B is for Big Box of Bounty - Intro' and Sports

So, with much gratitude, we start looking at Chris Smith's Autumn donation to the blog, another wonderful pile of the esoteric stuff he's put to one side for the last few months, and sent to me, to share with you, and there are some real treats among it all.

 

Immediately, we can see useful stuff on the top, I won't say anything, as we're going to go through it piece by piece, but what can you see, and; imagine opening this, and getting to dig through it, especially if your interests are as esoteric as mine!

 

I didn't announce it on Faceplant either, this time, because they want me to provide a 3d video of myself to prove who I am, and as we went through all that a few years ago, when they were asking for scans of passport or driving licence, I don't feel I need to prove my existence again?

 

They don't care who's a member, or how real/legitimate they are, they just want to feed data into their AI-bots, and generate some 3D avatar of me on the other side of the planet, so, I'm consequently rather off Faceplant for now, and maybe forever (check your junk folder, I've eMailed you from .gmail!)?

 

Initial sorting, and I haven't texted over it like sometimes, but a spiral from the top left gives; Prehistoric, Ancient & Medieval, Wild West, Pirates, Paratroopers (not numerous enough for the usual opening line-up shot!) Civilians, Bits & Bobs, Vehicles & Vessels, Wild & Domestic Animals, Historical & Ceremonial Sci-Fi & fantasy (with TV/Movie), Cartoon (also with TV/Movie stuff), Divers and finally, Sports with a Circus horse! And, apart from the horse, it's those last two we're looking at first.

 

These are fun, I thought I'd posted them years ago, but I didn't, so this is their debut - Tomy's Electronic Super Cup Football, a battery-operated, hand held 7-a-side football game, which came with two pre-painted, near HO-gauge compatible teams, in red and blue with yellow and green goalies, already emplaced in the holders on the pitch. But, in little drawers under the game, you got these, blank, flesh-coloured runners for painting your own favourite teams . . . although, no paints were included!

 

Three more cracker/capsule/Lucky Bag/Piñata type Olympians, two sizes and three different base marks give's you some idea of the task faced in sorting them all out, I had a half a go at the small-scale (these) near the beginning of the blog (nearly 19-years ago now!), and we looked at the bigger ones a year or two ago, but there's still a lot to cover/sort out, so every example is valued.

 

The weight-lifter is the same as the one in Peter's last lost, and has broken in nearly the same place, a weak-spot where the two flows of plastic meet in the cavity, a thin point, a cooler point, and a point which will get most stress, in play!

 

Hong Kong cake decoration footballers; I used to have a few of these in a bag, the same two poses, always damaged and no balls, but in recent years thanks to people like Adrian, Chris, John, Peter and Trevor, I've got a better sample to gather together and blog properly one day. But, suffice to say, more poses, some with footballers, complete examples, and several sets/sources are now clear. And there'll be a follow-up later.

 

Board-game or Totopoly pieces, we have seen them before, but it's a set of twelve, in three or four (?) colours (I think three each of four), and with plastic and metal (earlier, but commoner) to find, I still have plenty of gaps, especially as the waterslide transferred numbers can be missing or flaked badly.

 

The little red one is a similar chap, but much smaller, and seems to have plugged-in to something which may be similar to the Tomy football game? New to me, Blog and collection though, and I do have lots of these 'unknown' horse racing figures, most in small quantities. Like football games, there's a lot of horse racing games out there.

 

The little chap is from the Chap Mai play sets, there was the big Aircraft Carrier set, and a few window box 'gift set' type things, with a pair of runners, holding assorted Galoob style figures, in black and khaki.

 

The larger one is really nice, seems to be an unarmed sport/hobby diver, (lacking weapons, and seemingly undamaged), he might be a fish-tank thing, or, like the divers-watch promotional from Down Under, we saw a few years ago, something more commercial? Hard polystyrene, and, yeah, very interesting, does anyone know who he is? I have a feeling we've seen a similar figure, possibly seated?

 

Table-top football games and table-football players! We've looked at both generations of the Subbuteo St. John's Ambulance stretcher teams (left-hand figure), the magnetic footballers will need further work, as the samples are all over the place, likewise the spring-loaded ones, there are many versions/makers/issuers/titles associated with both types.

