L is for Lots of London Loot - Jan. Through Feb. 2 of 2

A continuation of the previous post, and as I tend to post these in the order I shoot them, we’re back with the leery pink background first . . .

 

A trio of the really rather exquisite Les Higgins English Civil War figures, gang-up against a Minifigs (?) Royalist! Although he's more of a fancy-pants, so may be a Swiss mercenary!

 

Matchbox US policeman and a similar firefighter from Hong Kong/China.

 

Bullyland Cacophonix.

 

Another Marx Moses (we saw a brown one the other day), a . . . Gormiti type thing? And a doctor from a set of infant or early learning toys? These actually come in two sizes, but go back-off to charity every now and again, I think we've ID'd one type here, with a Toy Fair report and the others may be 'Tikes or Mattel or someone  like that?

 

A couple of Hong King divers with the plug-in heads, we've seen small rack-toy sets of these, but it's nice to get a few loose samples for close-ups. The Dinky road menders watchman, a Huskey/Corgi policeman and a couple of other HK pieces.

 

Airfix or Airfix-related, nobody expects the Spanish inquisition!  I think he's meant to be a crusader though, and it's the daft shooting-skyward para' under all that modelling! Finally, my favourite ACW Confederate pose (never available as a Union sculpt), seen here as a home-cast copy!

 

A selection of kit figures, mostly Airfix, but the sailors may be Tamiya or another MTB/Fast Boat kit's crew, and the two air stewardesses could be another maker too?

 

In the background we have two lots of early Airfix HO-OO copies, a small bag of Roco Minitanks with stab-and-hope flesh paint and a near complete set of Matchbox commandos - missing their boat!

 

In the middle-distance is a nice sample of Britians Lilliput, which will help top-up that boxed set we saw here a while ago, and in front of them a few Lone Star 'Afrika Korps' are about to be neutralized by a larger contingent of UN paratroops from the same maker!

 

A nice trio of interesting combat types, with one of the so-called 'Bonnie Bilt' semi-flats to the left, but in the more-local soft polyethylene, a home piracy or minor-make (?) copy of Britains in the centre, and one of the probably Pioneer (for Stonegalleon or Zita?) figures, which could also be Realtoy or someone else!

 

Bits and bobs! Mostly generic fencing or model railway walling, with a Supreme Wild West sign-post (top right) and three pieces of Lik Be (LB)'s farm fencing - bottom left, along with a bag of Airfix Betta Bilda bricks.

 

Various Hong Kong trees/plants, and a fireplace from Merten.

 

 Bellona pup-tents, a Wardie/Mastermodels station bench,

 and a couple of boxes for the spares zone!

 

More spares, including the Mafia 'violin-case', from a (Monogram?) car kit, a ship's yard, solitaire piece, Action Man pistol with broken trigger, Britains musket, plastic toothpick and some runner oddments! Also, an ornate pressed-tin washer of the sort you used to get on toy holsters and gun-belts from the likes of Crescent, Lone Star or Marx.

 

I thought these were stands of some kind, but I think they are dividers for old multi-drawer component storage units, of which I have several types in actual storage, so they may prove very useful going forwards!

 

A mix of mostly pretty generic farm animals, although it's hoped some will be ascribed over time, and while the purple-patch rabbits have a loose association with Blue Box or Tai Sang, it's not concrete at the moment.

 

Likewise, poultry and game, with an errant pair of Crescent-copy lambs!

 

Slightly more substantial in the interest department are these Britains lambs and duck family, better-quality Hong Kong rabbits and a rather nice PVC hen.

 

Modern 'China' farm animals.

 

More nice cows (see previous post), the pair on the left need a bit of digging, while the one on the right has suffered horn-surgery!

 

Two Crescent farm animals, foal and donkey, with what I think is a Britains in the middle, but is it an O-gauge horse (which could even be Hornby?) or a 54mm foal?

