B is for Benevolent Buys - 2 of 3

This first shot was a bunch of things from a charity shop in Cranleigh, same visit as the Post Office and includes the deer we've already seen (I should pop over there again, it was a while ago!), while the others are more recent, but a few interesting things?

 

A ceramic cat fairing, I've picked-up so many of these I wonder if I shouldn't do the 'Shire Album'! In point of fact, the 'proper' ones have been done, and most of the ones I've picked-up over the years, are the cheap, unrated/discounted (by the serious/dedicated collectors) copies, or Japanese imports, so that's not a viable idea! I'll do a page here one day!

 

A resin otter and Phidal Marvel or DC character, a capsule-toy dinosaur, distributor obscured, the glass vitrine deer we saw the other day, two teddy bears, one generic, the other from the Noddy set which is slowly growing, along with an inclusion bouncy-ball.

 

That inclusion; it seems to be a cake decoration, with icing spike!

 

Undersides of the two bears, one in plastic and marked 'Noddy Subsidiary, Empire Made' with code and date (no, I can't read them either!), while the generic, probably also a cake decoration is chalkware, made of a plaster composition.

 

 

This was one of those strange moments of serendipity bordering on synergy, I'd seen the [marked] Peter Fagan (which is why I could 'believe' earlier today!) in Blue Cross, and left it as a bit daft, then went next door to the DEBRA shop and found the 'Sitting Pretty' trio from The Leonardo Collection (real high-street jewellers fare from Lesser & Pavey), so, it seemed dafter to not grab the one, and wizz back next-door for the other! Kittens . . . in satchels . . . on the Internet!

 

1987 for the smaller, 1998 for the larger, and I'm guessing, given some cats' love of bags, that this is a common trope among these ornamental 'collectable' sets of cats, so we may find more!

 

This came with one or other of the above purchases, and I don't think it's Jade, but one of the many false Jades which can be marbles, or quartzes/quartzites, maybe a greenish onyx? There is a sub-collection of reptiles in a half-shell, which we haven't really looked-at yet, but one day!

 

And there is another one or two of this type there, as they are always popular tourist mementos (there are elephants too, and we've seen a lizard here, I think), things made of the local stone, are forever anchored in where they came from, if you know what I mean? Much nicer than a poured-resin, puffin, fridge magnet with Camber Sands marker-penned on it!

H is for How They Come In - Charity Shop Backlog - 2022, 2 of 2

All the two's! Clearing the backlog of stuff down in Picasa's 1960, except for 2023! Slightly more interesting stuff for the purists than the last post, but it all has its place, and I make no apologies for any of it, unless I apologise first!

A rather nice two-headed dragon, I don't know who it's by, and it went to storage ages ago, but I think it's the same line as the black one we saw recently with the two different wing arrangements, so someone like Toy major maybe?

 

Another of the Jada die-casts, again I'm not sure of the franchise (so far all their offerings have been licensed) but it could be Roblox or Blockworld or whatever they are called, I liked it, despite its chipped nose, as it reminds me of the morphing-cubes robot in the water world scenes of Interstellar, the movie!

 

Seen before I think, some things do tend to get more than one outing now I'm shooting stuff for other platforms, my latest Fontanini on his chunk of Carrara Marble, and a bigger one at about 100/120-mil.

 

 

Nappies in various sizes, the one on the right is the fun one, it's a well [home-] painted slush-cast tourist statuette! The other small one is a 'figure painters' whitemetal figure, I don't know the maker while the ceramic is a fairing type, which was going for a couple of quid rather than some Meissen/Worcester type, but a fun addition to the growing side-collection of naughty Mediterranean (remember the rules of French Warfare) corporals!

This was a 50p jobbie, and worth the read, probably collected articles from a history magazine or periodical or something, not exactly in-depth, and not revealing anything which isn't in AJP Taylor or Liddle Heart, but maybe a tad-less jingoistic.

 

This wasn't that hard to pin down, the artist being revealed as Eija Seras, a Canada-based Finnish artist of the 1960-70's, but the base mark with the 'H' seems wrong (the 'E' is as she did it), so it may be a maiden or married name from one end of her period of productivity? If you google her, you find lots of chess-set pieces, this doesn't seem to be one of them, so just a touristy piece.

"Seras produced a range of Inuit figurines, hand sculpted from terracotta clay, in the late 1960s through the 1970s based on her four years living at the U.S. Air Force base in Goose Bay, Labrador in the mid 60s . The artist was awarded the Canadian Design of Merit citation in 1974 by the National Design Council of Canada for her native figures"

 

'How they came in'! I forgot to load this picture in order, and if I slot it in now I'll have to rewrite the blurbs on the other two, and I'm intrinsically idle, so that's a big, fat no! I seem to recall they were a couple of quid each, from the BHF in Farnborough. Really showing the superiority of plastic in certain situations, as seen by those, back then, who couldn't foresee the pollution problem careering down the tracks.

