L is also for Laurie Toys

were going to be having American War of Independence (or colonial terrorist-insurgency - depending on your viewpoint - and you all know mine! It's tongue in cheek you humourless....) stuff today, but I thought I'd tie-up a loose-end from the 'Lucky week' thing, by clearing these from the dongle

The item itself is in storage, while the photographs I do have were taken back in 2010 or something for an eMail exchange and somewhat fail to show the vehicles off to their best! Still; after yesterdays post you probably won't mind a short one with few details!

The box! Laurie seem to be a wholly owned brand-mark of Lucky, but which I mean that while Clifford or Fairylite were independent import firms ('jobbers') with the products from other sources under their brand (I have somewhere an image of a polyethylene boat 'made in England' [possibly a Rafael Lipkin/Pippin piece] with a Clifford card), Laurie only appear with a Lucky Toy in the box!

 Despite water damage the box was otherwise 'unused', and the contents were still in two poly-bags, the failing of me to shoot a decent shot of the vehicles will be the excuse to return to it when it's released from its prison, but you can just see the figures stuffed lengthwise into the caravan for storage!

The interior is reasonable for a cheap toy, but note the flash stretching up from and down to the holes in the floor, these are a necessary part of the moulding process (undercuts and stuff) with such a complicated single-shot tool, but they provide a weakness for pressurised hot-polymer to squeeze out of.

I don't imagine you can get a much leerier colour scheme than candy-pink and apple-green, but maybe bright yellow and sky-blue could beat it, however the icing on this 'pop-art' cake - has to be the tangerine-orange car!

Lucky mark on the Laurie caravan mirrors the car and an interesting feature is the retracting tow-bar, making it harder to damage in play.

A small chromium-plated excuse for the 'Volksengine' is crammed-up against the housing of the pull-back motor, and the same shot of the car's mark we looked at the other day.

Only a box-ticker, and box ticked; Lucky - for Laurie!

L is for Lucky Toys!

At last we get to the justification for my banging-on about Lucky with little or no empirical evidence for the last five posts!

This is the full Lucky base-mark, variations of it are used on branded packaging and can be found under the bodies of Lucky's toy vehicles, the vehicles of its own subsidiary brands (Laurie Toys for instance), as well as the vehicles of other brands or 're-box' importers such as Fairylite and Clifford.

Here we see the mark employed on one of today's 'ovoid based' figures, one of the square based figures from the other day and the underside of my VW Carmen Ghia, otherwise badged (by its box) to Laurie Toys - the same mark appears on the floor underside of the accompanying caravan.

Another figure-set I know I don't have all the members of, or I suppose 'figure batch' is a better term as all these figures appear with the other 'batch' figures in the larger sets, even the firemen sometimes get one of the generic drivers.

Missing from my parade are the guy with a large 1950's style motor-racing engine oil or fuel (very dangerous if so!) can/pourer and a guy with a smaller lap-board or larger clipboard than the two we've previously looked at.

The 'lucky' base also undergoes various changes as it's anonymised for sub-contractors or other reasons, first the whole Lucky element (horseshoe and 'L') are scratched out, then a ¾-blank is employed, that's all cleaned-up and the '№' is removed while the code-number is reversed and centred, finally the whole base is re-cut to conform more to the kidney-based figures, there seems to be no 1112 issue of these figures - so far!

Race-goers and Officials (from Tri-ang/Mettoy 'Scalextric' - originally Stadden sculpts?)

540 - Race Official with Finishing Flag

541 - Kneeling Mechanic/Scrutiniser

542 - Spectator Camera

543 - Spectator Waving with Binoculars

Unknown Numbers

? - Guy with Large Oil/Fuel Can/Pourer

? - Guy with Notice Board/Clipboard/Lap Board

K is for Kidney-Base (again?)

I think we had that title on the small-scale 'Khaki Infantry' posts!

I'm on shakier ground with these - in pretending to know that much about them, that is - if only because I know I'm missing a few (who could have different or new base marks) and because the two largest groups of Lucky figures have either these bases or the ovoid ones we will look at tomorrow, so there's more likelihood that some of them (such as the first two below) might only have appeared with a single brand, and/or that there are still base-mark variations to be found?

