T is for Transports of Delight

I know I'm supposed to claim to be a toy soldier and/or model figure collector, but vehicles have always had a place, not least because of the Airfix 'readymades' when I was a small-scale collector, but just as scenics and then spaceships started to feature, alongside Dinosaurs (quite recent) and erasers or cracker/gum-ball novelties, so mini and micro-vehicles have taken a growing corner of the stash for their own.

 

The fact that collected brands like Manurba, Pyro/Kleeware or MPC gave-up micro-AFV's, or the little trio of gun/armoured car/carrier thing, which came with so many rack-toys, was the start, but once you're into novelties, vehicles feature quite often, and these have all been added to the pile this year!

Actually, the exception which proves the rule - this came in some time ago, if the bedspread is anything to go by, it's been in storage for well over a year now, I think! A soft polyethylene copy of the Matchbox Greyhound coach, possibly from an earlier 'styrene Blue Box one, but starting to get a bit truncated, almost a 'deform', and smaller than the original. This may have been a put-aside from Gareth Morgan or Chris Smith.

 

A die-cast Benbros Qualitoy Gypsy wagon, these were the sort of wagon the itinerant knife-sharpeners, tin-smiths and other crafters would take village to village, all gone now, but there were still one or two on the road when I was a kid. Now rich 'celebrities' have fake ones placed in their gardens! This also shows other ways vehicles sneak into the collection, firstly my side-interest in wagons, and secondly; small-scale horses!

 

Two pieces of slush-cast lead, probably British, and a die-cast fire-engine, probably American? These were saved for me/donated to the Blog by Adrian Little, a while ago I seem to recall, and help with ID'ing them would be gratefully received! They may all, also, be board-game playing pieces?

 

Picked up in the September Sandown Park show, we have four from one series and a racing-car from another, all polystyrene, and all Hong Kong product. We looked at all my 'moulded-on wheels' micro-stuff a year or so ago, but there's also tons of this working wheels stuff, a lot of it marked W Germany, but plenty of British and HK lots, so these will join their samples against a proper look at them all one day.

 

Two of them are marked Made In Hong Kong, while the other two have an additional stock or tool number, but wheels/axles tie them to each-other.

 

I'm loving this, I'm pretty sure I already have one, possibly in the same red, which may have been on the Blog already (another Chris Smith jobbie?), but I seem to remember it having damaged engine-nacelles, while on this new example they are all present and correct. I suspect this might be a slightly upmarket (but still budget-end) Christmas cracker inclusion?

 

 It's also a spinning-top, which looks as if it should also whistle or howl, through those slats in the bodywork, but I can't get a note out of it! Of interest is the three nipplettes arranged around the spin-nipple (all my own nomenclature!), which help to prevent it from tipping too soon, or wobbling, so, help keep it spinning!

 

The flying saucer (here seen after cleaning!) came with these and the items in the next image, all around the same size, but obviously from different sources, the plane here being a bubble-gum capsule, a small piece of generic pink gum, similar to that which came with the little tanks, being stuffed in the nose and wedged against the tapered body as the two were closed together.

The yacht could be another cracker prize, or a basic/budget bath toy, or even supplied with a piece of bubble-gum 'cargo'? It was a much produced/copied novelty from both W Germany and Hong Kong, back in the day, but this seems to be the best quality one (with realistic, relief-sculpted, racing markings on the marbled sails) in a growing sample of them (we've seen a few over the years, not least a whole card of Rado/Ri Toys ones!), and while unmarked, may be British?

The wheeled passenger-boat is all soft plastic, and probably the most modern thing in the post, maybe as late as the 1990's or 2000's, and could be cracker, gum-ball or rack-toy, while the HK copy of a Manurba mini-sub is one of several generations of piracy, previously seen on the blog as rack toys.

 

Once they've all joined their like-for-likes, we'll return to them here, hopefully with details to add, or just 'bigger-pictures' as far as numbers in sets, or polymer/paint colours go! I was going to add some Internet images to this post, but there's so many of them, they can be another - 'lazy' - post, another day! And thanks to all who save this stuff for me, in addition to those named above.

ITMA is for It's That Man Again!

The hype has been growing for a week or two now, with the BBC's Radio4 and World Service both covering a certain new movie more than once in the last few days, it's all about some Corsican chap 'Blownapart', from the Wellingtonian period, who did something notable, or infamous? And the talkie-format, moving-picture presentation opens worldwide, today!

He's been modelled a few times, indeed we've seen him here before, so often, he has his own Tag (yeap, it hurt!). And here we have a large fairing in the centre, flanked by two substantial home-painted model soldiers on plinths, in the 80mm bracket.

