-by! I recognised the pick-up truck (it's like mine), so knew that at least the vehicles were 'right', but as the seller had two Wacky Races cereal premiums and several Crescent-for-Kellogg's Guards Band premiums in the lot as well, I still didn't make the connection with the other items!

This is how I remember the vehicles in our lot at Heckfield; all red with white wheels, and I don't remember our having had Land Rovers, if we had I would have stolen all of them! No! I would have had one instead of the pick-up!

But if I was nicking, and Bill was nicking, chances are everyone was helping themselves to their 'favourite' and with all the farmer's sons who attended Heckfield back then, the Land Rover's had probably been liberated several terms, or even years before I got my tiny little infant's hands on the tin!

Note the darker-blue for boats and taxis.

These were also part of the lot, again we have new colours; a herd of swine in the same orange as the one which we saw before (From Chris Smith I think?), a flesh-coloured racehorse, a dark maroon elephant matching one of my racehorses and - most obvious - the cats have now been given bases, or had they formally been based? I suspect the former.

The white elephant is a buckshee cracker/gum-ball thing, as may also be both the poodle and the two little green horses, but those latter two may be from these; now I know what I'm looking for I'll keep an eye out for them, building an archive of images to get a more definitive picture of what was sent out to schools at the time.

Funnily enough, I have that green horse - as a design - in two larger sizes equating to 30/35mm and HO-OO, both in hard phenolic resins, the larger size drilled for a wagon (or chariot)'s drawbar, so it's obviously an old, possibly just post-war, design from someone?

If it was Bell, then Merit (J&L Randall) might have been the supplier of these later ones? Although if one HAD to choose a name for the supplier's the obvious candidates would be Galt or Scotland's Thomas Salter I think?

A quick return to the vehicles, there are points of connection between these and both W. Germany (Jean-Manurba-Layla-Heinerle group) and KOHO-marked vehicles of similar size, along with Hong Kong copies, so there's another whole post there . . . maybe next year?

There only seem to be four vehicles in the line, a Series-1 Land Rover with slab-sides, the pick-up (Morris or something more American?) and two 'posh' cars, a Bentley type and a Citroën or a Cord Roadster - it's a bit Batman'y?

While red bodywork with white wheels seemed to be 'it' for years, other colours were clearly made, will probably prove just as common and can come with a variety of wheel-colours including a very pale blue - centre of lower shot, although - as you can see - black and white wheels seem commoner.

Final line-up for now, with the pinky-red and powder blue ones we've already seen, the darker blue in the feeBay lot maybe and other colours probably out there, there will be 15+ in the end, probably all the colours of the race hoses/elephants, and maybe black and white?

Which leaves the question . . . if you are over - say - 48'ish but under - probably around - 60'ish do you remember all these from primary/junior school . . . or did you have something similar but different? AND . . . did you 'liberate' your favourite!

A is for Alice in Wonderland III - "Curious'er and Curious'er" said Alice

We'll finish-off today with a more conventional figurine, which being of a human is more of a lifelike representation and less of the cartoon caricatures of the earlier figurines we've seen here today.

This is - I believe - from a larger set of figures (I think I saw a couple of similar ones on evilBay recently), not sure on a maker (possibly after a ceramic model by Goebel or from the Spanish company Palés) and there are no markings on the polystyrene model, which is decorated by airbrush through stencils, maybe originating in Japan?

I photographed all of today's figurines/novelties on Adrian's table ages ago, and wasn't really thinking about size at the time, I think this was a little bigger than the others at about 3½ or 4-inches to the 3-inches of the others, but you may be able to add an inch to all those measurements?

Again, definitely showing the lack of markings on this figure, I'm not suggesting anyone as maker beyond the above vague possibilities, the quality of the face is quite European doll-like in execution, the painting reminiscent of French composition/chalkware, although the gluing of the body to the legs/stand (too substantial to call it a mere base - I feel!) is quite like some of Hong Kong's production, so your guess is as good as mine, or your knowledge - superior!

Added 05-04-18 - It's a watch-stand, seemingly issued under both the US Time and Ingersoll labels - thanks to Matt for the heads-up and there's a link with his comment, Matt has the Alice in Wonderland Blog.

