C is for Ceremonial Roundup!

I picked up and shot these first two the other day, and thought it was a good excuse to get a few of the 'odds & sods' images out of the Ceremonial folder and share them with the Loyal Readers, no particular theme, but I left the Spanish, the Cossacks, the Majorettes and others in the folder, so we're looking at UK production of UK figures, even if some came from Holland!

 

So these are the new additions, a second sample of the maybe BR Moulding/maybe Hilco kneeling infantryman of the Victorian era, I'm not sure if it was in the BR mould-list? And a Sacul drummer, the Sacul sample is growing slowly, a few others have come in, and I am looking forwards to shooting them all together!

This was sent by a loyal reader back in 2021, during a conversation about either Sacul, or unknown guardsmen, which I was thinking were from the Crescent sculpt, because of the epaulettes, but as pointed out it's the Sacul moulding.

 

And, further, the correspondent pointed out that the smaller drummer (second from the left) was probably also Sacul, issued as a drummer boy? The unknown is next and another probably Sacul forth, with the common Sacul varient on the left. And, if I recall the conversation correctly, the feeling was that all four were probably Scaul, with the [3rd] nylon'y one being maybe a late issue, early 1970's?

 

These were all sent to the Blog by Theo van der Werden from the Netherlands, back in 2018, again as part of a conversation on his - then - recent purchases, and because I'd covered most of them, I sort of filed them, with a bunch of other stuff, anyway here they are, three Britains 54mm and some nice examples of Cherilea 60mm types.

 

I really like the lifeguard (upper pair in middle image), he's a very unusual toy soldier, being that sort of late Georgian/early Victorian uniform.

 

We've seen better here in the past, but they came in with some mixed lot, or another, and the shot shows the three poses of Gemodels in the less common Horse Guard's blue colourway, which happens to be my favourite! Note also the two distinct shades of blue plastic.

Having mentioned BR, these are now known to have been issued as part of their home-moulding exercise, and here are three very different treatments of the same pose, with a hard 'styrene on the left, odd-coloured, unpainted polyethylene in the middle, and a marbled pinkish one on the right!

 

Finally, also a bit tatty and from some bulk lot, are these; four Herald and a Zang original (larger figure to the right) of the highland infantryman of the late Victorian era, just before the switch to khaki uniforms. The four on the left are not rare, and I may well repaint them one day, if I ever pick up that eye-glass prescription!

 

While (finally finally!) this is a 'seen elsewhere' shot from the archive (and from another folder, 2008) and shows what other bugger's can achieve with a bit of paint on these figures, four of the later Herald in a variety of late 19thC/colonial era uniforms, original on the right. It may have been on the Blog before?

 

There's lots of this kind of stuff in about 30 folders, and I'll try to get some more cleared in the run-up to Christmas, many thanks to Theo and Anon for the images indicated above.

M is for Merry Mass of Malleable Model Mayhem! 9 - Wild West

So, we reach the end of another fantastic donation from Chris, and in the end I got it down to nine posts, not that I try to minimise it, but I tried to go for an 8/9 images per post, to keep it interesting, and today, it's the Wild West.

 

Two of the lollipop figures, and I think one French, one Polish? The other yellow one seems to have some contention in that I showed one pack, and someone else recently posted them as something else, while the painted cowboy is from the Bucking Bronco magnetic novelty of the 1950's.

 

And we have another Blue Box character figure, I think he has a damaged bow, but a 'styrene figure, sold singly to scud-about in the bottom of a biscuit-tin or cigar-box with everything else is bound to get damaged, so if you have a whole one, I suggest you're a lucky chap/chapess? And it's from the 12 known poses, not the mythical 31, still up there as a falsehood!

This was in the 'Bulgarian' bag, and if it isn't another iteration of the old Britains Hollow-cast Colonial/Yeomanry-era cavalry horse! The Indian may not go with the rest, but I think he does, same plastic, and he fits, he's just got shorter legs?

 

Small scale to be sorted another day, but items of interest are to the right, with foot figures, Blue Box bits, a home -painted tee-pee/tipi and the hard plastic roof guard from a die-cast metal stage-coach I always forget the maker of, but hard to find with the rifle intact, and in the less common brown plastic - they're usually black.

More of the Crescent/Lido family, we had a good look at them once or twice recently, and there are three different sources represented here, marked, unmarked and a soft 'ethylene one, so they will get sorted into the main and revisited in the future.

