About Me

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No Fixed Abode, Home Counties, United Kingdom
I’m a 62-year-old Aspergic gardening CAD-Monkey. Sardonic, cynical and with the political leanings of a social reformer, I’m also a toy and model figure collector, particularly interested in the history of plastics and plastic toys. Other interests are history, current affairs, modern art, and architecture, gardening and natural history. I love plain chocolate, fireworks and trees, but I don’t hug them, I do hug kittens. I hate ignorance, when it can be avoided, so I hate the 'educational' establishment and pity the millions they’ve failed with teaching-to-test and rote 'learning' and I hate the short-sighted stupidity of the entire ruling/industrial elite, with their planet destroying fascism and added “buy-one-get-one-free”. Likewise, I also have no time for fools and little time for the false crap we're all supposed to pretend we haven't noticed, or the games we're supposed to play. I will 'bite the hand that feeds', to remind it why it feeds.
Showing posts with label Lido. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lido. Show all posts

Friday, October 23, 2026

S is for Sandown Park - Bits & Bobs

Continuing with the Sandown plunder from September (next one's three weeks away, this Saturday!), and this would normally be the last post in the sequence, but I haven’t got the images ready on the other two, so, here's the odds and sods.
 

Martin Fahie had put these to one side for me, and they are all Hong Kong production, and all enhancing existing samples, some of which we have seen here already, and I have taken follow-up shots with some of the bits from the storage unit, so that'll be forthcoming in the near future.
 
Lido space werhickle! Missing one of it's two plug-ins, but takes my sample over the basic four, and allows for chopping and changing for future shots. What I think is the engine nacelle/venturi for the Dalek lander-'Mechanoid' from Cherilea, which is another useful spare in that sample, which you have watched grow, almost in real time.
 
And a pretty clean and undamaged Hilco Martian, and one of two poses most likely to be found damaged, again a collection which has grown from almost naught, with the Blog, to over a dozen with damaged examples. And I believe his helmet will be following shortly (three weeks!).
 
 
Three of the larger set (scale/size wise) Noddy in Toyland/Toytown figurines, made in Hong Kong, and in the style of some Marx production, but nothing is known of the maker, as far as I know, nor do I know how many are in the set (nor a total for the smaller set), but they are slowly growing as a sample!
 
Probably the best find of the show? We've seen the White Rabbit before, first as a single, phenolic or early styrene, with good detail, then as a mass produced lesser quality ethylene moulding, in the set of educational oddities, now I find these?
 
A stretched Alice, lays in front, awaiting glue, with from the left (best to open the image); White Rabbit,  Queen of Hearts (first book), Cheshire Cat, Hookah-smoking Caterpillar, one of the Kings, Mad Hatter, Playing Card Guard (near-flat, although they are all demi-ronde), Red Queen (second book) and the Mock Turtle. 
 
One might think board game pieces, but if the colours are a clue, it's not a game for three equal players, nor any even number of players, but are all the pieces here? They are old, and with characters like the Dormouse, Tweedle brothers, White Queen, and another King or two 'missing', they may be from a larger set, and while board game is still a best bet, they are quite small, no more than 20mm?
 
We've seen the pixie before, but in a darker red, this one is Ready Brek glowing! A puppy jumper - while it was OK to start collecting the LB copy jumpers, and the bug-eyed aliens were/are fun, it seems jumpers are to join white-button toys (two lots coming soon - Halloween!), as a peripheral sub-collection! And what I suspect is one of the few lose Corgi figurals previously missing from the stash, everybody's favourite villain - Dick Dastardly!
 
A couple of Euro-premiums from one or two different building sets.
 
Civilians; an unknown nurse (Atlantic like, but I don't think she's theirs, Charbens again?), Britains arctic explorer, a huge copy of the Corgi ice-cream seller, I guess Lucky or similar? Then the tramp/hobo from Hilco (? It's from the Johillco hollow-cast moulding), a mother and child, probably from a US model car kit, and a recent farm worker which I think we saw in Padgett Brothers/A-Z packaging, a few years ago? In front, a Britains cyclist.
 