 

Then the smaller front row, around 54/60mm scale and from the left . . . 'Metallion' of the younger artilleryman, two French-made Jim, a JSB from Belgium, Hong Kong's Blue Box (courtesy of Chris Smith's forthcoming donation-plunder posts), another French plastic (Acedo maybe, or Cofalu/x, Guillbert/Clairet, someone like that?) and a faux-antiqued tourist piece in slush-cast base-metal.

 

******      ******      ***      ******      ******

 

On the subject of the title, for foreign readers; ITMA was the moral-boosting comedy sketch-show on BBC Radio from 1939-49. We lived, for a while, next-door to Clarence Wright, who had retired to Alderney, he played several of the well known characters, among whom were the Commercial Traveller and the Man from the Ministry, and I had the pleasure of chatting to him on several occasions, when he would tell the most irascible stories, which I couldn't possibly repeat here, even if I could recall them, but I remember him as a thoroughly nice man.

S is for Sandown Park - May 2023 - Military Vehicles

So to all those vehicles, in point of fact I was more restrained than I thought at the last Sandown, I just took lots of shots and split them into five posts, but there's still a fair bit to look at!

 

I think I've managed to find a Sunderland already, probably posted here, but this one was quite clean, not too distorted and relatively cheap so I grabbed it, Palitoy, but now I'm looking for the clockwork version, and any other undocumented ones like the previous posting on the subject.

 

While the US dime store/slush cast Armoured Car from Barclay was also going for a song, and was also quite clean, a few paint-chips and some grubby wheels, which would turn the purists off, but I'm not so fussed!

This ends-up dominating the post, even though it's a piece of modern crap, but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes! I have trays of this stuff, Altaya, Matchbox, Eaglemoss, DeAgostini etc . . .  and most of it is pretty, but also pretty run-of-the-mill, a lot duplicated, however I was quite taken with this.

It's a long-wheelbase, GS Truck, Unimax 85061 German Büssing-NAG Type 4500A (also available in a desert/yellow-brown scheme), with a half tilt and two passengers, and was just a bit different, and going for pocket-money, as without the packaging this modern stuff isn't worth a bean! Again - more-fool the purists!

A dodgy photograph, but it looks like it's whizzing past the viewer!

A pair of real box-tickers here; Britains 1263 Royal Artillery Gun, a gap in the collection filled, it was just a clean one and again, reasonable on the money-front, I don't think it's rare, but it was needed, was it the budget/entry-level gun, there's lots of them! And a Timpo siege catapult, which - mercifully - was complete!

Really pleased to find this, it needs the speaker/siren on the mudguard, but I've had the khaki one for years, very distorted now (probably on the Airfix Jeep page?), while this is manufactured a while later, and is a stable polystyrene, the red's a bit leery, but airfield-airside, it's good for fire/accident investigations!

I suspect this was a comic-cover giveaway or Hong Kong knock-off, of those we saw in a couple of posts a while back (lockdown?), the launcher, apart from being candy-pink, is quite a light/flimsy moulding compared to some of the branded ones, and the rocket is marbled from scraps by the look of it (not clear in the photo'), so a nice addition to that side-collection/sample!

L is for Lazy Post, Lazy Day!

Yeah, I had a bit of a session on the garden yesterday which left me a bit stiff this morning, and so I rather chilled today! I did get over to the flat and start shooting the PW Show plunder for forthcoming posts, however I still have the first of the year's London shows to Blog, and another lot from Sandown this Saturday-gone, so it doesn't rain, but it pours, however; I could have worse things to whinge-about, than to many toys!

Vehicular purchases from the weekend, I missed out on a Tudor Rose forked-lift truck, not that I wanted to buy it, but I meant to shoot the driver figure to help ID one of those primary-coloured ethylene seated figures which come in, before it sold, which I failed to do, however I did manage to photo a few others, and the Taxi here (also Tudor Rose) has a driver.

 

A second Surry (with a fringe on top!) means one can be un-bagged and assembled at some point in the future, while the PP marked version of the Donkey comes with a hay-cart which seems to be the donor for those Christmas cracker minis, and shares a wagon-frame with the Easter bunny we saw here, a few years back now!

 

A 'Military Police' jeep from Thomas is all polystyrene, and more stable than the phenolic polymer army-green one I have, which has been slowly folding-in on itself since before it was mine! Likewise the Ideal steamroller will be compared with the olive-green Banner and Pyro ones at some point in the future too, it's going to be a busy point!

T is for Two - Of The Few!