H is for How They Come In - Charity Shop Backlog - 2021, 1 of 2

Continuing to clear the charity shop plunder shots, I seem to have kept more up to date in 2023, but there's more from '21 and '22 to come, then I'd better start clearing the shelfies, or the Toy Fair stuff, or . . . !

 

A nice haul sometime in April, with three DVD's (I don't do television, there's little of merit on there now, and what there is, gets reissued as boxed-sets, I've just caught-up on Black Books and Spaced!), a British Museum dinosaur from Invicta Plastics, I have four or five now, and not one paid at evilBay prices!

Two nice WWII British softskin's from Oxford I think, a similar plane, I can't remember the provenance, and it went to storage, with most of this, back then, along with a bag of mostly modern funimals and a couple of Mini Bogglins! And I almost missed the pair of Chinese lions or 'Dogs of Pho', which will mage excellent photo-backdrops/props in the future.

 

A week later and I added another Invicta, being a better version of one we've seen here previously, also as a charity-shop purchase, I think? It turned out they were different shades, so I kept the tatty one for now, too!

 

I left this Schleich skinny Dinosaur (Tawa, issued in 2018) in the bag for now, I assume a blind-bag duplicate, sent straight to charity without being opened! Like Invicta, Schleich and Papo hold their value, however, they can be found cheap in charity shops, but not if the staff use "The 'Bay" to price, then they're all five or eight-quid!

 

Another mixed lot, with more viewing pleasures, some Phidal or Phadal-like (Disney stores?) and a ceramic cat. A bag of small 'ornamental' teddy-bears and I can't even recall what's in the bag, bottom left, but it looks like a mole-penguin-troll!

 

 

A bit of a question-mark over these, I'm assuming some sort of board-game pieces, or even chess-set pawns, it's the snake from the Jungle Book, 'Kaa', and I don't think they have much age, there were both a restored re-issue of the original and a new version released in the last few years, and it will be tying-in with one of them? The 1, 3, 4 numbers are probably just cavity marks.

Finally, a catapult pencil-sharpener and another ceramic cat, probably a fairing, the catapult being a Hong Kong copy of the old Spanish Play Me one.

ITMA is for It's That Man Again!

The hype has been growing for a week or two now, with the BBC's Radio4 and World Service both covering a certain new movie more than once in the last few days, it's all about some Corsican chap 'Blownapart', from the Wellingtonian period, who did something notable, or infamous? And the talkie-format, moving-picture presentation opens worldwide, today!

He's been modelled a few times, indeed we've seen him here before, so often, he has his own Tag (yeap, it hurt!). And here we have a large fairing in the centre, flanked by two substantial home-painted model soldiers on plinths, in the 80mm bracket.

 

Then the smaller front row, around 54/60mm scale and from the left . . . 'Metallion' of the younger artilleryman, two French-made Jim, a JSB from Belgium, Hong Kong's Blue Box (courtesy of Chris Smith's forthcoming donation-plunder posts), another French plastic (Acedo maybe, or Cofalu/x, Guillbert/Clairet, someone like that?) and a faux-antiqued tourist piece in slush-cast base-metal.

 

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

 

On the subject of the title, for foreign readers; ITMA was the moral-boosting comedy sketch-show on BBC Radio from 1939-49. We lived, for a while, next-door to Clarence Wright, who had retired to Alderney, he played several of the well known characters, among whom were the Commercial Traveller and the Man from the Ministry, and I had the pleasure of chatting to him on several occasions, when he would tell the most irascible stories, which I couldn't possibly repeat here, even if I could recall them, but I remember him as a thoroughly nice man.

M is for Mawkishly Meowy Moggies!

A bit of non-Toy Soldier self-indulgence today, but it is Christmas and if I can't post this sort of stuff at this time of year when can I?!!

I found - at the back of a cupboard - that I'd inherited a rather Disneyfied mug with two cracks in it, as I wouldn't normally give such a pinkly sentimental piece house room, and as the finishing of any drink in it would result in two ceramic ears butting your forehead, it rather had to go. But it was loved enough by my late Mother to be kept at the back of the cupboard, so the overly-sentimental Hugh thought something better be done to retain the memory, for another decade or two, gods willing, at least!

A sharp blow from a heavy kitchen knife seemed to be the likeliest move, so placing a folded towel on the floor and kneeling over it I'm afraid I gave kitty a bit of a sharp whack up the jacksie with said implement, which worked a treat! Glued over the glaze with a bit of slip, the slipwhere kitten popped-off with barely a scratch.

I then filled her (pink bow?) with tiling-grout, let it go off, causing it to shrink back into the hollow/cavity, repeated the exercise and gave the rough finish a bit of a carving and filing.

Ergo; one slightly surprised looking, pink-bowed, all-white kitten joins all the genuine fairings and 1950's 'mantle ornaments' in the cat zone of the collection!