The long arm of the law! Three Lines Tri-Ang Motorway, with a bugler (I think they only ever looked like that in kids' comics!), one Corgi Junior, two Hornby Dublo/Meccano and a pair of Merit/Model Scene, with the WPC snapped of at her shapely ankles - ouch!
 
Other railway/small scale figures included a Blue Box mechanic, several Merit, a metal Wardie/Masternodels railway staffer, the Hornby Hobbies Hong Kong sourced moped rider and two machines (shared with at least two other brands), the boy with horses from the Britains Miniset, and a seated Airfix passenger.
 
Odds! The cactus may be new on me, but it may just be home-paint bamboozling me! Common bit of fence and a couple of weapons from 3/4" action figures I guess. All in all, some nice bits, the Alice Looking Glass/Wonderland set is the definite highlight, anybody know anything else about it?

Thursday, May 7, 2026

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Wild West

We've been slowly getting through the Sandown Park stuff, for a while now, on-and-of, and I've just spent 20-minutes sorting a folder only to realise it was the BMSS purchases, when it makes sense to finish-off the Sandown bits, given what else in now in the short queue, and how far I've slipped already this year, so I quickly hived these off, technically Wild West, but there's a duck and three Spaniards in here!
 
Timpo Teepee, which was going cheap, and I grabbed at the end of the show, I've got a better sample in storage, but there are a couple of Tipi posts full of Wigwams in the queue, so I thought it would be useful for enhancing those!
 
I got in a muddle at last year's Plastic Warrior show, (next one, just over a month away!), and consequently missed out on a couple of the Mohicans I need, but in the aftermath correspondence, at least worked out I need the archer, and the guy with rifle and tomahawk, but I knew I also needed a 'better paint' shooter, than the one I had, so this chap on the right ticks a box nicely!
 
These two were in a biscuit tin of proper 'new to market' stuff Isaac offered me, and he didn't want much for it, in fact he may have been trying to give it to me, but I got very excited by the 'jumper' alien (we've already seen) and then spotted these two, told him they were worth 'proper money', and gave him said dosh. The rest was mostly grist-to-the-mill wild west (most of the below) and ceremonial types.
 
Hong Kong Confederate, half Crescent inspired (horse), half Timpo solids, issued here in small, generic rack-toys, but in the 'States in Ideal play sets I seem to recall?
 
Cherilea 60mm 5th Cavalry, the 'Black Knights', busied themselves with the genocide of the locals between the Missouri River and California (which "...was an almost unknown territory, occupied by powerful and warlike tribes"), sorry, sorry, upsetting the guilty again . . . 'Delivering civilisation', is - I believe - how Congress put it? Trump and Netanyahu are doing it in the Middle East, now!
 
Strangely these must have sold well, back in the day, as they often appear in mixed lots, and between odd purchases, these (the bag is all standing firers!) and a semi-brittle bunch a few years ago, I should have a complete set now.
 
An errant Spaniard (Hilco-Phoenix-et al), a Disney Mc-duck ('Euro' premium or Marx reissue?) and two Crescent 60mm's, one, a confederate in average condition, and the other, a rather poor cowboy!
 
A Tudor Rose rider, and two US figures, who might have been licensed over here, they seem quite common, and Tudor Rose might be in the frame for that contract, but I don't know, they may be later imports, they're not rare, and ran for years - I think in the USA they are Lido?
 
A mixed lot of odds, including two tatty Herald cowboys and a camp fire, an 'Early British' (Kentoys?) copy, a Herald Hong Kong shooter in good nick, damaged Cherilea mountie, and a Cherilea Indian on his back, also injured!
 
Crescent Wild West, the guy with the whip (slave owner? Never made sense to me!) is probably the best here, but both white ones need cleaning, and checking against the master sample. In point of fact, all three to the left are saveable.
 
Cherila 60mm, again it's a case of checking them against the master sample, sending the damaged ones to recycling, and either swapping the rest at some point in the future, or selling them to fund further purchases!
 