As we lose the forth-to-last remaining Battle of Britain fighter-pilots, here's a couple of really very interesting model 'planes, the first is the less fascinating maybe, being a chunk of Alli', the other is a real treat. Both shot on Adrian Little's Mercator Trading table at Sandown Park, but photographed several months apart.

I think this is probably a 1st-year or 1st-term (Christmas) an apprentices or engineering student's test-piece, due to its crudity and lack of true mirror-symmetry . . . and the fact that the engines point outward, or that it lacks a notable or noticeable cockpit!

However, one or two people who saw it at the show thought it might have had a more commercial aspect, remembering similar stuff from their childhoods. Being older than me I'm not going to argue with them and will leave it to your judgement.

It's an aluminium casting, but appears to have been poured, not pressure-injected, resulting in softer lines and a rougher surface, and might be trying to be a Bristol Blenheim fighter-bomber?

We know what this is because it's written on both wings! A De Havilland Comet, but issued in a natty army-green, rather than the more famous racing scarlet! It's also marked with the B&s cipher of Barratt and Son's - similar to the cipher of the Bergan Toy Company (Beton)!

What I find so fascinating about this slush-cast lead-alloy (whitemetal) model is that it's almost identical in production values or properties to the early Supermarine Spitfire and Bolton-Paul Defiant models from Palitoy, not because it's copying them, but because they were aping the previous technology, prior to discovering the full potential in the properties of the new materials.

The way the propellers are fixed on with nails set into the casting, the whole profile of the wings and fuselage, even the marking position and style is similar!

Thanks to Adrian again, for the photo-op'.

S is for Some More Bloody Desert Rats!

The trouble with doing a thematic 'mini season' even one which jumps between theatres and nationalities is that you start to get a 'writer's block' on suitable titles, and having failed to start the blurb on this post twice because I couldn't come up with a humorous, alliterative or otherwise mildly erudite title, I gave up! It's just some more bloody 8th army! Charben's this time . . .

. . . and I'm missing the flamethrower. To be fair these seem harder to find than some of the others, and with brittleness become a factor on most of them now, particularly the chalky early British production of Timpo, Lone Star and these, the long, sticky-out bit of the flamethrower has probably rendered good ones few & far between.

But I'm relatively new to this large-scale malarkey (as I like to keep reminding you-know-who), and a flamethrower will come. It's like the Hilco 8th Army/ANZAC's, I've seen them, but they were outside my budget - stupidly I don't think I photographed them when I had the chance!

There seem to have been three generations, following (or followed by?) Timpo's set in the first instance with a change from/to black or brown weapons and a further issue in green plastic which may be supposed to be the 'Forgotten 14th'?

And following-on from the other day's comments - these chaps are definitely wearing 'footy-bags' rather than the shorts stipulated-for in Kings Regulations, Clothing, Troops, For the use of!

Yellow-tan on the left and greenies on the right, the Vickers MG is another of the family of mouldings with the ammunition feeding into the trigger mechanism - as earlier hollow-cast MG's had been more accurate (exception below!) - this has to be a case of lazy cloning by sculptors, the question is - who's came first; Timpo, Lone Star or Charbens? Both Timpo's water-cooled Browning (which lead to all the Kahki Infantry clones) from the ex-hollow cast US G.I's/W. German solids, and their later Swoppet Vickers were more correct.

I have late unpainted (or Woolworth's?) figures in the green and the grenade thrower seems to have the same leachate (is that even a word?)/leached deposit as the much later Matchbox figures would suffer from; some polyethylene Bergan/Beton were also afflicted with the same phenomena.

I have very few hollow-casts, good examples are way outside my budget, but along with a Crescent (or Timpo?) sailor, the Timpo launderer and the odd knight, cowboy or guardsman (I got two nice ceremonial hollow-casts at the last Sandown Park show), I picked this slush-cast lump of playfulness up at some point. It fires matches, or fishing-line weights, or gravel or inky-paper blots . . . bargain!

M is for Micro-Mush; Shackman's Slush-cast Smallies

To wit, the 'smallest' ever made? Are they? I think not, but they are pretty small! And they are among the smallest made commercially, with running wheels, although plenty of Edwardian and early post-war board games had smaller vehicles as playing pieces, some of which were hollow- or slush-cast.

The contents match the artwork in configuration (two each of three designs) but not in colour mix, where there is a less random mix than suggested by the artwork! A tad bigger than N-gauge (so Lone Star's Treble-o beat them for 'smallest' for starters!) and representing no actual vehicles?

