L is for Lots of London Loot - Sandown February - Animals & Bits

Having had a fair number of the figures in the first post, and then the bulk of the vehicles, I thought I'd shove the rest of everything except the other figures up first and do them last! Animals, mostly horse-drawn stuff and some scenics!

 

Hong Kong hay rake . . . I guess that can be tractor drawn! Ornamental plated coach, might be a cake-dec', but I remember them being glued to ashtrays and those onyx table lighters, desk-sharpeners etc...War gaming naval cannon, maker unknown, a rather nice motorcyclist who could be a game playing piece, from a cheap railway figure-set, or a gum-ball/cracker type thing?

 

The wreaker-truck is a soft polyethylene copy of the Blue Box 'styrene copy of the original Matchbox 1-75 series die-cast, probably by Bluebow, or someone similar, there are several of those knock-off brands out there! And the horse team will be from one of the cheapo' wagons by Morestone or similar.

 

A couple of really nice-paint, early, British, plastic animals, which should be Cherilea farm for the foal, and I thought Charbens for the Giraffe, but I seem to recall looking it up before, and deciding it was Cherilea too!?

 

I bought these to check the three against the recent post on the subject here, and they are all duplicates, hay-ho, I also think the painted-eyes Poodle is Cherilea, but I don't know why I think that, and stand to be corrected for my vague-arsed assumption!

 

The (Timpo?) flocked Kangaroo looked better under the show lighting, he's actually a bit grubby, and it looks like fag-tar grubby! And he's a few bald spots, but still, a sample is better than no sample! The Moose is a reduced-scale copy of the old cereal-premium Moose, which was stolen from Lido I think? Green Scotties are a broach-badge, the Pigeon is Reisler, from Denmark, they liked their red-plastic! And I think the little Doe is Siku?

 

I may have a similar bag of these somewhere in the stash, but it may just be something I handled back in the days of sorting JB's stock, nearly twenty years ago! All I need is the coach now! I think it's actually only two mouldings of horse, and one rider, all duplicated four times!, but if I do find Paramount coach, I may attempt to put it all together!

 

This was a lovely find, we had the 'Japan' made ones as kids, one Christmas in our stockings I think, I remember an Elephant, Owl, Gopher, Squirrel and Hedgehog, I think, and these are clearly cheaper copies from Hong Kong, the Japan ones were better printed within the outline of the cut shape, and had one or two, little 3mm or maybe 4mm, googly-eyes!

 

The seller started to ask 50p for this and then just gave it to me! It's modern, and a dodgy piece of Chinese not-a-dinosaur! What drew me to it, though, was the similarities with both Möbius's Arzak / Arzach and the alien Tweak from the Judge Dredd story 'The Cursed Earth', with the now-banned burger-war pages! Although really it's only the nose which is Tweak's! Basically, when I saw it - it was so bad, it was good!

 

Two horses from Malleable Mouldings, the black one is OK, the white one will need work on the rear leg, both have been messed-up with home paint, I fear. I may try one of those ultrasonic cleaner tanks for the latter, and maybe hot-water first for the former, it's an early, not terribly stable 'styrene I think?

 

Three early German plastic buildings, which we have seen before, following the pattern of the old wooden Erzgebirge ones, a baby's high-chair, or lifeguard lookout from some Bluebird, Galloob or Mattel micro-playset? And an unknown shell, bullet or missile?

 

FG Taylor's farm cart, like the road-roller, a cross-over piece with metal wheels and plastic rest, quite common in this configuration, I think the all plastic one is the rarity?

 

Bits - Kleeware sub-scale garage-service-petrol station with roof parking for micro-cars, the standing platform from the late Corgi circus set and some foliage! The pale tree-stump is actually a sun-faded and very brittle tree which has lost its branches with a few 'snap!'s, but it was free!

L is for Lots of London Loot - Sandown Park, November 2024

Not much in this one, but I think we've seen some on combined posts over Christmas and the new year, some has gone in the long queue, as it was manufactured in the country of Trump's puppet-master, and we don't Blog them at the moment . . .