 

Three probably French bazaar types from two sets on the left, with three of what I used to call Culpitt's on the right, but we now know they are also, or can be Jouets Super Plastic set from France, as almost certainly supplied by Injectaplastic, while with the animals Azur, Prior and Rena also become involved, and a further chapter involving farm and circus, with another branding, is growing in a folder in the long queue.

 

Hong Kong copies of Gulliver (Brazil) copies of Atlantic (Italy) figures, scaled between the sizes of the Italian originals!

 

Mixed lot, all interesting with a Hong Kong sub-scale rider, I think I have a spare stubby-horse for him somewhere! A larger copy of the Airfix/Tudor Rose et al rider for the old Britains horse seen above from Hungary, Airfix and Britains piracies of enough merit to have their own zones, and a hard-plastic horse we will be returning to soon.

 

A hard polystyrene canoe with is clearly marked Tim Mee so I'm assuming its Timmee Toys but I stand to be corrected by one of those more knowledgeable, yet normally less vocal than myself!

I can't recall if this was in the Hungarian bag, or is just another Hong Kong piece, but rather unique with the rod-stand, and obviously a copy of a Britains Herald piece, it's a lovely addition to the stash?

 

As is this! How fantastic is this? Obviously a Christmas Cracker/'Gumball' novelty, with a lenticular picture of a chap struggling with a bucking horse, just a lovely thing to be sent, free, in the post. And an amazing survivor of the . . . 1970's?

And this is Chris Smith's third parcel this year? With two lovely ones from Brian in the 'States, while Jon Attwood sent four huge ones which were really five, because two were taped together! Peter Evans has sent half a dozen bags of bits and brought more loveliness to shows for me. John Begg, Adrain little, Gareth Morgan and others have saved bits for me, or put interesting things aside to give me 'first dibs' and it's difficult to get across how grateful I am to all of them, but believe me, I know and appreciate how lucky I am to have that much support, when I have so many apparent 'eemies'!

 

Cheers Chris, another parcel full of beautiful things, interesting things, quirky things, funny things, rare things . . . I'm very grateful.

H is for How They Come In - Hairy Hutch Herd

I saw this lot going for a song on evilBay a few months ago, I put in a bid fully expecting to get sniped at the end, as it was obviously a good lot, forgot all about and won it for a song including postage, which I relate not to show-off per se but rather to illustrate that bargains are out there - every day.

My Mozilla was playing-up earlier in the year and I couldn't get hover-enlarge or 'view image' to work in some ('most' for a while) feebleBay lots, so this is a very low-res' version of the original, but it's enough to show you how they looked, and also why they might have been ignored in the search results, busy backing-cloth leaves it looking - in 'thumbnail' - like a bunch of white blobs . . . i.e. Hong Kong crappy-rabbits!

I also can't remember what the description header said but it was something like 'lots of plastic toy rabbits' so it should have peaked interest? Actually . . . looks back through own feedback record . . . "plastic farm series of very small rabbits and cats - really small and quite rare", so no reason to not pique interest!

Probably the best of the bunch; four Britains rabbit families, all ears present and correct and it makes you wonder how many variations of this sculpt's painting-v-plastic colour there were? the dun-plastic family (middle left) have lost paint, the white-plastic family at the back are factory fresh and note the thin ears of the forward family suggesting more than one mould cavity.

Also Britains; grazing, alert and ready poses (we saw the running one here at Small Scale World, earlier today - this was originally going to be the second post today for that reason/connection!), and again a lot of variety between them.

From the left I think; Cherilea, Timpo pair, minor make (Taylor I think, or Barratt) and another Cherilea, both the Cherilea's are huge, while the white one is a bit of a blob - from hollow-cast! I have somewhere a damaged Timpo sitting-up, which I converted into a passable Gopher!

Hong Kong rabbits from a handful of sources and in various poses, mostly common, the family are based-on, but not straight piracies of the Britain one and the single crouched one (centre) is quite nice.

The rest; another Britains family, which is only conversion fodder, a tatty HK one and the three feline subjects, a Barratt cat (minus basket and kittens), the Timpo pair with ball (we saw a PVC version here before courtesy of Chris Smith), with a Britains lying cat, sans tail (Manx!).

I have more cats and rabbits elsewhere, so when these are finally sorted into those with a few others, we'll revisit both and look at them in greater detail.