Maybe a US taxi-cab or police 'Paddy-Wagon' (the green ones?), Ford Model-T (the red open-tops) and something French (yellow/blue)? Copyrighted to Shackman, they are actually sourced-in and marked Japan.

Some vicious flash on the upper-pair and finish - on all - is what you'd call un-fettled!

I've seen these in an O-Ei-A catalogue as being credited to Kinder, but they pre-date Kinder by fifteen or twenty years at least, the trouble with those catalogues is that if it fits in a Kinder-egg it tends to end up in an O-Ei-A 'Preisfuhrer' whether it was actually Kinder or not! Although - to be fair to the authors - over the years Kinder have sourced all sorts of stuff from half-a-hundred manufacturers!

They (Shackman) also did a train; Toot-Toot! You only get the four in this box and with only three different items of rolling stock, but I love the passenger-cars which look like someone took a Wells Fargo overland stage-coach and plonked it on some railway wheels - which is probably close to what actually happened!

My driver lost his head to a low bridge long before he came into my possession, but continues to serve his locomotive with diligence . . . and integral, semi-flat moulding! The pen-top is to give a further sense of scale, but again these aren't the smallest.

 

DeWitt Clinton train (1831) exhibited on latter-era flat cars.

 

Indeed with the exception of the tatty pencil-sharpener engine (top left) these are all smaller, apart from the grey car which is about the same size. I have more of this shite somewhere, but we looked at a few in the novelty posts a few Christmases ago, and I just happened to have these in front of me, so when I've got them all together we'll have a better look!

Gum-ball machine capsule prizes, gift-eggs, Christmas crackers, crafting sets/items, a pencil sharpener 'statue' and the grey car may be from an N-gauge scenics line?

T is for Two - Two Tanks

An all-contribution post now with two AFV's from Adrian and Brian, we'll start with the newer, as it's so whacky it almost got its own post, but I remembered the other one was sat in the big folder from last September, so it became a 'T is for Two...' trope post instead!

Now, I'm not stretching the hyperbole to state WTF? here, am I? What The-very-actual Flipp'in Ada is going on here!??

I think it's a junior-school-gymnasium-type-piece-of-padded-play-equipment-type-thing? Anyway; whatever it is, it's hanging from a building in downtown Philadelphia! Uptown? Pennsylvania? Brian will correct me!

Now, I was taken by the fact that once you get over a large padded, vinyl tank - which looks like it should be in The Beatle's Yellow Submarine - hanging from the side of a building, you realise you are in a street of timeless quaintness. The sort of mews or side street you might find in London, Birmingham (that's Birbig'um, Ingerland; not Burmin'um, Alerbammy) or even Amsterdam? . . . or, maybe, even Birmingham, Alabama?

And while - if it were a mews in London - you'd expect it to be grade-II listed, the fact that the shackles are in the woodwork of the windows rather than the masonry, suggests a similar protection order? Altogether a fascinating and amusing couple of pictures - Thanks to Mr Berke for spotting it, and sending them to the Blog. Apart from the brightly coloured tank, it looks like a film set!

Brian suggested it no longer fit the 'small scale world', but it's small enough!

I shot this on Adrian's Mercator Trading stand at the September Sandown Park show, you often see these about at shows, but usually in a plain paint scheme, this one was leery enough to be worth shooting.

I'm guessing French, although I think Johillco had a couple of few in their inter-war catalogues and lots of other people had a go; in real life it was the first major volume-production Tank, sold whole, as kits, hulls & running-gear only or simply licensed to armies all over the world for many years, and there's a whole toy collection to be had just in model Renault F17's and the many variants/derivatives!

Again I'm only guessing, but are the tracks replacements from Meccano? Usually when you see these (in green, more commonly grey, or a three-colour 'blob' camouflage) they are either trackless or tentatively holding-on to blobs of semi-melted, semi-cracked India-rubber or leather of some kind, but these look a tad too well preserved? Still it's a good way of replacing the missing originals and that form of Meccano track is probably contemporary with the model.

P is for Picasa Clearance - Britains' Universal/Bren-gun Carrier

It's a Carden-Lloyd configured Carrier in the section-fire support Bren-gun role of an infantry company's carrier, as made by Britains in slush-cast lead with hollow-cast crew figures, photographed on Mercator Trading's table a year or two ago. That's it.

T is for Two - Britains Armoured Cars

Just a quick one today, bit of lead to add to the pile! Actually it's not mine; both shot at Sandown about a year apart, thanks to Adrian for both.

