C is for Can't Say "No"!

I just can't walk past one of these! This is the third I've bought now, two boxed and a loose one, with an original sent by Great Gizmos to me, as 'Contributing Editor' as I then was (I'm back to just being a supporter/subscriber now!), for PW's little 1-inch brother. Which is four, which is a troop, a patrol, a flight! And, an excuse to paint one or two of them one day!

 

We've seen her before! More than once! It's a duplicate post, but here she is again, the Dimestore Dreams, via Great Gozmos deluxe plastic X-100 Spaceship! Copied from the vintage X-200 Space Ranger design from Pyro/Tudor Rose et al, it's all been written in the previous blurbs!

 

The trouble with my affliction, is a strange emotional connection with the - now long-gone - product, because there was a genuine enthusiasm to promote it at the time. I'd been invited to attend what was my first Toy Fair, by PW, for the fledgling 1"W magazine, when it was in the vast EXCEL conference centre at Docklands, and found these!

 

They then sent me one each of the military vehicles (five or six?), and I have since also bought one or two more of them, along one or two of the civil motorcycles I hadn't asked for samples of, as I was busy being a proper small-scale only editor, and they also sent me a couple of the civil version vehicles, anbulance and linesman's truck if memory serves!

 

An excuse to get Lik Be's little 1:76th/72nd LB 'bots out!

Hanger/apron maintenance crew! 

 

Sadly the range didn't last long, and while Great Gizmos carried on, in infant and novelty toys, they actually closed their doors last summer, after 25-years trading.

F is for Final Round-up . . . Rangers and Scouts

We've looked at the X-200 Space Ranger once or twice here at Small Scale world, so I'm actually going to concentrate on the space scout, which isn't obvious in either of the 1954 annuals, but despite appearing four times in the tag list here, is not covered that well on the blog, with one tag being the X-200 renumbered by Dimestore Dreams (imported into the UK by Great Gizmos) and the other mentions being single image posts or follow-ups to other things.

 

But first, I did look at the Premier sculpts (first post in this sequence) once before. I think it's one of these which has joined my fleet, possibly the other 5" Dart - version 6, to use Ed's nomenclature.

 

The back cover of the Adventure Annual shows two versions, the green one having a closer resemblance to the real thing as far as window-panel count is concerned, but I think the other (Swift's ship) is a different variant in real life, the 'bat-wing' tail-planes marking it as a Tudor Rose Space Patrol craft? Image on the right from Ed Berg a while ago.

 

We looked at the Ranger in detail not that long ago, here, and in the strip Swift mutters of the enemy ships that "Those must be the secret X-200's", so he knew his toys! But then they were on the artist's desk!

 

So, to finish-up, the X-100 Scouts; the metallic blue one (probably Kleeware) was in the lot I had to let go, but I've since picked-up a silver one (probably Tudor Rose, it has a hole for hanging/mounting on/off something), while Ed Berg also sent the red-one (Pyro?). In the past we have seen semitransparent Skandi' ones, versions with a floor piece, and I know a push-and-go was made, so quite a versatile little model!

 

And they are all septuagenarians now! To be in British 1954 annuals (printed at the end of 1953, for the Christmas market), they must have been born by Pyro, Thomas and Co., in the US, early 1953 at the latest?

S is for Submarine - on a Card

I purchased this at the same time as the Tank in a Tin although it was a more reasonable pocket-money price of three-quid-odd I think? Also; it's the 3rd or 4th 4M thing to appear in the Blog now and I think I muttered 'up and coming' last time!

I love the card-art, an ocean filled with submarines like a school of dolphins, but then I guess a German wolf-pack would have looked something like that - if visibility in the North Sea was anything like an artist's imagination!

Because it's not that long since the last 'Subs' round-up I've no other images to fill the post with, so it's just a case of here it is; another bath toy, submarine. The slot for the coning-tower is slightly tapered so you can't put it back in the wrong way - helps the watch-officer navigate if he knows which way his 'fish' is pointing!

