L is for Loose Ends

The last of the Christmas figurals, and it'll be back to more normal output, if equally occasional at the moment, but that's life! A mixed bunch and some of them from last year . . . 

 

Hobbycraft were clearly selling the end of the line we've seen over the last year or two, as they only had a few, back in November, and once they were gone, they weren't replaced, not even with a similar line? I managed to grab this deer family, as one day, a cake-decoration deer page is on the cards; there are loads and loads of them! Poured resin and about 40mm?

 

I also picked up this snowman, which reminded me that while we looked at the line two or three years ago, last year's post went to archive when I ran out of time, inclination or whatever else contributed to quite a lot going off to the long queue. It meant I could get this year's out as last year's is still in his [net] bag, along with the Santa' in a poly' bag.

 

The Mushrooms were from The Works, a bit of fun for a possible future project (fantasy secenry), and this year I saw them or similar assortments in several places including The Range and possibly either B&M or Home Bargains?

Can't remember where I saw this, but I think it might have been the aforementioned Home Bargains, along with The Nightmare Before Christmas, I saw a lot of Grinch 'Merch' as it's called these days - by a dying civilisation which insists on abbreviating everything - JLO, LOL!

 

I mentioned that I thought there might be a sequel to Nightmare in the offing when I started to see that everywhere, back in, sort of, Oct./Nov., but I think with both, it's just the inexorable commercialisation of Christmas, particularly by the toy and home-furnishing industries off the back of Holywood? But it was a very inexpensive white-button walker, which is a slowly-growing side-collection, in main-part thanks to robots and Halloween!

 

I think we did look at the Malteezer deer last year, this year's edibles included this Santa Clause from Marks & Spencer, which was illustrated as being like an Aero inside, but was actually the more solid and disappointing texture of a Wispa - which I've hated from the day they were launched!

I forgot to properly check out the edible cake decorations, this year, but managed to find this in Sainsbury's a day or two before the big day, we looked at all the ranges/brands a year or two ago, but this was a new colourway of one of the Santa's from Cake Decor.

 

While I think this lead flat is similar to the set we looked at a while ago, this one possibly coming from Chris or Adrain last year sometime (2023), and also held over, I brought it forward with the Hobbycraft images! I think a similar sculpt can be seen at the back of the upper set's image in this post, which, it turned-out, are Hafer, but this one has a different base and will be from another set, how many were there!

 

Finally, while the above are mostly in some sort of chronological order of when they acme in or were shot, (or make narrative sense to me!), this was an early purchase which them hung around, unshot, and uneaten until the other night, when I managed both! Hence, the fogging of the chocolate, I think?

A departure for Kinder I think, I don't remember seeing them before, but they may be a year or two old as a concept, the prizes are meant to be tree-hangers, and obviously it's a Christmas-specific thing, being a merry festive snowman!

WH is for Art Craft Products

This is one of those posts which by hook or by crook pretty-much write themselves.

I don't know much about flats, a rudimentary history and the technical stuff about pouring lead into slate moulds, or that sculptors and publishers (or 'Editors') are not necessarily the same people, is about the limit of my knowledge. I know I like them and I have a few, they come-in in mixed lots, or if I see some going cheap I grab them, while for everything else Garratt usually proves more reliable on flats than he does on plastics, if one wants to know more!

I also have a couple of the older German books along with the beautiful all-colour one which came out in the 1990's/early 2000's (glossy, dark green cover?), but they are all in a rather appalling stack in the corner of the garage and I haven't started sorting 'the library' out yet!

I have however - as you will have noticed - started scanning the cuttings from the box- and lever-arch files and trying to get the more interesting bits up here, to which end I scanned this in, meaning to simply post it 'as is', to wit; a curiosity, in the hope someone may have been able to help with the ID'ing of the figures.

Art Craft Products - a jobber in the early 1950's; working out of a warehouse (mail order) or a speciality-store advertising seasonal novelties in the press, something like that and the pictures look like you'd want a set - on the mantle for Christmas, arranged under the crimbo-tree or set-out on a wide window sill, or even on the cake?

Although it's not clear they aren't solids of some kind! And younger readers should be aware that the mid-eighties and gay-nineties to which the ad' refers are the 1880's and 1890's, closer (or 'as close') to the 1950's as/than we are!

I then realised a picture I'd only recently hoovered-off evilBay matched the sets, with a typical flat, block-in, factory-paint of the era, but still no ID as they were being sold unknown.

Then about two weeks ago another picture appeared on the same site, describing a Hafer as the name, I downloaded the image thinking it might be a typo for Hafner or a similar, more familiar name, but checked Garratt and the dongles to find two of them, both connected to the same German or 'Nuremberg Flats' outfit!

I intended to crop the image and do the same thing as with the previous, but it was a nicer, high-res image, so thought to ask the seller if I could use it as a stand-alone image - I went back to see if it was still for sale, only to find he had several useful things in his shop, so I ended-up buying three of them!

Like the old painted ones (which will probably be from Art Craft or a similar seller and contemporary or near-contemporary with the advert) this sculpting is clearly visible in both sets, but is - here - a modern or recent casting for someone with greater painting skills than me to work their magic on.

Lots more shots as we may never visit it again! Going on Garratt, but from his Model Soldier Collecting, not the Encyclopaedia, we can see that the WH is for Wolfgang Hafer the editor. LM  and HL are probably for the engravers Madlener and Lecke - maybe one specialised in horses, the other the sleigh/people, or one blocked-in the other, the finer work?

While the RH may have been added in the last few decades (1979 by the looks of it?), being Ruediger Hafer; Wolfgang's son, they both operating near Kassel, a place I have often cruised-past on the way to somewhere else - a beautiful part of the world though! The Wv, is for Winter Scenes (item 19) . . . in German . . . Winterver-something!

How they come in! I also added to the library (greatly increasing the flats section) with the Berlinner Zinnfiguren catalogue and all but completed the SEGOM archive with their flats catalogue, having already got the solids/plastic catalogue and the small scale plastic catalogue to which the late page (with the additional British poses) was added by a contributor back at the beginning of the Blog; ten-odd years ago!

See, by happenstance; the post as good as wrote itself, and I get to add Art Craft and Hafer to the tag list . . . bargain! And . . . from the base shape/markings, I think I'll be able to ID some of my unknown flats, so we may well return to Hafer (or SEGOM) next year.