D is for Donations - Peter - Animals

The sorting of the animals is going to be one of the bigger tasks, one day, the hobby is probably bigger than Toy Soldiers, certainly, it supports several vigorous forums, and there are as many makers, if not more, while mine are rather in an anonymised heap within the bigger stash, but they keep coming in, and here's some more!

 

A nice cat, which looks like it might be an accessory from a non-animal set of some kind, the lizard is from the little small-scale, rack-toy play sets from Toy Major/Ackerman, while the bear is both a bit crude and a bit unusual!

 

A whole sub-genre are this smallish scale, softish vinyl sets from toobs, tubs or bags, which are sort of 35/40mm compatible, but really 'bag-scale' or unit scale, and while some are marked, other's easy to ID, many sets are to be found on FeeBay-Amazon-Alibaba, as generics or under obviously phantom brands. These seem to go together, but a couple of them are questionable. Nice, different, cactus!

 

Two generic rack toys, over-stickered to Toys As Fun, which I could have saved for Rack Toy Month, but I think there's plenty for then, and this is the next size up, again, a bit unit-scale (elephant undersized, pig oversized), but mid-sized animals are coming out as 54mm-compatible, which is useful for dioramas and vignettes . . . big cat stalking a patrol, that kind of thing!

 

A couple of proper antiques, I love these! The pressed-wood farmer seems to match the common girl feeding chickens we've seen here before, in point of fact, she or her chickens, turn up so often she must have been from a popular set, for several years, but this chap I've not seen before. Although the blue paint has suffered badly, the other colours remain in sufficient quantity to give a good idea of what he looked like new!

 

While the horse in tin-plate might be a cigarette premium, while we, here in the UK, had cards and silks, as giveaways, some brands on the continent had tin-plate flats, prior to replacing them with the numerous plastic flats used as premiums with other products too. You fold the base out, after the item has been slid out of the packet of cigarettes.

 

From a more recent pick-up in London is another Toy Major lizard (used as a dragon/monster/dinosaur in both the cavemen and medieval sets), two tree frogs and a very daft-looking sauropod!

 

Some larger animals, I think a couple were Triple-A marked, and the green pony is from the Tupperware interactive building blocks, we looked at here;

 

https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2017/11/g-is-for-great-grey-green-greasy.html

 

Where they were used as, removable, playable rattles, in opaque blocks, unlike the transparent ones from Airfix and others.

 

A large lump of dense vinyl, makes a rather nice Hippo', and these are starting to grow as a side collection, purely by accident, and we did look at a load in a lazy post a while ago!

 

This is from PMS, and I ummed-and-arrred over whether or not to open it, in the end I though I had to, or I wouldn't know what I was dealing with, and was quite suprised to find a gold mokey!

 

I don't know wheather it's a 'chase' figure, or if the whole range is finished in a similar fashion, nor do I know how many there are as there;s no flyer/leaflette . . . probably a £1-shop thing, and therefore stripped to the minimum on unit-price!

 

Another group of - probably - related small vinyls - wild!

 

And another - domestic!

 

Mentioned the other day I think, and seen with a few others a while back, oh yeah, it was the post on mixed shots, a week or so ago. Anyway, here's the farm one, courtesy of Peter, and these sets annoy me, nice animals in a vague scale, so why add huge dogs and ginormous poultry! They haven't even got the excuse of box-scale, because there's plenty of room occupied by the plastic end-filler!? I know, it's a cost thing!

 

Again, many thanks to Peter for all these, they're not just grist to the mill, but also 'bricks in the wall', gaps filled in the archive.

L is for Loose Lots - Sandown - Military

Military and ceremonial now, with a few interesting items, one of which is annoying me, but maybe you know what it is, or where they are from, but let's look at the pièce de résistance first!

 

A pretty clean Kentoy stretcher team, I may already have one, but this has good paint, and being new to market is properly 'clean' if you know what I mean, and I think it's a darker brown blanket than my existing sample.

 

I think these may both be duplicates, but I love a bit of [affordable] composition, and we have an 'olin' gunner from Germany, possibly a minor make, or from the budget ranges of one of the big-two, the other, more likely the duplication; it looks familiar, in pumice or plaster, and maybe British or French?

