C is for Comics; Characters, Capers and Spain

I love it when a plan comes together by itself, or a post sort of creates its own momentum, this is just such a post and while we will look at little we will cover a lot!

Juan (Gog of Toys From the Past and the free, biannual, Action Figures magazine I mentioned in the week) had sent me the above a while ago, part in response to my previously blogging something he's sent me and partly conversationally in an eMail exchange.

The issue highlighted in the picture/discussion being that the figure on the left is a Heimo original (with damaged feather) of Robin Hood from the 1974 set tied-in with the Disney movie which I remember going to see in Godalming (when it still had a Cinema!), while the other two are bootlegs or 'knock-offs', possibly from Spain?

While it was intended to be used at some point, as a stand-alone image it got put to one side (metaphorically; in actual fact it sat on the laptop's desktop, where I have far too many folders and files!) against the 'rainy day' when it might get used.

Then at PW I picked up the King John, bootleg; not Heimo (left hand figure - it's a crown, not a cake!). So in so far as it went it was so far, so . . . so-so!

Not really enough for a post, but I've also been getting so much Phidal stuff that the Cartoon, TV and Movie - TBS box ('to be sorted') had reached crisis levels of lid-angle, leading to my constantly recovering self-seal bags of often quite uncommon stuff from between the joists in the attic.

However, following more cartoon characters incoming from the PW and Sandown shows I had a big sort-out and putting-away session, finding the other two figures in the course of my endeavors . . . "Ah-ha!" I thought, "Shoot these together and have a conflab' with Juan, I think" I further thought, so I did!

Juan kindly confirmed that the other two were Heimo (which was actually a slight disappointment as I was hoping one or the other might be either a knock-off or by/from Comics Spain - latterly: Comics Figuras).

As you can see, the bootleg-King John has a spurious, meaningless C (for 'copy', heehee!), the woman is marked © W.D.prod. (for Walt Disney Productions) and the foxy-looking gentleman is marked Appolo ©, with what looks like a remnant of a D, possibly a cavity mark?

The woman is called Medusa and is a character from a Disney cartoon movie called Bernard & Bianca (in Germany, here it was called The Rescuers I think), while the fox is called err . . . Fox (Fuchs) and is from a non-Disney set of Pinocchio figurines.

I'm going to guess here that Apollo may be/have been a German/European TV production company and that the figures are characters from a local kids TV version of the tale? Certainly the figure is ascribed to Heimo in the German guide, and the character has no other reason to carry Apollo on its base.

Then, this week, I got four bags of mixed shite from charity shops (the day after the road signs!) and a very interesting deep-sea diver (waiting for new camera!), among which was an actual, fully marked Comics Spain figure from The Muppets and . . .

. . . Bingo! We had a worthwhile post! We've also gone full circle as the post which lead Juan to send me the first image was a Comics Spain post!

By way of thanking Juan for his input both to this post and the Blog over the years, can anyone help him ID these? I know they are late Hong Kong or early 'China' era rack-toys (mid-late 1990's?), probably with dinosaurs and a palm tree or blow-moulded rock or two, but can anyone ascribe a set title or brand-mark to them?

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.

B is for Britians British Heroes...and Villains!

What IS the matter with Blogger? Having had us get used to loading images in reverse for the last three years, they suddenly decided to reverse them to the right order a few weeks before Christmas and have now gone back to reverse order...except the first image loads to the bottom of the stack after you press 'done' - it's enough to induce a coronary!

Right - this is arguably one of the best sets of toy/model soldiers/figures ever made in any material. Given that they are over 50 years old ('58 were they issued?) and had not the benefits of modern production used to such effect on some of the soft vinyl stuff coming out of china these days.

Sadly; there were only ever the five poses, Britains counting the horse as the sixth - they usually producing sets of figures in sixes.

Little John and Robin Hood, the Robin figure looks very young, a bit of a boy in fact, probably why Maid Marion fancied him - she just wanted to mother him!! There were at least two moulds for Robin (and probably the others), the most obvious way of telling them apart is to check the feather in his cap, which I did with an old archive photograph, here; Link to Post

I suspect that most of the mass-produced figures of that era had more than one mould for a number of reasons; expected take-up of initial release, popular figures, mould damage to previous mould etc...and Britains often left clues to the different moulds, the Rabbit Family - for instance - come as either a thin moulding or a thick one (with more bunnies ears). Hand finishing of the mould cavity by the engraver would be one way the tell-tale signs could appear.

Little John from a different angle and the Sheriff of Nottingham on a fine medieval charger, there were no other enemy figures and one suspects you were meant to use the Swoppet Knights as a supply of baddies!

Maid Marion and Friar Tuck make up the rest of this set and the detailing on Tuck with the swinging crucifix, fat belly, 'dressing-gown' cords, belt and such like is superb. Marion would make a good Cathy, wandering over the moors, hair swept back by the rain, cloak billowing in the wind and starey, dead-eyes!

They weren't so much replaced (gap of a decade or so) as followed by these guys, and I have to apologise for such a poor sample, I though I had a complete set of these with a paint variant of either the sheriff or Guy, but suspect it is a false memory of the time I got some sets together for customer orders when I worked for a dealer. Any way this is all there was in the box so it's all I can show, Robin and Will are damaged and the other two are missing their staffs (I think the Friar Tuck from Cherilea next post down has the remains of one!!). I shall replace the photo if I ever get a decent set.

