L is for Last May's Lots of Lovely Loot - Everything Else!

Given that I got a shed-load of good stuff yesterday and still have to clear the Plastic Warrior Show stuff first, I'm rather glad to be putting May's plunder-posts to bed! Mostly civil subjects, with a couple of oddments, there were one or two treasures among them.

 

This was one of those frustrations, only associated with those who don't carry a farty, nerdy 'wants' list around with them . . . step-up that man, 'cos it's me! The seller had several of these, but I really couldn't remember which ones I already had, and thought this looked like one I didn't, when I did, doh! And while I looked for them again yesterday, I didn't see them!

 

Should hold this for ITLAPD, but there's some nice stuff lined-up this year, so they can go here, they are soft, PVC, factory-painted, generic versions of the unpainted Webb's Supertoy pirate set, which is also still contemporary, somewhere, as both me and Peter Evans have been finding them.

 

Tudor Rose seesaw, I got it primarily to help ID the babies, and was surprised to find they are PVC like the Thomas ones (I was expecting polyethylene), which means I'll have to be doubly careful, when I come to sort all the pink babies!

 

Also, it's a bit odd that both companies chose a material which can melt the accompanying polystyrene toys they all came with, but then, at the time of manufacture, neither knew the potential for the melting, which AFV kit owners would be learning about by the 1970's! Not to forget the proud owners of Action Man diving suits - that sticky, orange hood!

 

Unpainted castings of possibly game-playing pieces, but I have to compare them with the Lilliput one, before I decide if they aren't actually just home-piracies of the Britains ones? If they are copies, I might paint them up, at some point in the future, before the task is beyond my eyesight!

 

These are composition, and a pumice type, which suggests British or French production, but the little red collars mirror those of wooden erzgebirge stuff, so they maybe from the Ore Mountains area of Saxony (Germany) or Bohemia (the Czech Republic - formally Czechoslovakia)?

 

The two nearest the camera are larger and lack the scenic bases, and also might be bisque porcelain or chalkware, they seem a little harder (but you don't casually test things this small) so I bagged them separately.

 

Some Japanese stuff I guess?, I don't know if they all go together or not, some are harder, some softer, some have pencil-holes, some don't, a few won't stand up, alone, some are transparent, others opaque, so I arbitrarily grouped them into three for shooting, and await further info' on what they actually are!

 

Circus! A Frazer & Glass clown, who has no signs of being glued to any of the accessories, or his compatriots, so one assumes that when they were being sold from the glass-compartmented shelf-displays in Woolworth's, you could purchase single, unadorned clowns? Of course you could, and he was in the sets as well; A1 Clown!

 

Two of the Merit 'Travelling Circus' wagons, which gave rise to various Hong Kong copies, both of the wagons as wagons, and as trains, and a lovely spirit-painted, wheeled, Japanese novelty, a celluloid blow-mould, of a monkey, in a fez, on a hobbyhorse, of course and why not!

 

These are definitely bisque, and probably French fèves, fox-hunters in hunting pink, with their hounds, around 35mm, they are a bit bigger than the common, modern fèves, so may have been more decorative, or even cake decorations, in which case they may be British; but, they need black boots?

 

These were a lovely find, Sima (Sixtus Maier, of Fürth, Germany) model railway flats, these were made for Märklin HO railways, back in the 1950's, although they measure a little larger, and presumably pre-date Märklin's own sets, and the similar Wettig sets? Note how the gosling doubles as a rearing chick!

 

I found another bird on the floor and retook the image, but the colour is all wrong, so I left it down here, purely for compleat'ness!

F is for Foxhounds

Having had Giles Brown of Dorset mentioned the other day (the 'Good Solders' question-marks were almost certainly Dorset), I am more confident that these are indeed Giles' work, having been designed to augment the hunting sets of various hollow-cast and 'new metal' makers over the years.

"The Honourable member should realise what Dirty Dogs do to Palings"

(Churchill, replying to Sir Wilfred Paling's accusation that he was a Dirty Dog!)

The Sandown pack!

A wonderful scratching pose, sitting and slumped

The leg-up from another angle, three poses of 'actually working', and a darker brown colour variation!

These are modern whitemetal solids, painted in a glossy 'toy soldier' style and would look lovely in a display cabinet, mixed in with the old 54mm/1:32nd scale, hollow-castings. Foxhounds look like Beagles, but have slightly longer noses, are five to ten or more inches higher, considerably heavier and more energetic!

And as an indication of how appalling the Picasa situation is, I must thank Adrian Little for letting me shoot these . . . five years ago, this November, pitiful, on my part! There's tons of this stuff in the long-queue/archive.

L is for Late Show Report - Civil and Sports

Often the section which throws up the more interesting figures, due to the vast numbers of accessory figures from other toys, die-cast vehicles, beach-stuff, tourist items and the like, and the last show was no exception with several interesting new pieces.