The magnetic ones can come with different cones, same-coloured figures or painted ones like the above, and in various qualities of pose and/or sculpting. Likewise, with the many versions of the yellow chaps' above -  standing on footballs -who can also be found in straight-armed sculpts, with plug-in springs, flat plastic bases or suckers, and manufactured in rubber, 'styrene or celluloid!

But, again, the chap on the right is very interesting, I have some in hard plastic, from Hong Kong, I think we've seen them here, and their similarity to the Gem ones has always led me to believe they were second generation piracies. But this chap is in soft polyethylene, and looks very 'early British plastic', so I'm wondering if they might belong with the diminutive 18/20mm circus and fox-hunters, in the "Possibly Charbens cake decorations" folder?

Certainly, while they (I think there are two similar poses) resemble the Gemodels goalie, they are less three-dimensional, which is a trait of Charbens sculpting, and something you could accuse those unknown mini-circus figures (and the 'other' Christmas carol-singer set) of suffering from . . . so food for thought there, thanks to Chris!

E is for Eye-Candy - Gem Cadets

Adrian Little gave me these OBE's the other day, when I was passing, and I realised, looking for something else the other day, it's not a 'new feature', I started using E is for Eye Candy, a couple of years ago! Hay-ho, I'm a danger to myself sometimes!

 

Three of the Gemodels sea-cadet cake decorations, given heavy bases and painted in the 'Old Toy Solder' style of gloss paint or varnish, but without the pink cheek dots!

P is for Polymer Plunder Package - Sports

The next section of Chris's wonderful parcel is the sports and pastimes, which are sometimes thrown in with the civilians in these cover-views, but there were quite a few this time, so they get their own post!

 

Three from Subbuteo, one home-painted 'fan', one unpainted goalie and a factory-painted press photographer, behind a bunch of simplistic chaps from some beg-board board-game or more interactive table game with wires and springs or even a blow-football type thing, I'm not sure, but I have ID'd lots of similar sets via feebleBay, over the years!

 

Not strictly-speaking 'sports' but cake decorations, but most of them are sporty and there weren't so many images in the folder! We looked at the skaters back at Christmas, the cowboy and footballer have been covered a few times, and another part drum-kit from Gemodels helps with a future 'Battle of the Bands'!

 

The skipping girl is from a larger set of various figures via Hong Kong, stocked over the pond by some of the minor makes I think (Grandmother Stover, Unique, Carousel et al) rather than Wilton, but may have been Culpitt over here? And the Santa' was a new pose, also made in Hong Kong, and similar to the Crescent pose, but not the same.

 

Three boarders, from three sources, all unknown to me, there is, or has been in recent years a lot of this in the proper toy-chains, which I haven't paid enough attention to, but the near one is probably a cake decoration, back left some rack-toy generic maybe, while the girl on the right should be plugged-in to a missing board, and is somewhat reminiscent of the late Britains Petite sets?

 

Obviously from North America, but whether the 'States or the never-to-be 51st State of Canadia is anyone's guess, two base-ball players with magnets in their bases, and a more modern PVC ice-hokey player. Help needed on all three?

 

The beautiful game! Another of the Hong Kong vinyl, football keyrings we've seen before here, a cereal premium we've also seen a few of the others from, but I've forgotten which set/when/where, and a novelty footballer bear which may be Kinder, or a recognised mascot, or both!

Q is for Quickie!

I've literally just found this - below shot - looking for something else to post quickly before I go to work, and as it's 12th night/the last day of Christmas, today, I'd better post it!

 

These were part of a donation from Peter Evans back in the late summer, and I've mentioned that several donations and a couple of toy fair lots have rather been forgotten or subsumed into the general folders, several of which were from or involved Peter, so many thanks to him, but here's one of the lost images, with a couple of other Picasa-clearers!

 

Back to cake decorations! The footballer is a hard polystyrene Hong Kong copy of the earlier, larger Gemodels sculpt, the polar-explorer next to him come from an old Revell (or Monogram?) aeroplane model kit of a ski-plane, or so I thought, possibly the old Ford Trimotor? However, a quick Google says no, and neither does he seem to be from the Airfix one, so answers on a postcard please! Home-painted, but in a nicely commercial style, I feel.

 

Micky is one of the marked 'Culpitt' figures (I think, I can't honestly remember), very similar to the Marx/Combex, Bully and Comics Spain pieces, among others, there seem to have been quite a few of them, if it is Culpitt, it's the second seen here, but I may have more, and it's something we can return to another day.

