O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Sci-Fi, Fantasy, TV & Movie

As a complete contrast to Pirates, this is the stuff of a whackier nature I picked up at last June's Plastic Warrior show, not as much in this category as some years, but a couple of really quirky things, a nice box-ticker, and a rarity or two!

 

A T-Rex, on a skateboard, waving an axe? It doesn't get much weirder than that, except it's just about to! And while it may be Kinder, it could be a lesser make of capsule-egg, or even a gum-ball type thing?

 

The Heudebert marked copy of a Captain Video figure was a lovely find, and while the original is one prone to damage, here they've shortened the firearm into more of a pistol, and despite the fine barrel, it has survived! While the actually Kinder gnome, is standing front of the Lone Star toadstool house!

 

And no, this is not where it gets weirder, this is pretty weird, but not the real weirdness! A money-box/bank, made by the same division that was responsible for the rubber pet-toys and squeakers, this is a stable (non-weeping) PVC, issued under the Eaglet branding.

 

This is the box ticker, a set of the Toys R Us bucket set True Legends - Mythical Warriors fantasy figures, one of each pose, so someone was offloading their master set? I've seen them credited to both Toy Major AND Chap Mai, it's likely to have been one or the other, and with other True Legend sets having the Toy Major sleleton warriors, for now, I'll go with them. Brian Berke did send us a handful of these, a while back, but no one ID'd them at the time!

 

Weirdness, but still not the weirdest, the Alien is about seven inches, and while made of rubber, seems to have a very solid interior, like it's metal underneath, you could certainly use it as a cosh! UFO lawn-skittles maybe?

 

The Wonder Woman is a cord-tie type thing, I've seen others, for school-bags or whatever, sometimes they are a keychain type thing . . . I don't know, I'm blagging it, off vague memories of things seen, out and about, it was in one of the donation bags!

 

From the right . . . no, the RIGHT, we have another of the larger Captain Video space/GI figures from Lido Archer, then an unknown figure which looks both character-driven and a bit Phidal-looking, but probably not actually by them, maybe a Ben 10 thing?

 

In the middle is the female scarecrow, pencil-top, who looks like a line-up completer, for the John Pertwee era, Worzel Gummidge set; I don't recognise the character? I have three now, I think, and I assume there's at least four, so, with this and two Gummidge's, I suspect I'm still looking for a rendition of Una Stubb's Aunt Sally?

 

The monkey is a tea-bag premium I think, while on the far-left, is the real weirdness, it's so weird, it's been left-off the left of left-field! 

 

This was in a bunch of smaller bits from Adrian, and I looked at it and said something about 'fun' and 'homemade', and he looked a little hurt at my dismissal of his offering, and sure enough, when I got it home (my eyesight is getting shit! But I have got reading glasses now), it became clear that while, yes that is bread-bag ties for arms and legs, the whole assembly seems to have commercial thought, and actual design behind it?

 

Originally a cartoon dog keyring and pencil-topper, the green tie has been carefully designed to have the arm-and-leg twists run over the top of it, and down channels in the sides, so as it's pushed into the pencil cavity it holds everything tight. The boots are gum-ball charm, football boots, while the cartoon hands should have convinced me straight away.

 

Everything is PVC except the bag-ties, which are in a non-standard (for bag-ties) colour, and everything is filled/sealed with what looks like the plumbers-sealant I use for PVC mends. That someone ever thought this up, let-alone thought it might have commercial potential is extraordinary, but someone else looking at it, remembered something like them, in gum-ball capsule machines!

 

It's a commercially manufactured, 'homemade' bendy toy, gum ball prize! Of a dog, in a tie, with Mickey Mouse gloves, and football boots, with googly eyes!

 

A couple of Matchbox whatsit-2000 figures, an Aristocat cereal premium, an unknown . . . trash-panda? Kinder maybe? A phone-ornament/hanger, of Buzz Lightyear, an Autobot's fireable fist (?) and a Star Wars looking, action-figure sidearm!

 

Kinder either side, Daffy Duck as a plug-together 'Steckfigure', along with one of the cartoon 'deform' spacemen, but between them, in slightly marbled yellow plastic, too large for a Kinder egg, is a Res Plastic solid, of Speedy Gonzalez! And obviously punched for a key-ring or cord.

 

As I can never remember which of these Tinykins I have, I'll always buy them, if I see them going cheap, and these were reasonable, so I grabbed them. I think I have most of them, but the cousin-ducks are all different, and I don't know if I have all of them, and wasn't sure if any Thumper I have has both ears!
 

As before; thanks are due to - Issack, Graham Apperley, John Begg, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Peter Evans, Adrian Little, Michael Mordant-Smith, Trevor Rudkin, Steve Vickers, and with no emails since the intro-post, anyone else who gave me stuff, I've forgotten to add! Many thanks to all.

R is for Return to Captain Video et al.

Not exactly a follow-up as the other days post was adequate enough for what it was, but I said at the time that I would re-visit these when I got the rest out of storage, as there are more of the smaller premium sized ones there and a few of the human/spaceman sculpts (I think . . . it's a while since I saw them!), but then I picked these up the other day . . .