 

These, for instance, were totally new to me, presumably Spanish, and around the size of the Torres Maltas stuff, but the two riders are cruder and don't have swivel arms, likewise the bulls are similar to the Miguel Torres bottle-top mascots. But I don't think there's a connection. However, they do make you realise that there';s probably far more bullfighting stuff out there than the half-dozen or so 54/60mm makers commonly known to collectors?

Football; another genre with many examples, here we have premiums (2 cream/white), a Hong Kong cake-decoration (painted), board-game pieces from Waddington's (5, Soccer Boss) and Tomy (2) one as supplied, the other a 'paint your own team/spare, also supplied with the game (Electronic Super Cup Football), in a hidden drawer, and a couple of broken Airfix, front left.

'Allo 'Allo! It's thee leau! From the left; HIT/Teamsters, Timpo policewoman, Solido traffic cop and a currently unknown (I'll spot his set on Amazon or eBay at some point!) cop in a US style, who has the distinction of being a still warm piracy of the quite recent Teamsters accessory, or - at least - a very similar sculpt!

Other sportsmen include a snowboarder who's probbaly a cake decoration, a Marx and another premium, a teeny-tiny horse racer probably from mini-crackers and a baseball player from the 'States.

 

Dancers; they always look the same, donor wise, but that's just because there's only a few 'classic' or standard poses, which suit cakes, music boxes, make-up stations, charms and all the other places you find these!

 

The large charm/key-ring here is smooth-flat on the reverse, the purple is a new colour of the Euro-premiums/US comic Ad' set, and the fallen one may be missing a base or cake-spike, but seems to be a new size/pose, she's hard 'styrene, like the charm, purple is polyethylene.

Taylor and/or Barratt, most of the road crossing patrol set and a couple from other sets/toy vehicles, I think I have most in the collection, so it's a case of grabbing them to compare because they were cheap, or finding them in the donation bags when I got home, as they are all sub-scale, and tend to be sent my way sometimes, by the generous.

Bully (ex-Heimo) Bullyland farmers, a bit stumpy and juvenile, but a nice addition to tthe stash, and not a series I was familiar with, I now know there were animals too, and will have to check my piles for one or two!

Sort of civilian! Cheilea farmer, new production and Matchbox hunters, a Blue Box (or Redbox?), or, more likely sub-piracy zookeeper, taken from Britains and a French or Spanish (?) African native, possibly Clairet? He's missing a weapon, so a bit of a box-ticker for now!

Mixed bits, the two larger ones are from the closedown of the Elastolin factory a while ago now, and were probably supplied to someone else, Tipp & Co (Tippco/TCO), Bub, or a smaller maker? The smaller one has a metal locating-tab buried in the composition.

 

Not sure on the ringmaster, he might be quite new, or older (French?) but he's new to me/the collection, while we have a Corgi lab-tech, Leddo wagoneer, early stretcher-case (Matchbox or Dinky?), a Poplar (?) or HK-copy driver, and one of those tiny copies of the Britains cyclists, which come in smaller rack-toy bags and Christmas crackers.

Poor shot on the divers I'm afraid, but we've seen the bath toys before in quite full detail, with a fair bit of help from Brian Berke, and will return to them again, while the Triang boardgame James Bond diver is damaged, as - like yesterday's Wild West - they often are!

A comparison on the difference between the closest poses of new (behind) and Miguel Torres) bulls, the next post will go further on these. Many thanks again to Adrian Little, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Chris Smith, Michael Mordant-Smith, Paul Stadinger, Peter Evans and Trevor Rudkin, for contributions to this year's plunder-pile.

P is for Partially Seen Elsewhere - Acédo African Scene

I posted my small sample of these elsewhere, the same day, I think, but I shot a better sample on Mercator Trading's stall at the show (last London show of last year?), so we can have a better look at this French production now.

Acédo, the plastics 'arm'  of Domage et Cie (Domage and Co.), the company also behind Aludo (aluminium production), are responsible for this little set-up! Obviously made in polymerised cellulose acetate, and apparently depicting a peaceful, or civilian take on African life in a rural village, sans modernism!

 

I wondered about the trees and huts, as they looked a bit homemade (huts) and converted from something like Playmobil (trees), but a quick Google that evening revealed similar huts and some similar, but very different-shaped trees, so I think the pieces were made as flat sections, or bare boughs, and then assembled, with heat, glue and hand-held pyro-gravure work - to hide the joins. Portable hairdryers were invented in the 1920's, and can be set 'too hot' (for scalps!), so all very doable.

 

The running boy and drummer being not warlike, although the full set does include a warrior with spear and shield and a white hunter in pale safari-suit, the warrior is sort of waving his spear & shield as if 'beating' the game toward the hunter.