 

Below left is probably a Hong Kong Santa, and he looks like he's meant to be holding a sleigh/sledge's handles? While the other two have been covered here before, the Gemodels stag and much later festival/Culpitt plug-together.

These are definitely Culpitt marked, and it was the Goofy we saw last time, shot taken from the Culpitt cake decorating book, which you won't be surprised to hear was called the Culpitt Book of Cake Decoration! And which doubled-up as a catalogue.

Last time I mentioned it, someone else rushed out to find a copy (or cover shot!) so he could mention it too, which was sweet "sincerest form of flattery" and all that, but actually there are two versions, presumably the 'ghostwriter' employed to provide the blurb, issued her own version!

 

Interestingly, there are a couple of page-differences and blurb-variances in the opening and closing sections, but otherwise it's the same tome, with different covers - both now in the library, for completion!

T is for Third-Party Theory?

Following on from the previous post this one is of interest, if only for further muddying the waters of Hong Kong's contribution to toy production in the 1960's and '70's, and illustrates how impossible it is to ever fully know the whole history of that former colonies activities, and therefore proof of an eternal hole in the history of toys . . . or novelties!

 

A quick reminder of the latest recruit to the stash, courtesy of Chris Smith, and I'm only reproducing it as - not collaged - it's easier to see that the polystyrene figure has been glued to a polystyrene sheet, so effectively it had to be cut out, or rather I suspect it was broken out, deliberately or in an accident is a moot point, but an accident would have more likely broken him off at the skate.

 

I suspect he was glued to something, probably with his lady friend, which would have looked like this . . . 

. . . pair of ne'er-do-well's from Toytown! These are more often encountered as stand-alone figurines, but were, I think, sold as cake decorations, but I'm not sure, and they are one of three sets of Noddy characters I know of in 'our scales', the other two being the smaller set of polystyrene figures from Marx and the Kellogg's from Crescent polyethylene cereal premiums.

 

You sometimes find these described as Marx too, and they may be, I don't know what licence relationship Swansea had with the Estate of Enid Blyton, but it would have been a Marx UK 'thing'. This set has about eight or ten characters, while the smaller one may extend to ten or twelve (we've seen one or two here, but there's better samples of both in the collection, against a future post or two). I've also seen them credited to Codeg I think?

But here they have been glued to a Happy Birthday decorated plastic plinth, and by whom and where may never be known. However, they are almost certainly a third party, buying-in the figures and the plinths, and marrying them together, with added paper stickers, to create more attractive pieces, which looks more substantial, and can therefore be priced at a higher rate than the cost of the components, when sold separately!

These were on feeBay a couple of years ago, and seem to suggest that the third party, or one of them (?), might have been based in the UK, because the Tom figure is clearly the Gemodels original in soft polyethylene, but if Culpitt were behind these novelty decorations, they could have sent UK produce to Hong Kong to have the work done, again - we'll probably never know?

But here we have artificial foliage, UK and HK figures in two polymers, and a wire/brush-fir in a wooden barrel, all added to the same plinths and given paper labels, one Birthday themed, the other a Christmas piece, neither requiring any creativity on the part of the cake-maker, just plonk the vignette on the icing!

And then I found these, adding to the chapter on KT, with an all-Irish line-up of novelties, where, again, the right-hand Leprechaun has been glued to a thermometer! On a similar base to the above, and obviously from the tourist trade, I have no idea whether these were from the Republic or Ulster, if one, I'd favour the former, but I dare say they were seen/available for purchase on both sides of the boarder?

 

Now firstly, we have two new sculpts to add to the KT listings, which have already enjoyed a bunch of these plinthed ones, mushrooms, a smaller astronaut and the larger Diddyman, but secondly, we can see the Leprechauns here are based with smaller, chunkier bases matching their stature, while the Irish Dancer has the finer steps to her base of the other figurines in the oeuvre?

 

And, in adding a thermometer to the already found pen-holder and pencil sharpeners, it means we may well be looking for sand-timers, letter racks, money-boxes, jewellery stands/music boxes and so on. And it may be that KT were behind the larger copy of their beefeater, even if not named on the HCF set?

 

I've also added the KT tag to a couple of the earlier 'unknown' figure posts, and in doing so, you can see how help from Chris Smith, Brian Wagstaff and Adrian Little has been invaluable in revealing the KT story, with links on the KT posts revealing Brian Berke helped with the old hollow-cast cowboys who also became pencil sharpeners! Many thanks to all of them.