The posh end of the market got you this rather smart beast in it's velvety-red box, based - I think - on a 1925 Vickers-Crossley pattern with rubber-tyred wheels, revolving turret and two-tone paint scheme, it's a beauty for it's age, but only for the son's, godson's and nephew's of the 'gentry' one suspects!

However! the poor could wish for this under the tree come Christmas morn', a slush-cast (sixpenny?) toy based on similar designs from the 'States and aimed at tighter-budgets - it has exactly the same play value when you're six or seven! And a bigger gun!

S is for Slush-cast...Not!

Two in one night...he must be clearing crap out of Picasa again! I shot this at a show a while ago, not really a 'bit of me', show me a Khaki one with an allied star, or show me one with a figure and I'll be interested, but pure civi stuff in 1:24th (or thereabouts), is not something I get excited about.

But, I was interested enough by the apparent attempt of a metal toy to try to look like a plastic toy, as to photograph it. I'm referring specifically to the yellow wheels, which are exactly what you'd find on dime-store plastics of the 1950's/early '60's. The wheels are also fixed to the body in a similar way, simple mouldings of axle and both wheels as one piece, they sit in a grove which is hammered-closed over them - as you might collapse two plastic spigots either side of a plastic axle with a hot blade.

Also, this is not slush-cast, but looks like it. When you pick it up it's too light for soft white-metals (lead; as was), this is actually a very crudely cast mazac/zamak alloy which has not been fettled, leaving rough edges to the windows as if slush-cast in soft metal.

Slush-casting of toy vehicles was a bit like hollow-casting of toy soldiers, but with a slightly more complicated mould; you sloshed the molten metal around and poured-out the excess, leaving an uneven interior, but hopefully the exterior had taken the detail of the mould's surface. This model has an equally smooth interior, which has been painted to the same high-gloss, helping the faux-plastic look.

Just as generals and politicians always start fighting the next war as if it was the last (until they realise the enemy has new tech. and new tactics), or economists always treat the new crisis like the last one (until they realise the variables are all different), so toy manufacturers always try to use the new technology to crate the toys of the old technology, and this is trying to be a slush-cast car (because it's metal), using dime-store plastic techniques (because it's injection moulding) and end's up the bastard child of both, because no one has yet though..."do you know what, with this tech., we could include fine-finish shelves for windows, we could drill and screw a base-plate?"

It's a fascinating example of a nascent technology, I don't know the maker, it was unmarked, but it must be among the earliest die-cast vehicles, and was really clean.

C is for Charbens

You may remember a while ago when I was looking at Skybirds figures (S is for Skybirds) and accessories, I mentioned that they might have bought some of their bits in, as the searchlight they used was the same as a truck-mounted one on another makers slush-cast lorry?

Well - this is the lorry I was talking about, I believe it is Charbens, and you can see that the searchlight is the same as the Skybirds one. Charbens would go on to use a Die-casting process with a mazak type alloy/compound, and the two lower shots are of later mini-scale vehicles from that range.

 

While mentioning Skybirds, here are a few more shots, courtesy of Mercator Trading who were carrying them at a recent show. We've seen a better tanker-refueller (also thanks to Adrian - I seem to recall!) but the 'under-wing' refueller is new to the blog and a harder model to get hold of.

The boxed set of figures is also really nice, I'm not sure how you are supposed to differentiate between the officers and NCO's though, there are only two poses in the box?

S is for more Shermans

Mostly not actually Shermans, but AFV's on a Sherman Chassis, starting with three more Shermans though;

Front of the row is the Manurba Sherman I've posted before, this is a little on the big side at around 1:65 scale. Next is a pocket money toy, probably by Kleeware, it's marked 'Made in England' and is a UK produced Gilmark U.S. dime-store 'bin toy', proportions are all over the place! Final mark in the line-up is the Midori push-and-go clip-together model, also produced for/in Riko (Richard Kohnstam) packaging.

Comparison shot of the underside of two Midori Shermans, I don't know if there is any significance to the different wheels, i.e. Midori/Riko batches, or just a change of wheel/motor-unit supplier at one point, but some people like this type of variation when collecting old toys, and it means you get to keep both...because 'you MUST have them'!!!

Here we have a slush-cast Lee/Grant (you wanna decide which it's meant to be!!?) and a Rocco Tank Destroyer, the M3 has an antiqued finish like the pencil-sharpener in the previous post but is probably 30 years older - if it's a day!

Two Priest SPG's, the one behind is a contemporary Hong Kong one, the nearer one of the two is a Gilmark original, missing the gun-piece. Compare this to the UK issued Sherman at the top; track units are painted and the US produced vehicle has thermal printed markings.