Where she will be joining - among others - these Charity shop, 50p jobbies! Three chalkware (mother-cat needs replacement eyes) and one ceramic of the Siamese type, these have been in the queue since 2016! Siamese's were very popular when I was a kid, you don't seem to see them so often now.

Back when the motorway network consisted of the M1 and A1(M) and getting round the top of London involved long journey's through Berkshire, Buckinghashire, Bedfordshire and Essex (where you raced from traffic jam to traffic jam!), there was a house somewhere which had two straw Siamese cats sitting on its thatched-roof, I sometimes wonder what happened to them? There were others, one gatehouse had a peacock, another cottage had several foxes!

The ceramic one (right) was made in Sussex (but not the famous Joan de Bethel 1923 - 2017), while the chalkwear examples (left) are just 'British Made', all seem to be cheap, smaller attempts at the better known and more sought-after Goebel or Winstanley Siamese's? Which is why they are 50p, not 50-quid!

That's it, something more acceptable to the hardliners later!

B is for Bisque Basket-Bearing Bounty-Bringers from Bari

One of the towns associated with Saint Nicholas, who I think may be the central figure in these shots! Held over from last year, this is a quickie, the lights are up in town now, the crimbo stories are starting to creep into the news, and, heay, what the hell; let's get festive.

Bisque figures around 4½ inches, so a bit big for cake decoration, but also not the thing for a nativity, so I guess fairground fairings with a seasonal twist. Charity shop purchase and they had a whole box of them, the sort of box traveling showmen might have under the hoopla counter to replace those won, or damaged in the trying to win!

As I said, the chap in the middle has more the look of a Bishop, and while not a medieval one, certainly a historical one, so I guess it's meant to be St. Nick the Real, rather than the four minion santa's he's flanked by, each of whom has a basket full of gifts and are obviously St. Nick the Sintered Fictional!

They're nice, mint (I went through the whole box to make sure I had one of each available and that they were good) and were not many pennies!

H is for How They Come In - Eclectic Lot!

I haven't managed (read; wasn't bothered-) to get up to town for a couple of weeks so these are from about three weeks ago? And only a few pieces from three different shops, to make an eclectic group of odds!

The lightweight foamed-resin flamenco dancer and the china fairing of a Wellintonian officer were from British Heart Foundation in Farnborough I think, she being similar to the Reamsa one, he needing a plume-repair, the three little ones were from a rummage-tray in Scope while the ELC knight (another one!) was a shelf-jobbie in BHF Fleet.

From the other side! It's all grist to the mill, literally, the amount of stuff out there means that no one can have everything, but the wider the net is cast the bigger the picture that can be drawn-in!

All marked Hasbro, the hound doing a Ghostbusters impersonation came in only the other day - hence my grabbing the two boys when I saw them - either from Charity or from Peter or Chris, I can't remember now, but it means I've probably only got the two girls to find . . . maybe some 'monsters'? That is; evil, humourless, money-grubbing, local conservative types dressed as monsters!

I love the magnified eye painted on the glass!

Later the same day - err . . . no! The Hound is doing a Sherlock Holmes impersonation, it's Shaggy who's channeling the Ghostbusters!

F is for Fould or Foulds Figurines

I am around, just been indulging in real-life (how selfish!) and this week I've been busy over on the Airfix blog, adding stuff!

This is all I know about these figurines;

Edgar Rice Boroughs E'zine...scroll down about half-way.

But...I'm not even sure that's right, I mean; clearly the figurines go with/are for the toy theatre, but I can find nothing else about 'Fould' without an 's' and the order-form in the link isn't enlargeable to check spelling. As I have squirrelled away all sorts of stuff over the years I know that a company called Foulds & Freure (with an 's') were importers of Japanese and European toys (to America) between the wars, I suspect these (the link's subjects) are them? There's nothing on either name in Garratt.

The figures illustrated above, will be originals. probably from Germany (?), and are about 8 inches high, hollow, slip-cast bisque (or;Parian Porcelain) mouldings in the style of Fairings, which they may well have been issued as over here...there..Europe. Doh!

29th Jan 2015 - Paul 'Stads' Stadinger has sent a link with further information....

Hakes Dot Com

Thanks for that Paul (both Pauls!)., and it's a different Foulds altogether, in fact it's Gem Clay...when it's not Heinz!

"In 1932 the Gem Clay Forming Co. produced a series of Tarzan plaster statues which were offered by various sponsors ........ The insert sheets/sets varied for the different sponsors. One side features images of the 10 numbered statues along w/color chart and offer blank. Opposite side advertises Foulds/Heinz products. The main difference is the statues offered. Most are same from set to set, with a few exceptions. Foulds offers "Three Monkeys" and "Witch Doctor" statues while Heinz offers "Kerchak The Ape" and "French Sailor" statues and sheets have different layouts".