Close-up of my previously seen sample, other colours of loin-cloth turn-up including dark blue and white, but I don't know what other animals might be considered part of the set, a rhino, hippo, ostrich and more monkeys were in the 'zoo' sets, so there was a species-bank to pick from!

 

Usually found decorated, and the only one seen, on the day, I don't know if it's a late production thing, unpainted, or if it has been stripped, due to poor wear of the original decoration?

C is for Chris's Autumn Parcel - Sports & Civilians

I was going to do sports and civilians as two separate posts, but realised most of them were sports (or pastimes) of one sort or another, and all the seated figures were in one shot which would have made a quick post with two Asian ladies, so they're all here!

Fussbal! There was something about pig's bladder kicking on Faceplant the other day, some Arabs were organising an end-of year kick-about or something, I believe the Argentines were playing dirty again, but still won? Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!

The three on the right are from board games of one type or another, but the chap on the left is one of those press-button collapse'a'toys (I've ever found a good generic term for them), where all the parts are threaded on wire, cotton button-thread (in this case) or fishing line, and held in tension by a spring in the drum base, so when you press the button, pushing the spring in, the fellow collapses like a 'red shirt' in an alien death ray! All plastic - brilliant thing!

Sorry for the upper shot, by the time I realised it was unusable they had gone to storage, so I used it! They are something we have seen before, in depth twice and in many mixed-posts like this one so you should be familiar with them, and with so many variations in size, colour and base type; something we will return to one day, these are mid-range (30-odd millimeters) and mid-quality.

Below them we have a rider (from an eraser go-cart/cartie type thing?) in eraser rubber, a wrestler in the style of Kinukiman/M.U.S.C.L.E., but not marked-up as one of them, so probably a gum-ball/capsule-machine knock-off, and, finally, an ice hockey player, similar to the pencil-top/key-ring footballers, but with no sign of a loop having been removed and no hole up his back-passage, more of a stand-alone desk-mascot.

The rear of that cart-rider, I wondered if he was a spaceman (he's quite similar to the Dinky Moon-buggy/Space Chariot crew, but he's more BMX'y with knee-pads and padded thigh-protectors, and I have half a feeling I've seen the cart somewhere, equally you might think pencil-top, but the larger hole is still a tad small, and I suspect locating-lugs on the go-cart?

The upper shot shows three skiers, all cake decorations, all Hong Kong, two polyethylene and one polystyrene (to the left) who's predictably lost his sticks, the first two are copies of the Britains Arctic Explorer, the one to the right a Gemodels skier I think?

The funny thing is I think the Britains 'Arctic' exploration set came out during the hype for an Antarctic expedition, the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition (CTAE) of 1955–1958, which my late mother helped with, back here in the UK, and I've found some of the paperwork in her estate, which at some point I'll do something with, nothing exciting; kit lists, typed databases of suppliers, formats of begging-letters, that sort of thing!

Below them are three of the cuckoo-clock/barometer figures, a pair and an odd, with a lovely Bavarian/Tyrolean dancer in Lederhosen. We have looked at the clock-figures before, but we will return to them at some point because several more have come in, and hopefully some will make-up more pairs? In the meantime this is a pretty good line-up!

A couple of these - like the go-carter - were borderline space figures until I looked closer; they all seem to be divers/marine explorers of one type or another, with a deep-sea diver to the left, two undersea vehicle crew to his right and the Nabisco (?) diver, much chewed in front. The chewed one is worth keeping for the colour and the fact that I think I only have the one other - bent legs - pose!

The deep sea diver looks like a pencil top, but the hole is too small again, so I expect he's from a similar novelty to the Nabisco one, which relies on air pressure/water density affecting a air-bubble in the hole, to make him go up and down in a bottle? But what do I know? He might be a nineteen-fifties fish-tank ornament from a weighted wreak or something!

The other yellow plastic chap is from one of the several rack-toy sea 'chariot' or James Bond villain-army type toy vehicles out there, I think/assume!

The 'might be' Hilco cake decoration hunters, from Britains Lilliput above, with two Hong Kong cyclists below, one almost a cracker-toy, but we've seen the packaging here I think, the other from one generation of Britains piracy or another. I picked up another, raising his arms as if crossing the finish-line, the other day, which I'm pretty sure goes with this chap (but they are already ensconced in two different places!), so it's a question of matching them with the right cycles in the future, and blogging them together with the doors and the little articulated one we saw here a while ago!

Seated figures, like paratroopers are standard contents of mixed lots, and highlights this time are the turquoise one (top, middle) who looks to have some age, and the metallic turquoise one below him which is also new to me, I think? Below them is a grey aircraft (?) crewman, in the style of a kit-figure, but possibly factory-painted and therefore from a more commercial toy/pre-built aeroplane model?