 

. . . and some more of the items in this folder were 'shot at' the show, rather than purchases, so I'll do them as separate posts, but there are a few bits of interest, so let's see some of what we got back in November;

A lovely Codeg (Cownan-de Groot) earth-mover, or wheeled shovel, it's marked-up to them, but would have been bought in from someone like Tudor Rose, Kleeware, Rafael Lipkin or another of the early users of polystyrene. The design is similar to one I have by 'believed to be' Manurba, and I've just picked-up a military one from Noreda, so a future comparison of plastic heavy-plant beckons from the archives! It's quite small, a nice OO-gauge railway-compatible piece

Seen before, and mentioned twice, I said last time we looked at these (https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2023/12/very-much-follow-up-to-this-old-post.html) I thought it had joined the stash, but obviously that was the Cheerio one! This has now joined the stash, so it is - following the language in the previous post - the six-and-a-half'th, with the KUM being the half!

 

A lovely flocked Timpo bison, given the passage of time, and the lack of packaging, we won't know if it was flocked for Timpo or by Wend-Al or someone for zoo gift-shops, and we probably never will!

 

These were fun, and odd, they would seem to be knock-off's of Tom & Jerry, the 'Tom' being a pink blow-mould, the 'Jerry's being solids, one with a bum-spike, one without (there's a clearly undamaged join-line), all three polyethylene, and my guess is they came, out of Hong Kong (or Japan?), with some larger novelty, possibly a tinplate or 'styrene vehicle, where they had different positions, or functions/jobs?

 

A vintage die-cast Midgetoy half-track, it makes the same mistake of one or two toy half-tracks, in depicting the M16 GMC Quad .50-cal, with the drop-down sides and cut-outs for the gun traverse, but without the gun. It does - as a/the toy - tow a small semi-fictional gun, which I think I have somewhere, but in the darker green!

 

I will thank Adrian again, as I suspect some of the above came from him, and if it didn't, other stuff at the show did. In fact, the helicopter and shovel both came from him!

H is for Hairy Horse

Just a quickie, found this, no idea who was responsible for the flocking, it used to be a member of the 'Old Guard' would tell you with some authority 'The' name, but we now know various people were flocking, or (Wend Al) moved into flocking, while it wouldn't surprise me if Prison Industries (Prindus) had a flocking unit?

Nevertheless, here it is with its unflocked, grazing progenitor, the Crescent (or whoever) flocked horse, probably as supplied to a single zoo or wildlife centre? It appears to be a two-stage process, with the pale-sand flock applied over the hazel, and the eyes dotted-in with ink? And thanks to all the donators to the Blog, at least one of these has probably come from Chris, Jon or Peter, if not both!

M is for Many Moulded Malleable Mammals!

Part three of Jon's big box brings us to the Mammals, although a bird snuck-in under the radar while I wasn't paying attention, and the rest are definitely from the Zoo/Jungle/Wild zone, farm and domestic will come later!

Big cats, 1 of 3, cheetahs and leopard'ish critters, I like the big cats but there is a tendency to use the same moulding for different cats, or just not pay much attention to the things at all, so while the Britains one is a 54mm leopard, also found in black as a 'panther' (melanistic leopard), the pair in the next size up look more doglike, as does the orange one to the right, he has quite a hyena'ish head/jaw!

There was a bit of a comedy involved in this image, as I shot what I thought was all five Cheetahs, then reshot 'all' six, before finding another one under the dinosaurs! The big, dark, stretching one (lovely pose) is Triple-A (the 'AAA' mark), the others, all generics, for now.

A pair of colour variations of the same toob' animals, and a larger one which is actually a lighter-weight than either of the smaller brethren, being manufactured of some slightly-foamed polyethylene?

 

Big Cats 2 of 2; hunting! They don't often bring down any but old, infirm, or very young, lost giraffe's, who otherwise enjoy a relatively blessed existence. The larger lion is a China-marked newie, the other, a similar sculpt, is an older Hong Kong toy.

The giraffes are three old HK's, probably from different tranches of the Corgi Chipperfield's Circus giraffe carrier, and two larger modern chaps, one clearly marked KS in a similar oval to Toy Major, the other a generic for now.

 

Three generics here, and the really big one is a Toy Major, probably from a pick-box/counter-display. And when I say 'Generic', the hope is a fair quantity of them will be attributed in the near-to-medium-future?