 

As well as a large quantity of previously-mentioned pewter/whitemetal war gaming stuff, there was all this Atlantic, mostly loose, and a bunch of flattened boxes, but not a lot could be made into whole sets, and some brittleness will mean a better sort into my similar stocks before it all makes sense!

 

Thanks again to Peter Evans, and another thought for the late Mikael Hyde, the Atlanitc was his, all useful grist to the mill, or bricks in the wall!

L is for Lots of London Loot - Jan. Through Feb. 1 of 2

There were several occasions in the first two months of the year which caused me to meet Peter Evans, in London or at shows, and obtain 'stuff'; quality stuff! Some of it may have already been seen, because - as I keep boring you with - it all got a bit mixed-up! The rest should be in the next two posts, then there's a show plunder, a Charity lot and some new stuff, and we should be up-to-date on the recent layers added to the stash?!!

 

If you've followed the Blog for some time, you'll know I like these little Japaneses civilian, rustic wagon subjects, and I have a fair few of the creamy-beige ones in celluloid now, but these are probably styrene, the horses and cowboy (complete with six-gun) are blow-moulds, while the main wagon body would seem to be a crude'ish, probably hand-pumped, injection moulding - lovely!

 

A handful of small-scale Marx or Marx-alike, being three of the Disneykin 'Babes in Toyaland' soldiers, I always get an urge to write Babes in the Wood (A British pantomime) there, I wonder if I've ever let any through here, in the past? Only the trumpeter is complete, but all useful spares. Three Wild West from the Miniature Masterpieces, a Stromboli from the Disneykins series 2, and two of the soft plastic editions from Euro-bubble-gum/ice cream premiums.

 

Three of the Hong Kong copies of Crescent's Mexicans, I have a fair few of these now, but most are in pretty leery colours, pink, purple or mauve plastic, this trio is - by comparison - quite conservative, in their plastic colours!

 

A handful of Hong Kong cows, I've probably got them all, but these will be swapped-in as the paint on all of them is about as good as it gets, and while I do have some clean stuff in the stash, most of the farm and zoo have come in, in tatty'ish or played-with mixed-lots, and are rarely this minty!

 

Back to Marx with a full set of the hard styrene, six-inch Romans, a bit of work needed on two and one's a duplicate, so I shot him with two Vikings also in the lot, we've seen both (Roman and Vikings) before here.

 

And while the vexillarius only needs a spot of glue (after the remnants of previous glueings has been chipped away), the spearman will need a new shaft to the same diameter, his hand drilled-out and a spearhead transplant!

 

Nice sample of Merit service-personal, from three sets, with the emphasis on the RAF, a hollow-cast sailor (Britains?), and a pair of rather well-painted, home-cast copies of the Gemodels cake decoration Naval Cadets.

 

Metal bits, the hollow-cast Lifeguard is a nice addition, as he will provide a side-by-side comparison with Timpo's later plastic version. The standing guardsman is unusual, I don't think he's one of the BR Moulds moulds, nor the usual ex-Schreiber home-casting subjects, but he's something similar; very toy-like?

 

Mounted might be Britains cheapo ('B'?) range, while the gold chap will be a penny-novelty, but they also came in sets, and the two semi-flat Highlanders would appear to have some age, like 1900-1930's maybe, and probably German in origin, but I'm no expert on this early lead stuff?

 

Ancients and medieval, including some sub-Giant stuff, a copy of the EKO copy of Airfix's first version 8th Army, along with a Britains Robin Hood clone, crying out for a repaint, and a modern novelty infant-toy!

 

A couple more for that sample we saw in a previous donation from Peter, both equally clean I think, the Indian may be a shunt from more than one donor, but as the base colour has leached into the foot, that pairing is right?

 

And a bunch of post-Giant small scale foot Westerners, these are the ones we've seen in blue in a carded set, with compartments Spacemen, Guards and Airfix WWII piracies, although I have them in other colours, they are mostly Britains Swoppet copies, with a Crescent Indian.