 

This pair are the ones that are bugging me, I'm sure I've seen chapter & verse on them, possibly in one of the glossy mags', but I can't recall, and/or didn't take notes, but equally, it might be on the dongles as an internet download? Poured resin, with wire armatures in the trumpets, I have a feeling they are scenic background for a poured-metal or 'new metal' solid set, from someone like King & Country, Figarti or Frountline?

 

Again, I can't resist a bit of litho-printed tin, when it's affordable, and these were on Steve Vicker's table, I actually picked the six better ones, but he sent the two casualties over, a few minutes later, via a mutual friend who was passing, and, to be honest, the red-coat could replace one of the Germans, if only for a future photograph.

 

From the left we have - I assume - a khaki Brit, two Germans, with possibly an Italian between them, and a couple of Russo-Japanese war types? On the ground are both Brit's I think, and all late 19th/early 20th century, in depiction, beween the two wars, in execution? 

 

Odds - A Timpo horse, which may have started life pulling a wagon or gun, but which has been married to a mounted figure's base, and a Britains Herald Highland officer. All play-worn, but useful spares or 'grist -to-the-mill'!

 

Crescent, with two of the darker-red plastic, behind, and a sand-textured one in front.

 

Not the best (signs of repainting), but a useful comparison shot between two similar poses from Lone Star (black bases) and Britains Herald (green bases), At Ease (left), and Royal Salute (Present Arms), on the right.

 

Cherilea - Highland pipers.

 

I don't think these are repaints, I think this is how Lone Star issued them, with simple, all green kilts, I also think they were on the wants list? So, a useful addition to the massed ranks of the Highland samples.

 

Paints quite good, on these Harald Lifeguards, but sticky fingers have reduced them to 'dirty', so someone had full play-value out of them! Having recently seen Argentinian (?) ceremonials in similar uniforms, they may get a strip and repaint with paler (than the Horse Guards) blue jackets, or something equally exotic from one of the Blandford books?

 

Odds & sods! There's a Skybirds rangefinder (for which the operator has been waiting several decades! https://smallscaleworld.blogspot.com/2011/06/s-is-for-skybirds.html), and pilot torso in the left foreground, and various useful 50 and 60-mil fellows from Cherilea, Crescent, Hilco and Britains.

S is for Seen Elsewhere - Sci-Fi Library (1) Toys

I shot these for a Faceplant group, over a-year-and-a-half ago, and unlike the other shots in this occasional meander through my library, these were all cover-scans, taken at the time, rather than the more casual shots of the previous posts (see: Bibliography Tag), and most subsequent posts, which will take a year or two to get through at the current rate, with some duplication, because shooting them all was a bitty business, as they were recovered from the garage, reunited with the stuff in the house, added to on the hoof, and/or sent off to storage, in batches!

 

Beautifully illustrated with, yeap, a thousand images, actually more, and even more items, as there are a few multiple shots, however, the beautiful illustrations, a trope of all Taschen publications, is tempered by another trope of theirs, a 'coffee table' lack of text! It's really just a captioned guide to some of the loveliest Sci-Fi toys ever made.

 

And yes, I need both the figures on the cover! But they are likely to turn up in some mixed-lot from Adrian,  Chris, Peter, Gareth or Trevor (the guys who regularly save me this odd, ephemeral, unknown stuff), as they are likely to turn-up in a rummage tray, at a toy figure show!

 

 

In it's day a lovely book, albeit a cheap softback, it's now a bit dated, but still a useful reference work for quickly flicking through to find the robot you may be trying to identify, or to ID the robot a more generic toy might be based-on, so worth grabbing if you see it.

 

This is a lovely guide to what appears to be one man's collection, and from the given dates (1972-82), there's a suggestion other volumes may exist coving the 1950's or 1960's, but as I bought it for next-to-nothing as a remaindered import from one of the shops in the Charing Cross Road, or more likely, a vast, bare floorboarded, enterprise selling straight from the cartons, on the Wandsworth Road, or Lavender Hill (I can't remember, it was more than 30 years ago!), I've never known?