 

Smallies; seem to match each other with plastic type, sculpting, size, China-mark etc . . . and probably came together in a toob or small-tub, but sometimes the small ones are chucked into tub-sets with larger animals to make-weight, or add to the item count

 

Big Cats 3 of 3; The big orange beast at the back is a Toy Major animal, marked Cheetah! The cub to the right is another AAA, while the flocked guy to the left is just lovely, but of unknown origin, with no dinks or worn-patches, he really is sweet!

 

Three generic elephants, one of which was marked ELEPHANTCHINA and for a moment, just a moment, I wondered if I'd left it out of the prehistoric animals post! And, all three newish sculpts.

 

Thanks again to Mr Attwood for sending us these, they make a nice change from 'armymen', Wild West or space/fantasy, especially as we head into the Christmas season - Fleet had its night market tonight, nothing on the council or Fleet BID Faceplant pages . . . of course!

H is for How They Come In - London Show December 2022 - Mercator Trading

I try to always credit people where they've helped the Blog, given me stuff, or let me have stuff for peanuts, but equally, if I pay for something it's mine to do what I want with, without crediting anyone, well, it would be ridiculous to try and credit everyone you've ever bought from, even if you wanted to!

Equally, once the stuff has been broken down and sorted into the collection it gets harder to re-credit, you can't keep track of everything . . . you'll understand if I say I give a lot of thought to the subject, I wouldn't say I lose sleep over it, but I do always want to do the right thing! One wants to credit fairly, not leave anyone out, but not be over-patronising . . . it's a hard balance sometimes!

Adrian Little of Mercator Trading, often lets me have little bits and/or saves me a tub of the same, equally he lets me have things well-under their market value, but I will also pay full-whack for bits or ask him to get something for me, the last London show involved all kinds, but I did seem to come away from the show with a lot of stuff from the one table/seller/mate, so here's a post on all of it!

I actually ordered this in advance of the show, having watched it not-sell to several interested buyers at a previous show, and I wouldn't dream of telling you what I paid for it, but it was considerably less than the market rate, due to the damage to the collar and shoulder, but it's my first 'Porcelain Head' composition figure (and probably my last!), and if you're going to tick that box, you might as well tick it with an example of the head-honcho!

As you can see, he also has a moving arm, but it's giving the full, straight-armed Sieg Heil, not his commoner, strangely bent-wrist, flicky version which always looked like he couldn't really be arsed! And the podium came home with me too!

A interesting trio here, on the left a French Napoleonic figure which might be CL (Charles Lannoy), RF (Rene Fisher) or JSF? All the dongles (and the external hard drive I put them on so they'd all be in one place) with that info' are at the flat, and I'm not!

In the middle is my first Arjoplast from Belgium, the [ceremonial?] uniform escapes me (and my pitiful attempts on Google) but might be some administrator's uniform from the Belgian Congo/colonial era?

While the chap on the right is also a bit of a mystery; I'm pretty sure I've seen (may even have -  I've rather neglected the nappies here at Small Scale World!) a couple of Napoleonic French Grenadiers with the same base, but this chap seems to be another Belgian, except Google says paler-blue top and darker trousers, while I can't find the braid at all? The bearskin however is quite a likeness with the white drop/plume and star-plate, although some of the guards on Google have a side plume in red.

The rifle is toy-like and a separate piece glued into the arm.

While these might be new to hobby, are definitely new to Blog and could be New to Internet! Consequently I can't give you much of any use, but there's plenty to say! Not least that while two of them have damaged rifles, it is of no matter; when dealing with such unusual figures better to have a broken one than none at all!

The first one seems to be a copy of an old Elastolin or Lineol figure, and in that material could be mistaken for a poured resin or even 3D print, but I suspect a test shot, due to the remains of a runner's gate-mark, and a slightly resinous hard-plastic which is sort of semi-opaque. Could it also be Argentine? They did copy some composition in plastic.

The second feels like Portuguese to me, semi-flat or demi-rond, and silver styrene are both traits of their production as seen with Plástico Osul, and the Portuguese used the British MkI/II-'Brodie' helmet for the duration of WWII (and beyond I believe), so that's the clues for this one?