 

I love this pair, at first glance, more Hong Kong rack-toy 'zoo' animals, but in fact these are both either unique sculpts, or copies of less common originals, unknown to me? But neither of them is marked, so they may BE that esoteric minor-make, unknown to me?

 

They only 'look' Hong Kong, and at some point in the past appear to have been given a wash of water-based, pale-suede/sand, over the factory paint (not the mane), which has subsequently been removed or worn-off, making identification even harder? But they are lovely figures, especially the rather playful cub, swatting a butterfly or something!

 

This is also tangibly interesting, it's clearly not that old (30-odd years at most), being marked China, but it's a nice sculpt, well-formed in that dense PVC, favoured by some makers in the 1960/70's, which I mentioned the other day, and it has a makers mark - WS, with CE mark? There's a 'Wigglytuff'pencil-top on evilBay with the same mark, so this maybe a Pokémon, not a Pterosaur?

 

Nice Dalmatian (Schleich), reasonable Giraffe (AAA), both modern, both soft PVC-substitutes and a Kinder (I think) trash-panda, in a hard 'propylene or similar, who shakes his head when you wiggle his tail!

 

Space, the Giant sub-copies I call version II, and an interestingly poor sample of them, clearly late production they are heat-shrunk dwarves, some in a adarker than normal gun-metal finish, some in a brighter chrome-effect.

 

Vehicular elements, including a Kleeware GS-body 1-ton Humber truck, a sea-vixen from Airfix's Ark Royal, who will join the ones we saw the other day from Chris, with the storage sample, and we’ll do something with them one day, before they move on. The bigger gun is a common touristy thing, removed (like most) from a key-ring, while the smaller is a war-gamer's whitemetal ship's gun.

 

More bits from those micro-wagon kits, again we've seen some others recently here, and they will all go together until I have enough bits to complete one or two, as always it's the little axle-studs which are missing! A Lego motorcycle, from the early years of the 'Legoland' line, and a Wardie/Mastermodels baggage trolley.

 

Wargaming stuff, in various scales, there was a heap of this in a big bag, which was a separate purchase from the executor of Mike's estate, and which hasn't been photographed as it requires a big sort-out, but these are a few bits someone like reader Gisby might enjoy peering at?

 

I think it's mostly Minifigs, (Miniature Figurines) and the latter, not terribly 'collectable' ones, but still worth the box-ticking, some Shogun-era Japanese, verses various ancients and a few 10/15mm chaps, and bits of a siege engine for the spares box!

 

These are a bit smarter I think, possibly Hinton Hunt or Alberken (?) on the left, in the upper shot, two more modern chaps on the right (Platoon 20?), and all HH or early Minifigs (ACW) in the lower shot, but I'm open to info' on all of them.

 

Many thanks to Peter again, and a thought for the Late Mikael Hyde, from whom some of the above probably wended its way to me and the Blog. Lots more equally interesting stuff to come, in part two of this lot!

E is for Excellent or Ephemeral Everything Else!

Bits & bobs, odds & sods, scenic & spares . . . the rest of the contents of Jon's parcel, and there should be something for everyone in this lot! Randomly shot, and then collaged to reduce the image-count on the page, it's in no particular order, but covers the whole gamut of toys and models and other things!

We might as well start with soldiers, that being our raison d'être here! A nice resin tourist piece from Norway, of a Viking, they celebrate their violent colonialist past too! And a WWI German (Airfix) who was so keen to surrender he escaped the box with the small scale (previous post) and was found under the arm of the Viking, in among the dinosaurs!

 

I think this might be Tamiya, although it could be Italeri or someone like that, basic wall sections for early experiments into diorama building . . . a lot of us went there with mixed results!

 

The significance of the booklet (actually a trade catalogue) will become more obvious, further down the page, but suffice to say it's an old school catalogue from the 1950's with explanatory pages, drawings and nomenclature. While the Viewmaster sheet will join a few others I have somewhere - there's often one in a mixed lot of exactly this parcel's type! It will help me remember where my Remco divers did or did not come from - depending upon their plastic colour!