W is for Well . . . Follow-up to the Follow-up

Barney Brown of Herald Toys & Models sent these in case I didn't mention them in the follow-up to wells; which I hadn't, not only that but I had presumed the Taylor was from the hollow-cast mould and fingered Barratt as possible source of one of the two unknowns!

The truth is Barratt & Son inherited the T&B mould and FG Taylor's is the much copied version, although I think heavy cross-bar notwithstanding, the Speedwell is based on this - 'this' being the Barratt one!

This is the lead original, although the company is known as a hollow-cast producer, items like this are more traditionally made, poured-lead 'solid' castings, this is a cross-over piece with a plastic roof on a metal body, so is probably 'Barratt' rather than 'Taylor & Barratt'?

Production was eventually all-plastic and here is a later one with polymer body and roof, but still with a metal bucket and wire winding handle. You may have noticed - before reading this far! - another piece of plastic, on the bottom of the moulding? Well . . .

. . . I think this well is the first of the wells we've looked at, which is designed to hold actual water? The 'cap' is manufactured from neutral granules, is semi-transparent and can only be there to provide a seal so that water can be poured into the mould . . . how cool is that, it was the 1950's after all!

Many thanks to Barney for (what are very good-) images and the data, I'll update the other two posts to reflect the new information with links to here.

Previously;
Original Post
Follow-up Post (post below this one on the page)

G is for Get Shorties!

Or; F is for Follow-up - ABC Marines

Chris Smith sent these two to the blog, and they are well worth the sending . . .

This is firstly his versions of the ones we looked at the other day, to the left of the rank (first three figures), but to the right are four smaller sub-piracies who have had white gloves and trousers in the past, while retaining black-belts, so clearly close-in hand-to-hand combat experts, all four of them, lovely find!

While here we see them in new colours, but the smaller sub-piracies again; note the different reds of the far-right chap's arm-v-body. This is really what collecting's all about, Swoppet knights? There's 97 lots of them on eBay right now - half mounted, several with tags/packaging - they're not rare, just nice!

But if anyone finds these between now and Christmas, send them to the Blog because they'll be as rare as the above figures and we'd all like to see them!

Cheers Chris, definitely not box-ticking!

USMC is for ABC Box Ticking!

It's one of those things isn't it; time moves on when you're enjoying yourself! This, as a smaller post might have published a couple of years ago, I took the first shots within days of getting the storage stuff into the garage, two Augusts ago, but I didn't know what to say about them, then I lost the images, then I took a couple more (or found one in Picasa? I have this habit of forgetting I've shot something and shooting it again!) but wasn't very happy with them, only for someone; Blood, Pugh or Shalatain (?) to publish them in Plastic Warrior magazine (link), so the post got put on the back-burner, as if it wasn't there already!

I'd always thought of them as RAF regiment, despite (and indeed - ignoring) the fact that they kept turning-up with white trousers! But the contributor to PW (. . . it was Jack wasn't it, Jack Shalatain, who also showed some lovely pith-helmeted colonial Infantry read-coats, which I haven't found yet) made the connection (as I suspect other people had, while I wasn't listening . . . JB?), anyway, that was them and there's not much else to add, but I have found a few different ones over the years and can stake a claim for the 'Rock Apes'

The original of shot on the left has vanished, but after I'd done the collage, so it's been left in a folder somewhere, or accidentally moved to another, but it's definitely my laptop they are shot on! They are re-issues and could be quite recent?

On the right are two newer shots with base variations below (we'll return to in a minute) and paint variations above. There are two iterations of unpainted (who can be RAF regiment as they aren't dark-blue enough to be № 1 Dress), with the US Marine Corps to the right.

Second to last was always an anomaly (there's more, I just tried to pick the better ones for the shots) as he has a red cummerbund and trouser stripes, and looks like an inaccurately-painted Colour-Sergeant from the British Army, the cummerbund intending to be the cross-sash in heavy red linen?

Then, recently this chap joined the fold, he is similarly marked, so I think at least one issue tried to represent a British regiment in № 1 Dress uniform, but with the wrong blue? As the original Britains USMC in hollow-cast would pre-date the RAF Regiment's creation, I assume they were pirated from the American Marine sculpts though. And the marines (US) have all-blues but with a white hat . . . home-painting could do a lot more with these figures!