Shades of the old Kellogg's sub in the deck-slots and shades of another, more silvery modern one, in polystyrene (this one is propylene I think, with a nylon plug) which we've seen here before at Small Scale World, another novelty baking-soda submarine, or baking powder, it's all the same stuff!

Shipper's are Great Gizmos in the UK, Toysmith in the US and Playwell in Canada.

X-200 is for Space Ranger

We have looked at this machine before, but I've ferreted away a few shots of a silver one with the hanging stud (courtesy of Steve Vickers), and shot a bi-coloured one on Adrian's table some time ago, so we might as well have another look at the X-200 Space Ranger from Pyro originally, mould lent to Tudor Rose and probably also issued by Kleeman/Kleeware at some point.

Where the X-100 Space Scout was a simple, slightly flimsy 'dime store' one-piece moulding with clip-in wheels, the next one up - as it were - is a far more substantial piece, made of two heavier mouldings, glued together, with carpet wheels half-hidden in chunky, fluted fairings, either side of the fuselage and in the tail.

The rod sticking-up from the silver version above is for the attachment of a spring-clip or plastic tube, which - in some larger boxed play-sets - allowed it (with a liberal dose of imagination) to fly! Basically it went round and round a central pole or handle.

The underside and more views; I don't know if there is any significance (price-wise) between single-colour mouldings or bi-coloured one's, or if it was an entirely random thing? If you're old enough to remember boxes or glass-shelf displays of them in retailers; may I ask - can you remember if they were sold alongside each-other or at separate times/in separate price brackets?

Pictured before an auction lot was 'divvied-up' a decade ago; I think it ended-up in my collection, but it may not have! The marking 'discs' were interchangeable tool-inserts and can read any one of . . .

Pyro (the Pyro in a pennant cartouch)

USA

Made in USA
Made in Pyro USA (the Pyro in a pennant cartouch)

Pyro USA

Kleeware

Kleeware England

Made in Kleeware England

Tudor Rose
Tudor * Rose
Tudor * Rose Made In England (separate marking along bodies)

Made in England

. . . the last being the one seen here on a tail fin, there are sometimes two of the discs (larger than release-pin marks) on the models, particularly the bigger ships (but this only has the one) and they can also be blanked-off, as it is on the silver one.

The model got a new lease of life with an almost identical clone in Bill Hanlon's Binary Arts Corp./Dimestore Dreams range back in the 2000's ('Rhayyy!) but also the indignity of a marque-downgrade to X-100; the old number of the simple Space Scout (Boooo!), it also got a simpler (yet more accurate?) 'Spaceship' re-moniker.

It didn't get its christenings moulded on its nose which gives it cleaner lines and while it is a very good reproduction of the original, there are a couple of differences, for instance; its having slightly heavier widow frames, there are also slightly less-pronounced 'cuffs' circling the tips of the rocket-engines and the ship's nose, giving it a more streamlined look.

More on the Dimestore Dreams range here.

A yellow/blue bi-colour here.

Pure 'pulp' and one of my favourite toys, as while technically I'm too young to be in the generation who had these as 'every-day' toys, there were plenty of old Kleeware or Tudor Rose ones kicking-around when I was a kid, either as hand-me-downs or as corner-shop/beach-toy kiosk old-stock!

Because it's here! Some of you may have spotted this in the surprise parcel from Chris Smith the other day, well; it's very timely! Another of the Dimstore Dreams range, these were more of a homage - I think - than an actual 1950's model, but I stand to be corrected?

There were about 7 military vehicles/versions I think, including telecom's, pick-up truck and wrecker versions of this vehicle and a rather nice 'throwback' motorcycle, I have the military ones in storage from the press-release stuff reviewed in One Inch Warrior magazine (back in 2000/1?) so we will return to them here at some point!

And speaking of 'Dime Store' - Rodney's Dimestore has added tones of info/data since I last visited it and is well worth a hour or two's surfing if you're at a fag-end in this heat!