Some random die-casts, the Majorette trailer (circus) is a lovely thing and ID's a loose lion I think I have somewhere, similar to the Matchbox, or Corgi (?) one, but a tad bigger, while the police car is one we had as kids, so lovely to see again, and in pretty-much the same condition ours was in, when I last saw it!

 

Having a driver figure in approximately HO, it'll definitely stay, another (The Austin/BMC 1100 I think) had a dog on the parcel shelf . . .

 

Thought for the day; Why were they called parcel shelves, when all they ever had on them were tartan 'picnic' blankets and/or boxes of tissues, in addition to the odd dog, or nodding fake dog! Parcels went in the boot or on the back seats?

The green racing car is Mattel for Burger King, and reminds me of a holiday my brother and I had once where we found some cheap, generic Matchbox 1-75 style racing cars in a local seaside shop and bough one each, black and yellow I seem to recall, and spent hours racing them down a steep dirt track we'd smoothed out, and built jumps over the exposed roots of!

While the larger one is the Corgi Yardley McLaren-Ford and, of course - both have diminutive drivers . . . bargain!

The greenery, pretty straightforward for those who know what they are looking-at, but the highlight is definitely the trio of single-piece piracies of the multi-piece Britains willow trees, almost a temple to the copyists' art, they must have been very complicated three or four-part mould-tools, too?!!

 

An eclectic mix, with a lovely Matchbox Yesteryear fire appliance, this is the big-scale brother of the Matchbox and Lledo smallies we've seen here in the past, and you don't often see it, I suspect because it's so nice people look-after and hang-on to theirs?

 

A Christmas cracker ship flat (polyethylene copy of 'styrene Euro-premium), a copy of a Bruder 'plane, a copy of the Minic waterline tug and a copy of the Spanish Play-Me parrot-rifle artillery piece.

A bunch of Hong Kong pull-back 'stocking fillers' which I may be able to ID from Bill B's catalogue, or similar stuff, and a lovely Penguin boat. The box is a bit knackered, but there's enough there to scan the important bits, and it's an interesting line as it includes a vulcanised rubber Jeep and other oddities, clearly Frog for older kids!

 

Cable drums! A late Hornby-Triang in brown (the earlier one was green with different transfers), the Randall/Merit pair, one open, one closed, and a poorly glued Airfix, you can find it with blue or black cut-outs to glue on, then a couple of lesser makes in the centre, the two-colour styrene one marked-up 'NordKable', the other possibly from a large set of boxes and crates etc . . . which Märklin's sub-brand Primex carried at one point, but which may have been Preiser or Faller or someone originally?

 

Which brings us back to the blue booklet at the top of the post - it's full of little details about cable drums, with sketches! Fantastic! Even though most of mine are in storage I'm going to do a cable-drum post, just to thank Jon for feeding my enthusiasm for these esoteric things!
 

On the right, street furniture and other bits and bobs, the long marbled grey/brown pieces seem to be polystyrene sections of split-rail fencing, of the sort you'd want if modelling the American Civil War, but I have no idea who made them, while the stop/go signs and silver accessories at the front are from the late Britains mechanics in the Deetail style, so very useful.

And then there was this! Bits of that, bits of the other, bits of Kinder, and a very amusing rugby game I will post separately! There's some Chap Mai I think, some Britains, pencil-tops and an Action Man knock-off pair of bino's . . . they all have their place, their bag, their 'zone'.

Many, many thanks to Jon Attwood for what was a huge parcel, and we'll be returning to bits of it for years to come. Indeed, to that end, there are already a few follow-ups/comparisons of both his and Chris Smith's stuff in Picasa, so along with Christmasy stuff and railway bits, December should be busy here at Small Scale World.

 

Something filthy later today . . . got to get it out before Christmas proper starts tomorrow!