These two came in some of the pit-stop sets or racing-car workshop vignettes, and both carry the 1112 mark and as yet haven't turned-up without it, so may only have been produced for a specific contract? Equally - I don't know if they have sculpt-origins elsewhere or are original designs, anybody got any ideas? I would pencil in a lesser US make maybe?

Race Crew

495 - Running with toolbox and extinguisher

496 - ?

497 - Kneeling with extinguisher

And those missing numbers I mentioned when looking at the gap in the firemen numbering? Well we have another gap here which could well be a missing pose?

These are a mix of influences, the race crew are (or seem to be from) a US maker, I have Marx/MPC? as the attached note (I'm sure they're on Kent Sprecher's ToySoldier HQ somewhere, but haven't time to look!) but they may be PP, while the commentators, press/media guys and spectators (most tomorrow) are from Tri-Ang/Mettoy's Scalextric range.

Note that the guy top left has a little nipple on his base which is for a spare-tyre which he's rolling across the forecourt/pits, I may have one in the spares bag, but it's in storage!

The other weird (or 'odd') thing about these is that having dealt - up to this point - exclusively with hard or brittle polystyrene plastic (and a bit of softer, flexible polyethylene among the smaller generics and Blue Box 50mm's); there is a PVC vinyl-rubber issue of some of these (probably all of them, but I don't have all poses in both materials) which makes storage a pain as you can't put them in the same bag, they will melt their frangible clone-cousins!

The top shot shows all my PVC versions with both base marks (below), while to the bottom-left we have a PVC cameraman to the right of a polystyrene version, the size difference has nothing to do with pantographs (or pantograph operators!) and everything to do with the shrinkage of PVC against styrene polymers.

One of the reasons PVC is such filthy stuff to work with (and for the wider environment) is the fumes it gives off, those fumes have mass, the loss of that mass causes the figures to be smaller; from the same mould. Also: he's slightly bent!

The camera carries the same code number as the operator and I haven't found one in PVC yet, but have seen a chromium-plated one which looked a bit naff! Most of the 'absent' figures are in a later post, but this one (camera-car catalogue image) was collaged-in with the other cameraman before I decided to break the page into parts/posts.

I have a feeling I've seen a figure which could be him, so he may have been loose and removable; I suspect the camera was fixed to the car, but again haven't seen one to know. If anyone has this figure going spare I'd love to track one down.

The two base marks, I have both types with the left-hand one in styrene only, while the PVC examples in my collection carry both marks.

My Laurie Toys VW Carmen Gia and Caravan (one of several caravan designs from the extended Lucky-and-others fleet), now in storage but fortunately photographed years ago before it went away (you may recognise the old Berkshire flat's carpet!), two holidaymakers or sightseers (campers? Caravaners in this case but I've seen them with 'just' cars), unfortunately I never shot the bases, nor made a note of the numbers, so these are among the 'unknown number' list - if anyone can tell us (the wider readership!) the numbers or confirm the mark-type that would be useful!

Race Crew & Media Types

430 - Rolling wheel/pushing something

431 - Holding lap-board

432 - ?

433 - Interviewer

434 - Camera operator with tripod camera

435 - Announcer with microphone

Unknown Holidaymakers/Sightseers/Spectators

? - Man with Binoculars

? - Woman in Skirt with Hands on Hips

D is for Dinky Firemen are so Lucky!

I was going to do a Lucky Toys page like the World Dolls/Dancers, but it's actually easier to break it down into pieces, as some bits are simple, this is one of the simple bits! Lucky Dinky got enlarged by Luck-y . . . yeah, I'm labouring a bad pun here, let's move swiftly on.

I had forgotten that I posted these a while ago, so re-shot them; if you click the Dinky tag you'll get the other post a little below this one. Dinky's firemen; older than other Dinky figures; like those we saw yesterday, so not showing the distinctive hand of Charles Stadden, but rather the smoother style of some unsung sculptor.

The base marking (not a brilliant shot but try tipping your screen - or moving your head up or down - and it may become clearer); similar to the rail staff that came in the same blue plastic, but they were in an OO-gauge compatible size, rather than the approximately 35mm of these firemen.