There are two main base types, the ABC, and another which may be a separate company running alongside, or just blank base inserts for ABC to use on contract-production. The arrowed two are the ABC lozenge-marked ones, while the other have a similar MADE IN HONG KONG but smaller and closer to the rim of the base - the ABC's quite centralised with the lozenge below the message.

Both have a US Marine painted version and an unpainted version, but the red-trim guys are both of the second, non-ABC version? All have the swivel-arm of the original hollow-casts.

M is for Military Mystery Men

I really, really, REALLY thought I'd posted these, in fact I thought I'd posted them more than once, but I can't find them anywhere on the blog (except a relatively recent distance shot, in a 'Forthcoming' post) under the correct tags (Comet, Eriksson, Spencer Smith and/or Timpo, nor 'Motorcycles'!), so without further ado; let's get'em up'ere!

I think I must have thought about posting them once or twice and written the blurb-bits in my head, leaving me with a false memory (or false memories!) of having posted them, when I hadn't?

Anyway, here they are and they are brittle, polystyrene 'kit' plastic, in a much darker colour than the flash has rendered them here! Most of the other images are truer to the eye, but not the last one (bottom) which was taken in the same circumstances as this one.

They are relatively unusual and an odd mix as we have a semi-flat running G.I., a fully-round kneeling firing Tommy Atkins and a very generic motorcyclist who's more civilian racing scrambler!

The sources are therefore as eclectic as the finished group and we'll go from the left in the previous image, which means the kneeling firer here first; he's taken from Timpo's WWII figure, and may well have been taken from the original hollow-cast rather than either of the later plastic issues we looked at here, they having copied they own hollow-cast moulding!

The running chap is taken from a common (and much used) pose/sculpt (or should that be sculpt-pose?) from the famous figure-sculptor Holgar Eriksson. Seen here compared with the diminutive Spencer Smith's, but also used by Comet-Authenticast, Comet-Gaeltec, SAE, Tradition and probably others, it can be - and is - many nations with head/webbing swaps, or the addition of a frock-coat and bi-corn hat, and the match illustrated isn't completely identical.

The third member of the 'set' which I had remembered as four (they've been in storage for a while) and may be more, it this motorcycle, again it seems to have been a common design back in the 1950's (or even late 1940's), predominantly for board-game pieces? Luckily I have found all three 'junk' lead and unknown Hollow-cast boxes in the garage!

You'll see the best match for the front-forks among the smaller trio, is the green one, but the head of the pink one is closer - they are very play-worn, very soft lead. A lack of fettling has led the larger red one to look like one of those Bisque imp-devils for cake-decorating, but closer study reveals several similar key-signatures . . . actually closer study suggests he is meant to be an Imp? Pointy ears?

Further I have a note to the effect that the trio are 'similar; to an Agasee home-casting mould (166? I've already put it away!), which is important for the rest of the narrative, and as I haven't found the Agasee catalogue yet and the red one has come in since, we may find it (Imp), or the plastic one, are actually closer to - or from - the Agasee mould?

Now known to be from Glevum Games 'Dirt Track Racing' game.

These were sent to the Blog by Chris Smith the other day (prompting the fruitless search for the originals on the Blog!), I think they are all polyethylene and we find, as the fall-out from the BR Moulds revelations in Plastic Warrior magazine gathers momentum, that there are lots of these figures out there, who have come, not only from that set of moulds, but from other, poured-metal or hollow-casting (?) sources.

Off the top of my head we have here an ex-Agasee bren-gunner based on the Hill/Johilco pose (inset - from Joplin's 'Big Book of Hollow Cast') of the same hollow-cast pose; another of the Eriksson runners, but this one with an apparently different base; landscaped and wearing the Authenticast 'ears' and a sling - but mine may be a short-shot version of the same tool, I don't think so though; more likely Chris's was the donor for my simplified cop-of-a-copy? While the MG gunner is ex-Britains too, I think, with that ammo-box sticking-out the side?

The point being made here is that a lot of the figures previously credited by some in the Old Guard to Hilco, Charbens or 'Early Cherilea' . . . err . . . aren't! They are in fact taken from either the newly discovered BR moulds, or home-casting moulds, or pirated from Hollow-cast figures/production, either by smaller commercial outfits, or industrious individuals/hobbyists.

The three (prone MG, rifleman and Kneeling GI) I put on the Khaki Infantry page (and sent to PW (issue 156) are now looking more likely to be Trojan than when I first suggested it, while the ex-Airfix para' almost certainly is, as Trojan probably helped themselves to a set of BR's moulds! To them it would have been investing petty-cash to write-off against tax . . . ?