While the third has a different base to the silver one and a more rounded countenance, but may be from the same source, depicting a  neighbouring Spanish soldier of the same or similar 1930-60's era, but could be something else entirely, another South American maker, they liked their 'Jerry helmets' over there!

I think this might be the Apollo moon lander from the Hing Fat sets, we've looked at some previously here, but my sample has the rover and other stuff. Quite well done as it happens with a sticker detailing the stay-behind section's flat top and various plug-in retro'/maneuver jets and radar dishes.

While this . . . is not on Alphadrome as far as I can find, no one on Friends of Plastic Warrior could help, no one on Brian Heiler's facebook group knew anything, so again, possibly new to hobby, Blog and Internet!

Isn't it lovely! The arms move, but the legs are factory-glued, as two separate, pose-specific, left/right pieces, with angled feet to keep it standing up. The head is also glued and the paint seems to be original.

The closest I could get was the 'Dime Store' maker, the Ball Manufacturing Co. who had similar products (Captain Radar) - or the French Rex, who's spacemen could be considered close (they are also quite close to the British Christmas cracker prize spacemen), but both are pure conjecture.

I also tried - and failed - to nail it to a pulp-movie robot, but that's not to say my search was that exhaustive, and there were one or two similar beasts, so it may be based on a half-forgotten B-movie one?

Not new to hobby, not new to Internet! Boo! Looks like it's a Portuguese copy of a Spanish robot by Sel-Mac, but that would tie it in with my suspicions of Portugal for a couple of the other figures in that lot?

https://www.geocities.ws/robot_ole/selmac.html

and it WAS on Alphadrome, just not in the Robot section!

http://alphadrome.net/forums/topic/15347-sel-mac-robot-from-barcelona/

and

http://alphadrome.net/forums/topic/21254-vigia-del-espacio-robot-sel-mac-spain/

Still, it's all fun! And I may have the pistol, but I may be getting confused with either the MPC one (boxier, soft polyethylene) or the US gum-ball one - altogether cruder? Both of which I do have somewhere!

Some nice pieces here as well! Polish large scale and 54mm Napoleonics, the way things are going on the Polish blogs, and among the contributors to the FoPW Faceplant group, I'm hesitant to say PZG for either of these!

The base on the right-had figure seems not quite right for PZG, while I think someone gave a alternate maker's name for a different pair of the left-hand one the other day (but I can't find the post now, trouble with Faceplant is that stuff soon drops off the page with no tags!), although PZG did have a larger sized Napoleonic line, theirs had slightly larger bases?

The new-to-collection 'Toy Town' sentry box is all-wood and rather charming, the chick is composition or chalkwear while the stool is one of the most copied pieces out there; reappearing in all sorts of guises, from Marx 'Kins' window boxes, through those fairy-tail sets, gum-ball capsules, dolls house rack toys and charms, a Hong Kong- made bear's picnic, all sorts; this seems an early phenolic or 'heavy' styrene one - if you know what I mean!

The chap with the tyre is another Cararra slot-racing set figure, my fourth in a few months, after having none for years!

Two more of the Royal Armoury (Real Armería de Madrid) models from Spain, I love these, I don't know how many were issued, and I guess they sold well (as tourist souvenirs) as you often see them, but getting them in good condition is the tricky part - these both appear OK.

They seem to have changed the base/plinth design at some point, which may give completists at least two sets to find? Factory constructed plastic-kits, my guess is ten or more with three or four mounted and the rest on foot, they all seem to be from the main hall, which is the one that comes-up when you Google the Spanish Royal Armoury Museum.

Three interesting animals on the left; a flocked giraffe in reasonable condition, probably British but who did a giraffe with integrated base? The Western horse is heavy rubber, while the cart-horse has such good paint it might be repainted, but more info sought on all of them?

To the right, a couple of Reisler's; a sailor and an African soldier, and yes that's factory paint, I think they were around the time of all the Congolese trouble (??? It's still going-on, 70-years later!) and represent UN Peacekeepers from somewhere? A Betterware cowboy flat, MPC ring-hand cowboy with accessories and a lady wagon-rider from . . . Starlux? Reisler? . . . Polystyrene anyway!