Four of the poses were subsequently copied in roughly 50mm by the Hong Kong firm Lucky Toys, who used them in various sets, both badged to themselves as The lucky Toys and their subsidiary brand Laurie Toys, however they were also supplied to the importers/jobbers Clifford, Cragstan, Fairylight, Jimson, and Larami (among others), sometimes with the Lucky logo retained on packaging (some Fairylite), sometimes not!

There were other sources through further contract manufacture (Century21) while other brands OK, TAT and Telsalda for instance may be connected through contract or subsidiary brand status it's not clear and further complicated by some of them having ranges in different scales of the same vehicles - mostly Corgi or Dinky clones. I can't possibly pretend to be an expert on them all, but there is a fair bit in the plastics section of Planetdiecast. [Thanks to Woodsey at Moonbase Central for that tip]

Lucky numbered all their figures in the larger scale and the other two poses may well be out there as there is a gap in the numbering which points to them existing? We will be returning to the numbering (and its gaps!) in future posts.

548 - Fireman standing, both arms forward   (ex-Dinky/Meccano, Polystyrene)

549 - Fireman with breathing gear (ex-Dinky/Meccano, Polystyrene)

550 - ?

551 - ?

552 - Fireman with hose end (ex-Dinky/Meccano, Polystyrene)

553 - Fireman running, waving with right hand (ex-Dinky/Meccano, Polystyrene)

Marking for Lucky Toys is a bloody nightmare, but fortunately - due to the unique (for Lucky figures) full square/whole base marks, they are a bit easier to delineate in this case; there being only four (so far!) types.

Top left is the probable first or Lucky original, with the HONG KONG removed from the right-hand one, possibly to facilitate demand from a client selling in a country that was finding the buying public adopting the 'all Hong Kong is crap' of my parents!

The other two will be for subcontracts I think, but it's not hard and fast and as we will be seeing in a day or two, there are actual Lucky brand base marks (with the horseshoe looping an 'L'), and as yet none has turned-up on these firemen's bases?

We will also find that the 1112 sub-number is a batch (or contract/customer) code being present on all bases of the same type, irrespective of the figure-pose, and applied to two of the round marks we'll look at later as well as one of the lozenge bases.

Examples of three of the base types and some paint/plastic colour variations, I have three figures with the fourth type base mark (or I wouldn't have bothered CAD'ing them up - I know some people will go to extraordinary lengths in their attempts to make stuff up, even to inventing a whole port - huh Paul? But that's not my way) however; they are all damaged and didn't get photographed.

Models they were issued with is - again - not my field, but among the few I know of are;

Lucky

114 - Fire Engine (with push-and-go gyro-friction motor, US style ladder truck)

178F - Fire Chief (Buick saloon-car)

195 - Fire Engine (Dennis?)

196 - Fire Truck (forward-control Land Rover)

- Land Rover Fire Service (series-3 Land Rover)

Clifford

22/4175 (? or ..73) - Fire Engine (AEC, friction powered with siren, ladder/pumper)

No. 232R - Fire Chief Ford Zodiac (saloon-car)

- Fire Engine ('No.21 Fire Brigade', Dennis (?) turntable ladder truck)

SYS

50411 - Fire Engine (friction motor, extending ladder, 1950's type vehicle)

Marx

- Fire Chief (copied by Clifford, station wagon)

Hover

- Snorkel Rescue (US style cab-over hydraulic ladder-truck)

Which of these models also appeared in another or each other's branding, or whether they all had all or any of the figures is also unknown - to me!

Other figures supplied to Cragstan were unpainted or minimal-paint versions of Lucky's (VW camper van for instance) and as I haven't found such firemen yet, I'm proceeding on the assumption they didn't carry the Lucky fire appliances, but Cragstan were a US concern, also imported from some of Lucky's rivals and seem to have concentrated on 'autos & race-cars' as the Americans would put it, but on fire trucks American collectors may know different, Erwin Sell probably went to all twelve factories the year before he was born; in Port Tain Sang no doubt?