A is for Alice in Wonderland - II - Novelties

The other figure of 'Mr. Chamberlin' was a bit of a giveaway with his arse-written Hong Kong, but heay; it was a bit of a last minutes thing - which reminds me; apologies from any typo's over the Easter break, but I short of panic-loaded 11 posts over two days last week, while the cat's head was exploding - long story I won't bore you with, but suffice to say I learnt kitchen-paper doesn't soak-up much puss [euwww!] and he's fine now, but thinks the collar is an evil alien; out to get him!

Hong Kong 'Nodding-head' novelty, the difference between this and this morning's Marx figure is no greater than the difference between this morning's Marx figure and the Marx figure below.

Having never seen the movie I can't say for sure which of the three is closest to the movie imagining, or why the other two are so far off, I contemplated one of them being a different character, but they all have the price ticket in the top-hat, so are definitely trying to be the same chap!

A gratuitous shot of his feet, I shot this primarily to show it's unmarked (other that the rump-branding), so not necessarily made for Marx even though it looks like the sort of thing they were commissioning in the British colony, as the next piece [probably] ably demonstrates.

Marked clearly on the Dormouse's rump as being from one of the Hong Kong factories/suppliers; this ramp-walker - with the third distinct 'Hatter today - is in a polystyrene plastic and painted in the style of Marx's other HK stuff. Now the mad one has white hair (would have made a better Chamberlin - just not stuck to a dormouse!), but the nose is closer to the swivel-limbed one we looked at earlier.

Yet; he has a very different countenance overall? I'll look-up some movie stills before publishing (if I remember to read this in 'preview'!) and try and work out which is the more accurate, but I suspect the swivel-limbed figure from this, morning is the best likeness, being controlled by Marx in a US (or the Swansea?) factory, the ramp-walker is next closest having some Marx oversight of the contractor and the nodder -  an inaccurate, rushed HK novelty, not that they aren't all novelties - they are!

I rememebered - Marx swivel IS the closest (but the hair's wrong), the Hong Kong one is next, the Marx walker looks nothing like either of the movie characters, but has the closest hair!

A is for Alice in Wonderland - I - Twizzle Town'alikes

Not exactly Spaghetti Trees, I left the 'Hong Kong' on one of their arses for starters and problems with the paint thingy meant I couldn't get the moustache right or turn all the hair grey, but hay-ho, first attempt at an April Fool's, maybe I'll do better next year!

He was - of course - a novelty Mad Hatter from Lois Marx promoting the Disney movie Alice in Wonderland! The resemblance to the Twizzle Town figures from Britians is down to the fact that this type of 'animated flat' goes way back to the days of wood and paper toys, carried to both Marx and Britains through Japanese and German tin-plate.

The one on the right has the body the wrong way round, but shooting them in a hurry at a show I didn't have time to fix it. Also; while I wove a tale around out-workers for the gag, I think it's just a late version, sans paint.

The Mad March Hare, also undecorated and with that chocolate-brown head, looking both perfect for Easter, and more like the Nesquik bunny! You can see the Marx 'disc' on the red body in the right hand image, while the license message acknowledging Disney's property rights is occupying the same spot in the left hand shot.

More views through the looking-glass later.

PIOT is for Peace In Our Time

Happy Easter everyone, I thought we'd look at one of the least known corners of our hobby today as I happened to pick these up for less than a tenner in a charity shop the other day (I know, but those old dears have all the reference works out the back you know , and it was less than a tenner, so I did OK), and they are very hard to track down.

Neville Chamberlin's ill-fated trip to Germany in 1938 was rather brushed-over at the time, and all but forgotten in the heady chaos of 1940, and the shoe-in of Churchill to lead us in our 'finest hour' which became the prase-de-jour however, once Hitler had been dealt with and the threat from the East become more obvious, Chamberlain's ringing endorsement of dealing with strongmen was remembered for the first-class naivety it was.

By the early 1950's parents were regularly chiding their unruly children to bed with the threat of "Peace In Our Time with Mr. Hitler's ghost if you don't behave and settle-down quickly", Squaddie's going off to fight Communism in Korea scrawled PIOT on their helmet covers when the QM wasn't looking and then blamed each-other to get off RP's, while on Humberside striking Dockers even had rubber-stamps made-up in the tool-sheds to leave oxide-red PIOT's on mounted policemen's' horse's rumps during the less than peaceful ruckuses' that accompanied their Industrial Action!

So it's unsurprising to find that the nascent plastics industry soon adopted this cultural meme for the production of novelty figures of Mr Chamberlain with the offending letter he had waved all those years ago tucked into his headband.