 . . . so we might as well have another look at them now! The rest of the Reamsa tinny-ethylene re-issues at the bottom, a duplicate bird-man in rubber, also from Reamsa (top left) next to a totally new one on me, a Heudebert European food premium based-on but reversed from the Lido robot and five of the clunky-styrene or phenolic ones from the anonymous maker of 'Winco Condar's Interplanetary Spacemen!'

So ♪♫♩♬ Meet the gang, 'cos the boys are here, the boys to entertain you . . . with robots an' ail'iee'ens to help you on your way...♩♫♪♬ The 'gang' may be bigger than the storage sample now, but I don't think so and there's still a shortage of the smaller versions and the humans here.

The ray-gun guy in green I 'restored' with a coat of plumbers sealant a while ago can now be seen to be one of the smaller ones though, as he's considerably smaller then the Reamsa, who's brothers are all the same as the Lido/British versions.

The blue cat-man/gasmask guy has his weapons intact as does the new green trident guy (or should that be bident!) unlike their twins.

The above image was originally just the picture on the left, but I think I got one (or two) of my colour-matched cube's wrong last time, so I've added a legend to the right (don't temp me!) which is correct, bearing in mind that those marked Lido could be from any one of several sources (Dumont, Rex, Techniplast), the four Reamsa's may have been issued by one or two other brand-marks (Alca Capell, Puchol) in recent years, and - indeed - the silver robot is so clean he may be a more recent 'pressing'?

As I said last time, without the base marks of the Reamsa or Trovador examples "It's very hard to say with any degree of definitiveness which figure is by which company".

The spare rubber Reamsa is available for a straight-up swap for any of the other three poses if you have one of them duplicated and need this bird-man - eMail me on maverickatlarge [at] hotmail [dot] com. Compared to the re-issue there's nothing in it, they are from the same mould and all four are numbered under the base as per the catalogue listing.

The Heudebert as I say; was unknown to me, and there doesn't seem to be much on that there inter'mah'web-thinggy, he can be seen - or said - to have either had his arms reversed or had his face put on the back of his head, he's also a lot smaller, so rather a 'son of robot'. He's a sharp, 'kit' type, polystyrene like Heudebert flats, in a slightly washy, metallic-gold polymer.

H is for Heudebert'y Christmas!

It's bad isn't it...hopefully it's as bad as a cracker joke! Well...stuffed (or well-stuffed) to the gunnel on roast duck and tangerine sauce, started on the liqueurs, saved this - from the flats Brian practically gave me in May - for today!

There are a couple of pieces missing from the set, an angel, another camel and a donkey I think, and they didn't photograph well, but it's a seasonal post, so there it is! Makes you wonder why no one does this sort of stuff now, electronic toys, the Internet and smart-fones might have replace elder kids toys, but I'm sure younger kids would collect something like this if it was in their favourite cereal, sweet or biscuit brand in the run-up to Christmas?

H is for Heudebert

So...I said we'd look at some of the Heudebert flats which came from Brian at the Plastic Warrior show and here is the first lot...a set (or sets?) of farm animals and rural 'types'. Unusual in being soft plastic, which probably dates them later than most 'margarine flats' in the mid 1970's?

I say 'sets' with a question mark, as it seems most of the 'small' animals and poultry are in white or cream, while the larger pieces are in chocolate browns. However The exceptions (cat on pot, or foal) are not found in the opposite colour, so I suspect they are the one set, on two moulding-tools, produced in contrasting colours, but there's a possibility they may have been complimentary sets a few months or a year or so apart?

Equally it may be that you got a white/cream one in  a smaller retail unit, and a brown one in a larger pack? Heudebert seem to be producers of bready-biscuity things, "processed bakery products" these days! It should also be noted that 19 is an odd number, not just on the number scale but also for an issue of premiums, so there may be a missing 20th item from the set/sets, ducks are notable in their absence, as are piglets?

I would tentatively suggest these might have been manufactured by Jean Hoefler, despite being flat, they bare several 'hallmarks' of Jean in design and material. but that's pure conjecture on my part! I haven't put Jean in the tag list for now, maybe a German viewer can help here?

There are three types of base mark (or lack of mark!), being from the top, HEUDEBERT, Made in west Germany and blank. The second being very much on the Jean style.

Colours are from very dark plain-chocolate brown (blank bases) through darker milk-chocolates ('Jean' Germany mark) and pale milk-chocolates which are the Heudebert marked ones.

The 'white' set comes in pure grey or blueish whites and creamier colours with no base mark 'rule'!

The largest moulding - by length - suffers from distortion of the type you get from early removal of the moulding from the tool, before the plastic resin has set properly otherwise known as 'shrinkage'.

One other thing to note is that Heudebert did do a set of hard plastic farm premiums in that typical 'margarine' flat ivorene-look styrene, so these might have been issued from a German production facility at the same time as the styrene ones were being issued elsewhere? Clearly more to discover or tie-down with this set!