M is for Musing on Models - Gemodels . . . and Festival!

We've visited them before and will again as it's a fascinating subject, not only was George Musgrave one of the most prolific designers/sculptors for other people, but he was also a great innovator and experimenter, so the full list of his output continues to grow, as the history of his company, it's apparent love/hate relationship with Culpitt, and the Hong Kong pirates, produces more and more to digest or collect.

 

A couple of shots of stuff which came in over several lots at the end of last year, and were going to be a simpler version of this post, then! The upper shot being both sledge designs with the three different configurations, the two snow babies on the smaller toboggans are melted-on, but I don't know how and wasn't going to force them to find out, which will be more relevant below!

The girl playing in the snow is a previously unrecorded sculpt, and seems to be from or connected with the carol singers, in being more Dickensian/Victorian in styling, than the sixties-kids in the woolly jumpers and baby-suits of the other sculpts.

While the Huskies again, seem to include a new sculpt, the one on the left is the brown-polymer version of one of the common set of three, the one on the right seems to be new, and larger, but I need to compare with the others, who are in storage.

 

As some larger woodland animals have turned up, we've seen some here, as candle-holders (fawn and squirrel), and as stand-alone's, so it may be he's part of a different set - I've seen another squirrel without candle hole which looks 'Gem' or Festival in mixed online lots?

 

The lower shot has all the travellers out on the ice, with two skiers and a lonely skater!

This one is marked Festival, I can't remember if we've had Gem marked examples here, but we have looked at a bunch of Hong Kong copies in three different polymers.

 

I've posted the link to the debate elsewhere on the subject of Festival before, but I'm now happy to assume and pass on that Festival was a late project of Musgrave's, set up after he fell-out with, and in direct competition to Culpitt. And that it ran for some time, with some success.

Sadly, he barely mentions them in his interviews with Plastic Warrior magazine, nor was there much, or anything (?) in the museum, but they are obviously Gem style, some Gem sculpts (or re-sculpts), and Gem painting. And because they are all Birthday/Easter/Christmas themes with smart, modern boxed packaging and newer polyethylenes (racing car and train candleholders), were specifically a cake decoration 'line', against the waning of Gemodels with their full sized figures, scenic items and buildings.

The larger sled, the two riders are meant to be both facing forwards, but you can arrange them with one absent-mindedly trailing his legs, or maybe they are waiting to start-off! And if you want them rushing down an icing slope, just remove the puller and rope!

These two have spigots on their feet which have been pushed through the skis and melted back with a hot tool, for this we have a second design of ski, which is wider - previously I had suggested distortion due to the heat, but I think they are shorter and wider, or flared, in the middle?

While these have been attached by what might be the same spigots or separate scraps of polymer, leaving a doughnut of plastic 'flash' around the feet, these are not the over-moulded ones, which leave a very neat weld-mark when separated, this is a cruder 'glueing' with heat, and a fourth version of ski-attachment.

 

There are also two types of stick; the earlier hand-tooled slightly lumpy Gem one (?) and a later, finely-machined Festival one.

The skater's partner turned up in a later lot! The yellow guy and the trio on grey fabric were shot just now, and are the first examples from Chris Smith's latest donation to the Blog, a mass of good stuff I haven't even looked at properly, or had my customary eMail exchange with him on, but I have managed to sort them into bags, thank him, and dig these three out for a quick photo' or two! The rest will follow in January, probably?

The new yellow one is a Hong Kong copy, as procured by Culpitt, from the Gem designs they had been carrying . . . bastards! You can see it's a crude copy with a loss of detail; lazy pantography and no finishing! His base looks clipped in some way, but that's because he's been glued to and cut away from a larger plinth-base (see next post) in white, his own base, in yellow, follows the outlines of the Gem/Festival original.

 

Santa is a generic, and the other Gem has come away from his base at the skate-blade line; a testimony to how fine the sculpting was!

 

Gem flourished in the 1950-60's, Festival were active from the '60's through 'till around the end of the 1980's, while this Hong Kong effort is probably a 1970's replacement for the copy seen above, simplified for mass production it's almost a demi-ronde!

 

They could all be found in bakers shops as recently as the 2010's, but are now getting hard to find as the supermarkets and Gregg's style chains have finished all the old independent or family bakers.