This is a really nice crossover set from the all composition set we've seen here before with Mosquito fighters (now P-38 Lightings) and the later all lead sets with a smaller metal pilot, so very pleased to add it to the pile. Timpo planes and Zang for Timpo 20mm pilots, with the box missing but the card intact.

A handful of Hornby/Dinky Dublo figures (left-hand five) and Wardie/Mastermodels workmen (right-hand trio), with a driver from early Matchbox or Moko-Lesney? Lead for the Hornby's; die-cast alloy for the other four.

A Kellogg's 'Jig-Toy' flat-bed truck and Quaker cereal-premium racing-car join a lead motorcycle in the motor-pool, and - as is becoming a habit - I raided Adrian's cheapie-trays at the end of the show, the most interesting of which is probably the one at the front, who is a die-cast Mazac/Zamak alloy, he's semi-flat and around 28mm.

There's some good stuff above, and Adrian saved/gave some of it to me, and let me have some cheap, so many thanks to him, Mercator Trading always have top-end stuff, either on their website or on evilBay, and . . . guess what - the Plastic Warrior show is only four months away now!

H is for How They Come In - June 2021 - 3 - Chris

I bought something off Chris in June, possibly one of the items in the previous post, and although he'd sent me a big parcel a few weeks earlier, also included these with the purchace.

All sorts, of which the highlight is probably the three Wild West (top of picture) which look Polish (bases) but are probably French 'bazaar' figures, but not common ones? The flocked donkey next to them is cool, he's a mini blow-mould under the fur! The pale-jade French firefighter is probably another bazaar figure, while we had two paratroopers and a . . . in a minute on that one!

A small group of margarine premiums (top left) balance a similar sample of Commonwealth 'world dolls' except these are the later sub-piracies. And speaking of pirates; the big brown fellah is a Brabo 'Parafool' missing his chute-loop and waving a short-short cutlass! Various cake decorations and mini's can also be seen, along with an oversized copy of one of  Arco's smaller sized Rambo figures and a nice pile of Kinder bits (bottom right).

That other figure - he might be a parachute toy, but I suspect - from the locating studs on his hands - that he is a swinger, spinner or revolver! He's some kind of superhero, with a possible sun-motif on his chest, but it could just be a runner gate-mark or release-pin blemish.

I asked the chaps and chapesses on Brian Heiler's Faceplant group if anyone knew, but apart from a suggestion he might be a "...Palmer Scuba Diver figure or VooDoo", both of which drew a blank, there cameth-forth an answer none, so if you can help? He's also a bit 1950's pulp, rather than '70's Marvel/DC?

Cheers, as always to Chris Smith, for the bag of bits, all really appreciated.

L is for Let's Look at Some Quality Hollow-Cast!

Back to flocking flocked flockers . . . that's the de rigueur puns out of the way! I managed to pick these up a while ago, only bidder, which is good for the buyer, but slightly sad in the round?

Absolutely mint, they've no dirt, no bald patches, no smell of smoke or tobacco - a real treat. These are all poured-lead hollow or 'slush' cast metal animals, which have been flocked and sprayed with an airbrush or even a mouth blower? Details (eyes) pointed in with Indian ink in black or sepia and the elephant gets a couple of dibs of paint.

Here you can see the pink 'nose' and ivory tusks painted-in on the elephant, while the camel's halter-rope is a bit obvious 'under the skin'! The llama just looks a little tired. All three were also available without flock and - of course - would reappear in plastic. Just nice, fun things, with no guns in sight!

A is for A Little Bit of Silliness

Unless you worry about rubbish, in which case Wombles are very serious things!

I picked this chap up in a mixed lot the other day, I think he may have been Uncle Bulgaria once but he was beyond tatty, and it was either save him somehow or . . . off to recycling . . . sniff!

Now; I feel I have a close association with Wombles, my Granny made my brother and I very realistic ones in her craft group when we were kids which I still have somewhere; you often see similar really good unbranded Wombles in charity shops or on feeBay and I think they were all produced with the same plans/pattern by WI-circles and the like? They sometimes have sewn-in paper or card stiffening the ears! We had Uncle B and Wellington.