The mould for Chris's Bren-gunner, it's a home-casting mold, but if jigged to fit a single-shot hand injection-moulder (as still used by Peter Cole at Replicants) it could produce a number of figures without distorting as the pressures built-up by such an appliance are no greater than the weight of a body on a bottle-jack, the trick is probably more to keep heaving until the extremities have formed, to prevent short-shot 'blob-ends', than to be releasing the pressure early to prevent damage to a solid-metal mould!

I believe some of these moulds were Zamak/Mazac alloy, so pretty tough, and while a modern six-second-cycle, fully automated injection-moulding machine would probably blow-them apart in less than a minute; that's not how they were done back in the day. Some however were softer whitemetal, and wouldn't last long before deformation? So, yes, it's in the Hill catalogue, but that doesn't make it Johillco.

I don't know if it's specifically an Agasee mould, and seem to remember being corrected last time I mentioned them as they were mostly importing someone else's moulds, but there were other mould-makers supplying home hobbyists (Gilbert and Schwarz spring to mind), often with variations of the same sculpts - the modern home-casters use the output to melt-down for new lead and few of them are in Joplin's big book - the 'BMSS & OTS guys' just don't rate them.

The bases of mine, there are no marks on mine, nor on Chris's, nor the commoner prone/kneeling figures, nor the guards and highlanders now attributed to BR, nor my funny little Highlander or that larger prone highlander and lifeguard we looked at a couple of years ago, nor the 'Trojan' paratrooper.

And don't think I'm attacking the Old Guard, they've always used the caveats of 'believed', 'thought', 'might' or 'could' be . . . assumed, presumed or 'seem to be', so arses were always covered, but it's clear there was much shenanigans going-on back in the 1950's-early '60's to produce all these more esoteric toy soldiers!

Thanks to Chris again for his images and for the second time this month - the more we know, the more we know we need to find out! That's five or six figures - new to the blog, new to the Internet (except evilBay!) and new (ish) to the hobby . . . oh, and thanks to John Begg and Steve Vickers for my three, which came to me from a fruit-box on a tailgate in a car-park back in 2009, some of my first large-scale purchases!

G is for Going . . . Going . . .!

A cheap segue to look at the Hilco space figures, but there you are; I'm clearly a manipulative bastard! No, I thought there were similarities between my broken unknown spaceman and the Hilco figures (although I think 'technically' these were/are the full "Johillco"?), not least that he's in the same state as most of them, who are getting increasingly brittle!

He is similar to one of the [Jo]Hilco figures, but probably only because both are channeling the100-odd-mm  Archer 'space' grenade-thrower (looks like a foam or Velcro lawn-dart!) pose. The picture on the right is from a series I took in 2012 and destined for a future post, the guy on the left has (at time of shooting) just had his weapon's tip glued back on . . . ohhh! Misses!

Because this is how I found them - for the second time in recent years! The kneeling guy was OK and the shooter just needed a little work on his . . . err . . . tool! But panic-central guy was in a hell of a state! The two yellow arrows show previous mends, and getting the left hand guy back together was exactly like working with chalk.

How they look now (March 30th), and they won't move until I've bought a box of cotton-wool, at which point the bubble-wrap will be replaced with a bed of the stuff, and a second layer will be placed over them, thick enough to hold them firm when the lid pushes it down, but not so wadded it breaks them again!

I shot these on Adrian's table at Sandown Park's toy fair (back in 2012), you can see the kneeling guys tend to survive (with care) and fifty-years from now he'll be the only pose in collectors' collections! But the waist of the robot is a definite weak-point.

I thought I had a robot, as I remembered gluing one (at the waist), but I think I must have mended some of JB's years ago. In the meantime I shot this guy when I posted all the robots a while ago, and as well as the comparison/group shots, I posed him separately (as I must have subconsciously known I didn't have him?), so we have four poses and a broken duplicate in the whole image.

I don't know how many there are altogether; the early PW guidebook (B&W editions) have a similar figure with a base which they think isn't from the set, while the full-colour edition has a very nice pre-production test-shot never released (which looks to be in a non-chalky, therefore, lasting polymer), along with a walking figure which takes the set-count to five?