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Finally as a Brucey Bonus, we are off to Thomas/Poplar for a shot of the official Santa's sleigh, with Rudolf! This has a rigid set of poles integrally moulded, so only fit the reindeer, whereas the other design, with two seats, seen here several times I think, has hinged poles, so can be wedged to the PVC-rubber cats, dogs or deer, but may only be meant for the kids, even though I've posted it with Santa . . . I think I once posted it with two Santa's just for the hell of it!

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.

P is for Potpourri of Plastic Peeps! The Animals

There's always some interesting animals in Chris's parcels, and this one was no exception, with all sorts of critters to look at, farm and zoo/wild, real and imagined, prehistoric and an invertebrate! So let's get stuck in and have a look at them.

These were very interesting, I've had a couple of cursory Google-serches for swappable-, plug-together- changeable- or multipart- Dinosaurs, with no luck, so if anyone recognises them, let the rest of us know in the comments, and they don't look to be that old, in the style of 4D Masters or similar? Fame Master do their lock-together 'jig-puzzle' types.

 

And you can see the complete one looks a tad fictional? While half a kerthunkersaurus and bits of three others, hint at a decent range, where the joining-points, doubling as points of articulation, have identical dimensions on the faces, so all the heads, tails, forelimbs and back-legs can be swapped . . . Intriguing!

These vinyl-like copies of Britains also look to be modern, and probably die-cast vehicle/play set accessories, they are scale reduced, but not by that much and would suit 35-45mm figures?

I may have some of these in storage, under unknown small scale animals, but don't recognise the specific sculpts here, and with two domestic breeds and a lion, probably Christmas cracker prizes from the budget end, and new to the Blog.

 

A mixture here! The swan looks to be an early polymer bath novelty, the hen is a Hong Kong copy of the Britains plastic version of their earlier lead one (legs always break!), and the dog is probably a Playmobil puppy?

 

The green cockerel is one of those dimestore things which I think several people had a stab at, while the black sheep is a US-made item I think, but I forget the maker. Next to the sheep is a Merit camel, with an Airfix sheep bottom left and a daft-looking dog I have no idea on!

Which leaves the hedgehog which has lost it's fur/spines, and I thought it was one I may have somewhere, in better nick, but I think I have a very similar wooden one, from which this may be a later copy, so when I do the hedgehogs, I'll have a comparison between the two!

I know I have these in the unknown section of the old small-scale collection (they're about the same size as the larger version of Matchbox horse), possibly different poses, or additional poses, but what's interesting about them is that they are mimicking sets of real ivory carvings from the 19th/early 20th century, which I think are Chinese in origin and may be connected to folklore or myth/legend?

My father had a set, which he must have brought back from the Far East, I don't know what happened to them, but I know a few legs were broken over the years. The purplish colouring of the manes points to Blue Box, Holly or New Maries? Various cows, rabbits and other animals from all three had the same 'brown'?

 

Another mix, which is all a bit more 'don't know'! The dino' is a party-bag thing, we have seen here before under a couple of brands I think, with another in the pipeline, and the penguin is a white-button novelty swimmer.

 

The elephant is a cracker-charm, the seal an older rack-toy bag figure I think, the lizard likewise but probably more contemporary, and the monkey from a more sizable infant toy of some kind (maybe Playmobil again?). The rhino goes with a set of hollow-bodied novelty animals, we did look at years ago, and I have no idea on the scorpion?

Four interesting pieces, not least of which is the squirrel cake-candle holder, which must be a previously unrecorded Gem or Festival piece, from the same line as the resting Fawn, which is more common, perhaps by coincidence, but which rases the question of how many sculpts were in the set, four, five, six maybe?

 

The Zebra is another possibly Playmobil, but seems scaled smaller, a foal, or another toy line? You can see he stands, or rears up on his tail, while the bear is another American piece I think and the hippo is a resin lump from Scotland!

 

I don't know what to make of these, but they are figural, if only from the neck-up, and novelty, which, given the amount of novelty, cartoonish or tourist stuff in the collection now, guarantees them a place, but they can't go with the cats, nor with the dogs, so they'll have their own sub-zone! But fun, and as with everything else on the page, a big thanks to Mr. Smith for sending them to me to share with you . . . any ideas?

 

Finger puppets of some kind, lolly-covers, badges missing the attachments? I should have shot them from other angles, behind, and with a sizer, it'll give me an excuse to look at them again one day, in the meantime they are about 50/60mm across.