Left to right, top to bottom; Little John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marion, Robin Hood

Sherriff of Notts, G...whatisname and Will Scarlett

25/07/2014 - Done! Turned out I'd never had them in my collection; several years ago I sorted out a dozen or so sets when I was working for a dealer as a client wanted a few, we took the rest to a couple of shows where they sold like hot cakes, so I made up a few more sets from the remaining stock. Realising they too would disappear quickly (which they did!) I photographed them, those photographs then became the first in a planned book on Deetail knights, as the book projects have now been spiked, the photographs will make a nice series of posts here in the next few weeks/months. I was going to do them as a page like the Khaki Infantry page (see top of screen), but with the Turks published the other day and Robin already here, I'll just feed them into the normal blog/homepage!

They are not that hard to get and I did contemplate looking on evilBay when I took these shots a week or two ago,but time hurries on. The full set was seven figures (to compensate for the original five!), being; Robin Hood, Will Scarlet, Little John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marion, The Sheriff of Nottingham and Guy de Gisborne...or is it 'du Gisborne'...da...die, dei, der, das...who cares - some poxy village in the depths of Normandy he thought he had regency over, where you can buy cheese on a Sunday and everything's closed on Monday - no doubt!

Alright already! He wasn't from over the channel at all; Sir Guy of Gisbourne, Gisburne, Gisborne, Gysborne, or Gisborn

This set was a well sculpted set, and while most of the Detail range was likewise, you get the feeling looking at them that the sculptor himself felt the weight of the heritage of the previous set as he sat down to produce these?

H is for Hood - Robin Hood

Dulcop were another foreign maker to have a stab at the iconic British hero Robin Hood. And as these figures were still available a few years ago are relatively easy to find, although I don't think I have a full set and with my Plastic Warrior check list/guide (authored by; Matt Thier) in storage, perhaps some kind Italian reader could let us know what's missing here...

From the left I'm assuming these are Robin himself, Little John (who needs to be taller!) and Will Scarlet, they are not particularly nice figures, being a little wooden or stilted, however the sculpting - in itself - is quite detailed.

Much the Miller's Son (?) facing-up to the Sheriff? This second, mounted figure is styled in a more European fashion and would maybe make a better El Cid or someone like that, indeed- he may very well be meant to be such a character?

Their 'enemy' are a bunch of knights in armour from a much latter period, and with only 5 poses in my sample/the photograph; I'm assuming again that there is at least one more to find?

Mounted figures from the same set, again I have no idea whether this is it or there were several more to collect, Dulcop are strangely under represented on the Internet!

M is for Miscellaneous

A bit of a follow-up on previous posts and some new stuff, which came about after a follower; 'Gerhard' from Germany - sent me a few pictures the other day...

These are both from him, in the upper shot a handful of the Mundi/Dunkin type animals we looked at, ooh....over a year ago now? New colours and they apparently came 3 to a bag from Tito, who seem to have generated a lot of these 'premiums'.

Below is a near full-set with the various Deer/Antelope that were missing from the original post so we can now compare them with the bag-art shown then.

The blue Bear (third from right - bottom row) and the brown Kangaroo seem to be from other sets/sources.

The Photographs have loaded the wrong way, but I can't be arsed to sort it out or re-load them, so this was going to be the last image (a bit of a 'round-up') but is here instead!

Three Bonitos tube tops, there were 5 in total I believe, and the full set can be seen in one of the Konrad books. Above them are some larger (nominally 54mm) Tom & Jerry character models, the First Tom from the left and the Jerry from the far Right are the common versions, made by Marx probably in Hong Kong for the Swansea works. The Jerry on a block of cheese, is not marked with a makers logo, but has the license info clearly displayed, he also looks as if he was designed to be standing on a pencil sharpener but there is neither a sharpener in situ or the hole for one, so I suspect he's more the sort of thing you'd find in a card shop like Hallmark or 'Birthdays'. The other Tom I used to think was a shrinkage variation but closer inspection reveals he's quite different, and may be a re-sculpt following damage to the original mould? Probably all Marx, just different sources, some may be for Swansea?

Below them is a Jecsan Yogi Bear from Spain and a Boo-boo from - I don't know where! He is clearly supposed to be holding an umbrella which is missing the parasol and looks like he could be Blue Box or Lucky? Might be Marx Swansea again!

The last shot is a Hong Kong Christmas Cracker toy using pirates of the Marx Fairykins Jack and Jill to produce a see-saw 'action' toy! The originals are the painted ones.

Apparently these are mostly Nabisco Foods cereal premiums, the four Flintstones characters to the right are from a more modern set, maybe a pocket-toy fold-away diorama/play set thing? The Disney Robin Hood set is factory over-production and a shed-load were doing the rounds of shows a few years ago.

One of the reasons I'm always saying this stuff is not rare is that once you've made the machine-tool/mould it's easy to churn them out until you're blue in the face, they then pile up at various stages of their life cycle...producer factory, packer, distributor, outworkers (if they are painted) etc...and depending on when or why they are withdrawn, you can guarantee someone will find a box-full 15 years later!

07-01-2013 - Both the above are now identified as Tatra mouldings.

More Tatra for Nabisco - I think (input on all the last four sets appreciated) with two Tito marked characters from the same movie at the bottom right. I though they were from 'The Lady and The Tramp' but apparently is something called 'Aristocats'...showing my age again!!

So there are a few curiosities from the land of food premiums, mostly 1970's or early 1980's, and thanks again to Gerhard for the images.