Also, despite the Hilco/Johillco comments at the start I wonder if they were only ever Cherilea? Firstly; Cherilea are known for their early, chalky, explosively-brittle shite and secondly while these are from Johillco hollow-cast moulds, later, Cherilea also issued them in hollow-cast . . . looked at here, where a sixth pose is the crawling figure.

There are also two (Cherilea-only) monsters (a cata-slug and a running gecko-dragon thing) neither of which have I ever seen in plastic? However, I think I have seen the rocket and separate launch-ramp in plastic? Joplin adds a Buck Rogers Treen-type and a vending-bot, along with a seventh 'human' (the plastics are always painted as green 'Martians') spaceman holding a dumbbell aloft! Joplin believes the boxy-bot and 7th humanoid never went to Cherilea.

But it's not clear when the mould went to Cherilea, and what packaging any Hill plastics might have appeared in, but for Cherilea to issue them in late space boxes already printed for the hollow-cast figures seems sensible?

Wilfred Cherrington is credited with designing these, and it may be that - with or without permission (?) - he took the mould as part of his severance from Hill, which would make the plastic figures a Cherilea thing.

Summing up of the preceding text!

C is for Choices, Choises!

Well, it's that time of year again isn't it? Turkey or Goose? Well, I thought Britains might help us make up our minds!

It's funny, one of the first critics of this Blog, way-back in the first few months of its existence, chose as the central thrust of his criticism to attack me for 'blogging ducks', well, I think I had - by that point - done a post which included the Marx 'kins, in passing (Donald, Daisy & Co.), but otherwise I hadn't covered ducks at all, since then we've had them quite a few times, one way or another, and here are some more - amongst other feathered foul.

Britains Turkeys

Turkey, let's start by talking turkey! There is an urban myth that Turkey was a US import in the war, and consequently a certain type; the sort of people nearly half the electorate (43∙6% it's hardly a landslide, but bigger lies are to come) voted for the other day - like to look down upon Turkey, as 'not quite right'.

But it's a fallacy, Turkey HAD come from the US, but in the 1600's! When that part of the world which would become the US of A, was still firmly a four-way (England, France, Holland, Spain) free-for-all.

So it had been an option for the table for several hundred years, for those with money, by the time it was re-popularised . . . after the war. As to its suitability, it's too big, too dry and too tough! Fine if you follow all the instructions for keeping it moist, and are preparing a meal for a large group but for small family units it's really too much, there's a ton of waste and disappointment attached to it and who wants Turkey-curry two weeks later?!

Britains Geese - I'm missing the early, separate charging gander

While I've been subjected to leather Turkey in the Army and thin slices of over-cooked 'TV-dinner' Turkey at school or 'work's do's', we have never had a Turkey at home, although we had a boned-crown one year (pretty civilised; cook in foil, brown to crispy under the grill, slice it like a joint of beef, meal over = turkey over!), we have nearly always had Goose in the family, which makes for only two or three follow-on meals and a chicken-like soup, with enough fat run-off for the coming year's bacon-breakfasts.

Ducks

Top L-R; Older family, Indian Runners, Newer family

Bottom; singles and conversion

We have occasionally had a duck, but they can end-up as tough a Turkey if you're not careful! Done well with an orange sauce (it's gravy, OK; gravy with an orange and tinned mandarins in it! And some BOOZE) you can't beat it . . . actually you can - see footnote! I think the trick is lower heat for longer to cook it through, duck has plenty of its own fat so doesn't dry-out.

From the other side!

More duck, but not as much 'more' as you get with Turkey!

Not Bantams; probably Wyandottes,

but they look a bit Bantamy!

Slightly exotic, but not as exotic as Guinea Fowl (which I've also had, and which Britains never modelled) might be a Bantam, ideal for a single person or a older couple having a quiet day by the fire, and far less boney than a brace of Pidgeon or 'M'.

HK base marks

At least three Hong Kong companies copied the plump chickens which were from the old Britains hollow-cast range, and I have a larger female somewhere; larger than the Britains donor that is!

Rhode Island Reds - older 'Alkathene' above,

newer PVC below . . . except some are white - Doh!

Or there is the old stand-by - chicken; can't go wrong with chicken but it's a bit bog-standard to be festive, although there's things you can do to a chicken to make it special, and a few rashers of bacon crisped over it makes all the difference!

-----------------------------------------------

Footnote; my late father often had Peacock (giant pheasants!) this last few years, but they've gone now (he probably ate them all!) and Britains never modelled a peacock!