T is for Two - Early Plastic Vehicles

These are both militarised versions of civil toy vehicles, in the case of the lanny: more obvious than the sports car which may have been intended to be a stab at 'British Racing Green'?

This has the wheels of the little Tri-Ang Minic trucks we looked at a long time ago, but is scaled larger than them; here in a nice 'army' green, it's a basic short-wheelbase, Mark-One Land-Rover with pick-up body as used by farmers from day one, before the army adopted them and clamped a spare-wheel to the bonnet. Equipped with a standard Minic push-and-go motor, it's not terribly accurate, but the headlights and grill say: Mk.I!

I suspect this is more accurate to the real thing, but not being a fan of two-seat sports-coupes, I can only guess at Morgan? Jaguar? Riley? It's made in the USA who weren't known for this type of car (were they?), so I'm guessing it's a European 'type' anyway, although the squidged 'm', fort or hat shape logo (Maserati? No . . . trident!) on the bonnet doesn't seem to be a clue?

Also interesting - given its likely age - is that it's a soft polyethylene, the Irwin mini-planes being made of a more phenolic or styrene type plastic?

A scaleing-shot with Spencer Smith's figures, the Tri-Ang lanny is not too bad, a tad big for the 30'mils, but - as you can see - the Irwin 'staff car' is better suited to 50mm and could pass for a 54mm officer's steed...if any government would issue such cars! And you should never use the bonnet as a look-out!

R is for Road Roller

Apropos a comment I left on Geoff's Superhero's blog;

The slightly 'futuristic' (or engine-less/air-powered), dime-store/pocket-money, road-roller from Irwin, although it has a steam-stack! In the 1950's the future was clearly steam-punk! If you followed the link to Geoff's blog, you'll know what a Harley Davidson Electra-Glide was going to look-like in the future! Doh!

I'm afraid these are a couple of the first 'test' shots I ever took on a digital camera back in 2007, so they are low-res as I hadn't sussed the tulip-function out!

B is for Brum-Brum Autos

Mostly Cake decorations or pocket-money toys, but there were a few in the lot the other day, and these are the sorts of larger items which - like the larger musical instruments - would have come in those plastic-netting Christmas stockings we used to get as shut-em-ups a day or two before the big day!

I've probably got three-times these in storage (including a nice Marx die-cast of the Corgi style), with few duplicates so we will look at them in greater depth one day. Of interest here are the red one on the top right - it is an absolutely mint Irwin, still smelling like it's just been made (of a phenolic/celluloid polymer) - and the cream and blue ones with a wide track which are Italian pocket-money toys. The drag-racer is probably an earlier Kinder toy, while the blue one top-centre, is a hard styrene early HK piece, possibly Blue Box, but unmarked.

M is for Magnificent Men in Their Micro Machines!

So, to other teeny tiny 'planes in the same vague size range as the above MPC (previous) post. A lot of them tend to be one-off's or small ranges of - often - MPC derivatives, used for lucky bags/sobres, Christmas cracker toys, cake decorations and such like, but others are from similar 'sets' to the MPC ones...

The first - definitely pre-dating MPC - seem to have been from the States; Irwin making a set in a phenolic resin or plastic sometime around the 1930/40's or very early 1950's, shown to the top-left in a dark salmon red.

Another set which I'm identifying as Airfix (subject to change!) may have only included four aircraft types (Lancaster, Mosquito, Spitfire, and US Lightning), but they turn-up quite often, so seem to have been numerous at some point, possibly included with a larger toy (as load or cargo), perhaps as a beach-toy?

As early as the Irwin 'planes, but of much higher quality is the blue Beeju 'EVB' Mosquito (top right) we've already looked at here, I don't know how many were in this set/range.

While a small set from China is currently doing the rounds as cake decorations. The DC-3 in blue (bottom-left) is smaller than the MPC version, but of high production values and may be one of a larger set, possibly an American maker, any ideas? [17-11-2014 - It's from the 1957 Air Fleet set from Nabisco's Shredded Wheat Cubs, smaller ranges with 5 or 6 of the same model aircraft were also issued by Empire/Caldwell in the States/Canada in hard styrene and Lido in both styrene and softer ethylene, so possibly supplied to Nabisco by Thomas Toys]

The Irwin types so far encountered by this author, marked 'IRWIN' on one wing and 'MADE IN U.S.A.' on the other, the push-prop (top-left) is an interesting addition (possibly meant to be a Bell YFM-1 Airacuda?) helping to date the set?

Bottom-left is the current cake decoration group, also used for Christmas crackers of the budget variety, there are three aircraft types so far found, in three colours, with the - provisional - Airfix group to the right, these can be seen in full over on the Airfix Blog.

Other examples in the 'Mini Aircraft - Odds and Sods' box! The entire top row are MPC derivatives with the red (and damaged blue) polypropylene and silver polystyrene ones all marked made in Hong Kong (MPC+6), the white and yellow delta-wings having different marks (+7 and +8!).

The large green one to the right is a Hong Kong ancestor of the China cake decorations, The yellow Concord may go with the DC-3 above, same level of detail/production values. The two little yellow ones (top centre-right) are from a Kinder toy.

The red one bottom-left; may be a rocket/missile from a Manzinger type robot or Transformer type toy? The four silver ones along the bottom are Blue Box and others. The dung-yellow one is a Montaplex - I think - and the red and yellow pair bottom right are phenolic and probably quite early, one being a simplified twin-engined fighter/bomber type, the other - possibly a helicopter's body?

The hard plastic gold and orange rocket-planes are similar but not the same as the yellow one to their left, also hard-plastic. The white jet-fighter is a plug-in probably from an aircraft-carrier toy, while the Spitfire in green seems to be a scaled-down copy of the one included in an Airfix board-game and in the same (ABS) material and colour, but with a mounting-hole in it.

The rest are unknown mongrels from Christmas crackers, sobres, lucky-bags or premiums, can anyone give us details on any of them? [17-11-2014 - except the large blue Navion  bottom-left; It's from the 1957 Air Fleet set from Nabisco's Shredded Wheat Cubs, smaller ranges with the same 'plane were also issued by Empire/Caldwell in the States/Canada in hard styrene and Lido in both styrene and softer ethylene, both can be found on Toy Soldier HQ, the unmarked blue MIG/Lightning next to it (far lower-left) is a copy from the Nabisco set]