As one Spaniard had already snuck-in, these two can go here as a full-stop, two reissue Cherilea bullfighters, from the Marlborough-Dorset production era.

Tuesday, December 16, 2025

L is for London Toy Soldier Show - 2 of 2

I must confess I didn't stay long at the show, and wasn't carrying much cash, but I bought a few bits off everyone I knew, and ended-up with enough for two posts of mostly interesting stuff!
 
I can't veer into 'new painted metal', but one should support one's mates in their endeavours, so I try to buy the odd piece off Matt from White Tower, and this lovely Mongol/Hunnish horse-archer came home with me, beautifully wrapped in tissue paper by Matt!
 

Three Reliable interwar 'doughboy' infantry from Canada, these used to be considered copies, but I think everyone now accepts they were a licensing deal, or cross-boarder mould-swap, as there's nothing in them bar the different marked bases.
 
Marx on the left, in the box, I believe he's called Bill Mason! Lido in the middle, the rider's lost most of his lasso, so I think the kindest thing to do, will be to pare-away the remnants, so he can concentrate on fighting the bucking bronco! An early kit figure, on the right, is the third American here!
 

Three from Eastern Europe, with two of the Drevopodnik figures from the former Czechoslovakia; a railway platform guard and a medic, while I think the third is what we call a fake, a deliberate attempt to deceive - I stand to be corrected, and he's marked Elastolin Germany.
 
But the material is all wrong, and I think this is an East German fake of something which, by then, was the other side of the wire? It looks to be a pumice type composition, not the correct wood-chip and linseed? If I'd been doing it, I would have stained the base with coffee before I painted the green on!
 

 
Obviously removed from a very big, probably mostly tin-plate jeep, this guy is a 'dolly' rubber, probably PVC, with a mostly-polystyrene gun, which had a glowing-tip at some point I suspect, there's the remains of wiring up the barrel (so also battery operated/supplied)?
 
And there's what appears to be the remains of a mechanism for traversing, probably as the jeep went along? The figure's roughly in the four-inch bracket, and his toes are pined-trough the plinth and the pins have then been heat-sealed.

A Starlux diver, bought to compare with the smaller ones, the Dinky one and the unpainted (Solido?) ones, he's the full 54mm, while I don't know the maker of the colonial soldier, but he's another French figure I think?

A Charbens press-ganger, LB (for Lik Be of course) Indian girl and one of Cherilea's Elizabethan types, an eclectic trio, but all nice enough samples, clean and with good paint!
 
Another trio of the Vilco copies of old Cofalu aluminium figures, except these are in a rather nice marbled red, hard polystyrene, so may be by someone else, I thought maybe Toumoulage, but without any evidence! I have a feeling, though, that I did get an ID for them in silver & bronze hard plastic at some point?
 
Whatever the truth, I have a growing sample of these now, in hard and soft plastic, painted and bare, and think they are among my favourite French figures, although only the four poses (the standing firer is missing here), so far?

A couple of Spanish bullfighters to finish, Reamsa I think, the one on the left is very brittle, and has been repaired and repainted at least twice, and is to be considered only a pose-sample, until a better one appears, and there may already be one in the stash?

Wednesday, December 10, 2025

N is for November's Sandown Park - Military

More of the odds and sods from the last BP show, at Sandown Park, and it's the military stuff, which wasn't numerous, but had a few interesting items to look at, including one which might surprise you, by my excitement of it!
 
There's a fair bit of brittleness, in the contents of this set, figures and weapons, so at some point, I'll probably de-card it, and save the PVC stuff for spares and scan the card, it's not like the figures are particularly rare, while a full scan of the generic card would be a useful addition to the archive.
 
Two 'Began-Beton's', probably from Plastic Toys Inc.? And one of the small Monogram/Revell copies, along with my first Lido original, I have lots of the Hong Kong copies, but the quality of this original shines through, so very pleased to have found him, rummaging through Gareth's tray.
 