Lastly, but anything but leastly; two more of the KT/Shackman et al., figures, we saw these two in images from Brian Wagstaff which are on the 'World Dancers' page (link at the top of the page), so it's really nice to have them here now, a separate image has already been taken and added to the 'Commonwealth additions' folder!

When Brian W sent them I hoped they might be the sign of a larger set of ex-Commonwealth or Van Brode sculpts within the tourist/novelty pencil-sharpener line we've been looking at here, but these are the fourth/fifth to turn-up now, and the feeling is that they are just the pair, as in a 'Pair of Asian Dancers'

With a pair of Americans (Cowboy & Indian), pair of Germans/Tyrolean's (May Day/Dirndl dancers), four British touristy subjects (Policeman, Beefeater, Guardsman and Highland piper), and . . . I'm hopeful a Mountie might turn-up?

Thanks again to Chris for all these, which leaves us waiting for the 'other figures' post!

H is for How They Come In - Chris - May - 3

So continuing with the nice lot Chris Smith sent the blog at the beginning of May, brings us to the civilians, and kicks off with the sports figures!

I photographed the diminutive circus chap the wrong way round, and he's off to storage a while back, so a bit of a boo-boo there! He's in the style of the mini-copies of the Commonwealth 'dolls', but clearly a circus performer or ring-master, I guess a cracker prize/capsule toy, but he could be from an as yet unknown set!

The athletes we've seen before, and it's the large number of them in many sizes which makes every example useful against a future post on all of them. While the other item is fascinating - he appears to be a tobbogan or luge rider, so-far so normal, but his 'machine' is a large slab, and on the underside is a grove with angled striations which would seem to suggest movement over a simple worm gear? So some kind of enclosed, interactive plaything he's come lose from? Anyone recognise him? He probably goes back and forth in a slot or track of some kind?

A page of Firefighters is definitely in the pipeline, but in the meantime they keep coming in, and I haven't progressed much on the labeling, despite the fact that Theo van de Weerden has helped ID a lot, including some of these!

Racing drivers! Like firefighters these are many-aplenty in odd/job lots, and ID'ing them all will take the rest of my life! Two big ones, from beach/lawn toys, and a little die-cast chap from something which should be easier to find?

Likewise the many, many seated figures who have escaped their vehicle, horse, railway station or wagon over the years, the red one - front, is Tudor Rose I think, the red one - rear an Airfix or similar 'old fashioned car' model kit's driver in 1:32nd or 1:35th scale.

The rider (horse?) bottom right seem to have been coloured to match early Thomas rubber kids, but is a Polyethylene Hong Kong thing. Painted blue - front, looks like a Century 21 or similar Hong Kong chauffeur, while painted blue - rear, is from a similar Hong Kong item, possibly a crane, dump-truck or a variation of the popular fork-lift truck toys? The other three are random rack toy fodder!

Solider ground here, with two from a modernish (1980's/90's) set, an armless Blue Box mechanic with the larger 45mm Marx road/construction worker (sold here with the plastic, Hong Kong Muir Hill type dump truck, where the figure was also made) behind, and finally two of the possibly Lucky mechanics, taken from Dinky via Blue Box!

An eclectic mix here, with a guardsman! How do the ceremonials keep turning up in other themed shots . . . don't ask Hugh; you should know, you took the photographs! . . . anyway, I'd love to know who copied the Britains Shetland-pony in smaller scale, I have several now although this is the first in a  realistic brown, some Polly Pocket type thing?

Second upscale Matchbox game shooter clone this year, having never seen them before! A reverse colour-way of the cereal-premium hunter we looked at here. Behind him is a board-game hunter we may have seen here, or he may be one of two in the queue, but he might actually be new, he looks like a 3D version of the Trek (Spears Games) 2D flat?

Which leaves the figure I was told was used in those weather-clocks, but I believe he actually [also] turns up in cheapo copies of the Blue Box safari Land Rover?

Love the craft-carved 'yokel', he has the look of Greece, Turkiye or somewhere else in the Balkans? Common Ertzgibirge to his left, there's a Matchbox-copy farmer in a soft silicon ruber, I've yet to ID the set but it will be a rack-toy or die-cast of some sort.

A pair of legs (Barbie/Kinder?), two heads (Star Toy knock off's of some vintage action figure I've mentioned before I think) also copied as Monta-Man by Montaplex sobres, in monochrome.

The medic is Corgi - as an unpainted moulding - but I'm still not sure about the painted ones, die-cast accessories anyway, also die-cast; a wagon horse to be ID'd, and a PVC Micromachine Policeman finishes the shot.

And back to sports or 'horseflesh' as the trade has it! The two green ones are from that educational package set, the outer two are cracker toys I think, I used to believe they were from a board game, but many variations and colours have turned-up now, so Christmas crackers from the budget end of the spectrum seem more likely?

Many thanks again to Chris for sending them all for us to enjoy - vehicles and AFV's next . . . after more Romans?!!