N is for New Acquisitions

As I mentioned the other day, here are a few bits I've been picking up in recent months, most - it has to be said - for peanuts!

These four are all eBay wins around the 99p mark. Clockwise from top left;

These two were poorly described by a 'non-toy soldier' seller and I was expecting 'curiosities' around 4/5/6 inches tall, sort of - mantelpiece ornaments/tourist items (I had just won the 5 inch copy of the Britains Robin Hood, sans base in a hard vinyl), but what turned up was a couple of rather nice 54mm figures with small indentations in the base marked 'HONG KONG' in the manner of Marx or Blue Box HK production. I have a feeling I have seen a Henry VIII or Raleigh in this style, and am going to tentatively suggest they are British/Swansea Marx, made in HK as an answer to the US Marx 'plinth' series of Presidents, Disciples, Nativity etc...? Designed to depict personalities from British History. Thoughts? [I should point out that these are marked on the front face of the base; Julius Caesar & Lord Nelson. Further - I've just picked up a damaged 'Duke of Marlborough' in a mixed lot, so rather confirming the likelihood they are a set of major characters in British History?]

10/12/2012 - I've been told they are Blue Box.

Speaking of Marx, this is the 60mm 'swoppit' Indian/Native American, I've encountered these in ethylene going very brittle, but this one is vinyl as are his accessories and all are still in rude health.

Two Speedwell Robin/Sheriff of Nott's. figures. These came from a dealer called blackdragoncollectables, and I got them for the magic number (99p!), he had lots and started putting them up in three's and fours, so as people gravitated to what became a bit of a feeding frenzy, the hammer price rose a bit, but they were still very reasonable. Worth checking him out has he did have 300+ lots on at one point. [I don't represent him in any way]

Finally I ought to know these as I've seen them before, and got one in desert scheme, however I've lost (or failed to take) the notes pertaining to them, they are by someone like 21st Century or New Ray and came/still come (?) with Die-cast vehicles.

A 'first toy' or infant toy I couldn't resist, this is a unique take on the stacking cups of a 1960/70's childhood, in that; large chunks of ethylene can be built in a number of ways into an ever changing castle. The maker?...Merit, the reason I had to have it!

The colours are the same as the colours of the Circus & Noah sets I covered back at the beginning of this blog, so this must have been part of the same range. Best displayed with a few Christmas Cracker HK guardsmen standing round the base! I'd love to track down some spare orange and/or yellow components if anybody has some hanging about in their odds box?

As well as loose items I've had a punt at the odd carded/boxed lots, and these are a few of them, as before;

The Dimestore Dreams re-mould of the old Pyro X-200, sold in the UK by Great Gizmos a few years ago. I have one of these, but thought it would be nice to have a second for a future painting session, and as the box is also tattier than mine, I'll slice it open and stick it in the paper archive.

Air Raiders Battle Squad by Hasbro, I have over the years picked up a few of the Purple Force soldiers, and listed them under Hassenfeld, but had no idea what set/series they belonged to, now I know! And only have a purple officer to track down to make the 'set', I will de-card these, they were meant to be played with, and the Action Figure collectors (another branch of the hobby altogether) will - I'm sure - have plenty of these saved for posterity in immaculate condition!

The HK Wild West set are pile-of-junk copies of Britains/Timpo 'swoppits', apart from the figure top left, who has parted from his base but seems to be quite an interesting hybrid copy of Nadi & Cherilea! Also; the trade mark/name (Benkson) gives another entry in the eventual book!

The Precision set came from the US, and I bought it purely as an 'Example'. The back is type-written 'MADE IN WEST GERMANY', so they will originally have been Noch or Kibri or someone like that.

Finally - doing the rounds of pound-shops, discount stores and market stalls are these die-cast and plastic AFV's, the generic 'Patton' tank in around 1:68th (?) is a bit big, while the Hover-craft (judging by the windows) is a bit small (1:100?) but both are OK for any small scale wars where you're not too fussy.