Tourist keepsake for sure, poured-resin, and not the world's best sculpt, but it is a Horse Guard, whom I prefer to the Lifeguards, around 80/90mm, and one assumes not that old, but not current, as I've recently been checking-out the shops round the theatre district for something else, and haven't seen anything close to this chap.
 
Two hollow-cast nurses, and I thought the one on the right might be Crescent, but someone said they are both Britains, early on the left and later on the right, sort of Crimean War and WWI eras?
 
Crescent.
 
Skybirds.
 
Fantasyland? Or the better originals (check tag)?
 
Odds & Sods.
 
John Begg gave me a tray of small-scale. lead shrapnel, which has a few useful bits in, and which, in time, will get sorted into the rest, the Skybirds pilot is particularly nice, as they gave them several paint schemes, both military and civilian, While Crescent used many colours/shades, over the years.
 
In the last shot, the larger-scale, colonial artilleryman, and mid-19th century red-coat, standing firing, are both complete and will join the cards I display this odd, flat stuff on, while the others will probably go in the 'Don't know what to do with them, but can't chuck them' tub!

Sunday, November 30, 2025

M is for Mohawk and More Military Miniatures

At the recent Sandown Park show I picked up a parcel from our roving reporter in New York, Brian Berke, which was very useful, as while I've mentioned them once or twice over the years, I've never encountered the sample while transferring things between different places, so they've remained rather absent from the Blog, but we can now tick that box - Mohawk's mini 'dimestore dreams'.
 
The one on the right is the colour of all my sample, so the pale herb-green ones, to the left, which made-up the bulk of Brian's donation were new to me, and this is a slightly larger version of the jeep we've seen before here more than once.
 
Brian also included a few marked-Lido mini's, so we can compare the two mouldings, as a full-stop to this original post, here, which compared the other three contenders for who's the pirate, who's the licensee, and who did the first version!
 
So that's six (Kleeware, Lido x2, Merit, Pyro and Mohawk) in total now, with the soft plastic Hong Kong version, Lido seem to have sanctioned themselves, toward the end!
 
 
The lorry on the left, a sort of 1950's pantechnicon, is also a homage to other mini 'readymades' of the era (the Pyro 'artic'), and also scaled-up, while the Ambulance is a more original moulding. I know I have a tanker, to look at another day, but I think I was missing the pantechnicon, so lovely to get both colours.
 
The car is also based on another model, and while less obvious, joins the Empire-Ideal-Kleeware-Lido-Pyro (2 sculpts)-Wyandotte family of small post-war family saloons, for an eight-count! While Brian himself sent us the Carzol coloured versions of the Tank not that long ago;
 
 
Lido on the left, Mohawk on the right and there's more on the cars here;
 
 
Among the Lido's was a lovely bronzed version of the 'StuG III' which was new to me, and while rather washed-out by camera-flash in this shot (left-hand tank), is - in daylight - a distinctive goldish-bronze colour plastic, like some of the Captain Video figures!
 
At the same show Adrian had a few dime-store's saved for me, both of which are useful, having seen marked tractors and or guns from Banner, Bell and Merit, I'm not sure who issued this unbranded pair (left, the tractor has a 'Made in England' which I'll compare to others in the collection at a later date), but in a batch of British stuff, Kleeware, Tudor Rose or Merit (licensed or copy) are in the frame, and with the wreaker-truck a marked Kleeware copy/mould-swap of the Pyro, the clever money goes on Kleeware?
 
As with the Jeeps and 'Staff Cars', we've looked at many versions of the gun here at Small Scale World, already, but getting two new versions in one show is a feather in the collection's cap, with the unmarked green one, and a full-sized Hong Kong copy, in silver polymer, with eye-damaging ammunition!
 
There were a couple of more conventional/less contentious British 'Dime Store' AFV's from Tudor Rose, not copied by five other people, or licensed to anyone, the rather good Churchill IV, and the more dodgy armoured car.

Many thanks to Brian and Adrian, it’s all a dimestoretastic show-plunder and donations post, folks!