Also; we were big fans of the TV series anyway, and later we rented a field from the Author (Liza Beresford) who would sometimes chat to us over the wall while we worked it, so throwing Wombles in the recycling is akin to cold-blooded murder, ergo; 'Do something Muttley!' was the only option!

The flock had to go, I tried to save the scarf but it fell apart due to age! I saved the eye (2) and the nose (3), and would have replaced the missing eye, or both with glass beads, but the remains of his looking-glasses had such a long locating-stud (1), I managed to melt a bead on the end with a cigarette lighter (at the cost of heat-tendered finger-tips) and form a new eye. The key-ring chain-loop (⊂) was the last thing to go.

The scarf was then fashioned with a section of bootlace, which is looped through itself in the modern style and was held-tight and glued at the knot over-night, before being trimmed and the ends frayed with a hat-pin!

As there is already an Alderney ['she'], I shall call him Berlin and he can join the hard plastic ones we've seen in-part, a couple of times now, but - while I want to tick that box - I'm still waiting for an elusive Madame Cholet to turn up.

I suspect both these flocked blow-moulds and the similar-sized hard-plastic ones were HCF imports, certainly there were the remains of one of those little gold stickers on the underside of his feet, but it's a guess, not yet empirical.

G is for Gnomes G'down-under!

Also from Mr B, and also hanging around in Picasa, these were shot at a garden-center or tourist-trap gift shop, I can't remember which, in New Zealand while he was there a year or so ago.

Gnome-Gnapping! Who'd of though it? Two mechanical, near-nano robot alien froglingtons with their egg-shells still attached have grabbed an unsuspecting Gnome, in the middle of his break-fast and pushed-off with him over their wiry, metal-robot shoulders, and I used to want to move to New Zealand - it's clearly a madhouse of unrestrained crime and debauchery!

Meanwhile, and unbeknownst of their possible fate; a family of Gnomes wait for the staff to mow their grassy-clothes, gently growing in the warmth of the sun!

It's funny but you can see that passing potential customers pick the Gnomes up by their hats/heads as their flocking hasn't worn off, but the more people who pick-up the snail or hedge-pig the less likely they are to sell, as the tattier they get!

Do they have them (hedgehogs) in NZ - probably a pest of ground-nesters aren't they? They should collect them all up, and send them back here, ours are endangered! Also - that's one snail the Hedgehog isn't going to eat, it could smother him!

All larger items, included here to 'make' Ger'nome-day! Cheers Brian!

H is for How Many?

I thought my sample of Charbens Highlanders was a bit poor until I checked them against the Plastic Warrior special and found I seem to have an unlisted drummer and a 60mm flocked piper, but I still need to track down a Drum Major - you can't have everything!

The marching soldier; there's three poses here with rifle variations on the middle pair, a 60mm to the right and the original from a hollow-cast mould on the left. In the PW Special they seem to have two versions of that early one.

Pipes . . .

Again three types, the early hollow-cast to the left in three greens, the second 54mm type to the far right and the 60mm with flocked Busby second from the right. He's better painted too and would seem to be a stab at competing with Britains Herald on a more even footing? Or he may even have been used as a tourist piece?

. . . & Drums!

My drummer, I'm assuming he's Charbens as he's painted like most of the other Highlander's - Charbens don't seem to have gone in for stripes on their tartans much! Also the drum is similar to the Guardsman's drum; sort of a semi-flat sculpt? And - because it matches the lead version in Joplin's big book!

Close-up of flock-headed 'Peter' Piper! [That's a strangled-English, German joke for those who like their childhood-rhymes on the dunkle seite!] The flocking is quite thick and has a little white plume-remnant poking out of the top, so the flocking must have been done after painting - to prevent the red plastic showing-through?

The figure is a pantographic copy of the 54mm late version, although the base has then been pared-down to match, probably to fit existing bolsters or something technical like that! Chances are there are still some Charbens to find, both the drummer and Drum Major could have a possible two other versions, now we know the marching and piper have three each?

Although, looking at mine and PW's, I'd say there seem to be five marching variants; two 1st, two 2nd and a 60mm? Note also that all the first type (from hollow-cast tools) is marching off the right foot, left forward, the other versions are off the opposite step.