The above figure (counting out the 'peace'es') has been credited to both Rafael Lipkin and Chad Valley, although - with its resemblance to Britains 'Twizzle Town' circus - I wonder if it was an early, undocumented experiment in polymer from the - then still - hollow-cast experts? The unpainted one (with body on backwards) could be a later issue but is more likely to be an out-painters cast-off, as unpainted he has no distinctive moustache?

Chamberlin was always depicted as a slightly lunatic character with his hair all over the place and the look of a childish simpleton in these novelties and by the time I was born (1964) the phrase was one every school-boy knew, but the cultural overtones had all but disappeared - along with the novelties - and it was just more 'boring' history!

This 'booble head' figure of Chamberlain (looking fruitlessly in the dirt for the lost peace) is in a phenolic or early styrene resin and could be Kleeware, early Airfix or whoever did the crazy-clown circus?

Nice to finally track them down and at less than a tenner - Bargain! Have you ever seen any readers?

D is for Dunby...Dunby-Combex-Marx

When I began collecting seriously (1980/81'ish) the first thing I realised was that information (accurate information) was key, hard to find and often misleading! At the time I was a specifically small-scale collector, and turned to Garratt's encyclopedia (available in public Libraries back in the day) which I read from cover to cover, taking notes on every mention of small scale and learning some of the 'trade shorthand' to find small scale that wasn't specifically mentioned as such by the author.

As a work, it leave a lot to be desired now, but then it was the only work of it's kind (in breadth it still is!), and while the historical/ metal entries were reasonably accurate, his own dislike of plastic and failure to keep on top of new production (something I'm guilty of...) meant the major errors were all in the new/plastic entries!

One of the entries was: Dunby Combex Marx Group. See Marx Miniatures. Turning to that cross-referenced entry brought you to one of his biggest mistakes, the MPC link one! It also suggested that the Swansea factory was the DCM connection and latterly (when he was writing) it was, but there had been a bumpy ride to get there. No matter, the point was I had added a page to my 'master list' along the lines of Dunby Combex Marx...may have made small scale figures, or copies of Miniature Masterpieces?

I then spent 35 years looking out for anything with Dunby Combex Marx on it! Earlier this year that wait was ended, but Dunby and Marx had nothing to do with it...the find was Combex only!

The box was pretty destroyed, so I've cropped out the usable bits, but basically it was a shop counter display box with a push-back lid with cut-out to make a half-oval backing display behind the open box's lose contents, and the contents were vinyl Disney figurines, probably shipped in from Heimo or one of the other European Marx concerns - despite stating the 'Manufactured in the Crown Colony of Hong Kong'.

The grubbier ones above have been added by me to show colour variation of the figures over time, and because now I have the box, all the similar figures can go in the one place!

So far so predictable, but the box also contained hard plastic (polystyrene) figures which were mercifully saved from the usual vinyl-to-styrene melting by dint of most items having full paint coverage. But it is an odd mix, with the duplicates I've not photographed there was about 50% Minnie, Daisy and nephews (all vinyl), 25% King John's (styrene) and 25% all other movie and short-film characters (mix of vinyl and styrene), with no Mickey figure as you might be expecting (sold first?).

As always with Marx, it further muddies the water rather than leaving it clearer. Were all the contents from HK, or maybe only the styrene polymer ones, were Marx (UK) shipping vinyl from HK while Heimo produced it over the channel?

The King John is a HK piece, he has 'Hong Kong  No 510' for a mark, but the Pecos Bill is a Charmore/Heimo piece - or known to be? Maybe the HK refers only to the box, rather than it's contents, or were the contents topped-up in-store by bags of similar figures - which were from Heimo? All the vinyl figures have the pin-release holes but no marks (Daisy, Minnie and Nephews) or only the 'Disney Productions'?

Anyway, they're all in one place now with 'some' packaging and I'm not looking for a DCM piece any more! Below are a couple of comparisons we've seen before here, but re-shot, to make the post more worthwhile!

Pecos Bill, old chalky Swansea-produced, UK ethylene on the left, HK styrene Disneykin in the middle and a vinyl (Heimo?) on the right.

Again the UK version is on the top, the two Disneykins showing how some had stickers with the Marx mark, some didn't and the new polystyrene large size, previous versions of this in my collection are vinyl.