 

 

These two are less useful, being more in the style of the Taschen, but less well illustrated, and with a fair bit of duplication on the more common robots and spaceships from Horikawa, Masudaya, Yoshiya &etc. but the text is more useful, being as how, while both are also in the coffee-table style, they do have more author's input and narrative text.

 

Think 'Pulp', and this is the meisterwerk! But, it barely covers the tin-plate stuff in the five tomes above, concentrating more on the 'Western' pocket-money ranges of the 'Dime-Store' plastic-era's, bagged and carded toys, and the related peripherals such as board-games, home casting sets, hollow-casts and the like, with chapters on the books, magazines, comics and annuals . . . masks, helmets, costumes . . . cards and artwork, ray-guns, pin-ball machines and such like. But, the modern 'Bible' on plastics, with a very good chapter on Dr Who stuff, contributed-to by an old colleague of mine.

 

More of the same but with a wider remit and covering a bit of everything, it's quite a good primer, and worth having on the shelf, to try, if you can't find something in one of the others!

 

While this is a private, or semi-private publication, I think, very much in a recognisable US style of a certain kind of collectables book, I have quite a few of, now, cars, planes; usually a guy sharing his collection. And, in this case what he shares is quite thorough, but his collection parameters are quite tight, so it's very useful for what's in there - Colorforms, Matt Mason, Zeroids and a couple of others, but that's your lot!

 

While these three are, really, only 'shelf-fillers'! Some nice imagery, mostly borrowed from bricks-&-mortar auction-houses, who may or may not have a commercial interest in the title, post-publishing, beyond the name-checks?

 

But the contents of all three are common or popular stuff, aimed at the general or casual reader - the same-old-same-old, big name toys, few of us collectors have forgotten, or really need to re-learn about, and which now have whole sites, forums and wiki-pages dedicated to them, so/also, of limited use as research-tools and adding nothing to better works! The third is a more general title and could go elsewhere in these posts, but was included here for its connection with the TV-Movie related theme.

 

I still buy them, 'just in case' there's something new, interesting or useful, but usually when they are remaindered in The Works or similar, although, in recent years remaindered book stores have all but disappeared, indeed, on the high street it's The Works or nothing, but you can often find them on Amazon or evilBay for next to nothing, and grab them as shelf-fillers/box-tickers.

 

But PostScrip, the mail-order people, often have useful collectables books in their lists, especially the autumn lists, with all the coffee-table titles for Christmas presents! And there's Books2Door, which I haven't tried yet, have you; are they any use?

O is for Ostdeutsche Ordnance

Another prime piece of plunder from the September Sandown show, and another one where Google's AI failed to provide, as did Google in general, and doubly annoying as I've only just obtained the Lehmann book, however, it went straight to storage, so I can't read it, but I bet this bit of the history is dealt-with there? Hay-ho, another day!

 

Artwork is remarkably accurate, compared to many other contemporary or not so contemporary companies packaging, although the figures and cargo are fanciful additions, absent from the contents of the box! Gnom Sortimen (gnome assortment), is the only text, and Gnom was a sub-brand of the East German continuation of Lehmann, after the end of World War Two.

 

Contents, not played with, totally mint and with no paint-chips of note, but possibly taken-out a few times, as I suspect the truck should be in the separate, card 'corral', rather than the trailer? But similar compartments may be missing for the other items?

 

A small field gun, a field-kitchen or 'Goulash Canon', which can be limbered with either of the other two towed items, but all three can't be 'trained together', as the larger trailer, and gun, don't have rear facing hooks.

 

A lovely thing, although Lehmann purists will tell you these aren't that brilliant, or that Gnom isn't terribly collectable, but I can't fault it for charm, build quality or playability, and as an East German kid, I think I would have loved to get this under the tree at Christmas, but I guess it represents the oppression, of one of the more insidious regimes of the Eastern-Bloc, given the web of Stasi infiltration into every-day life, the other side of the wire?

B is for Bibliography - 1 of 2

I've had a fair few books come-in over the last 18/24 months, and the folder was getting unmanageable, so I've split it into 3, arbitrarily, as photographed, not as they came in (like you care!), and will chuck them up here, as two posts on collectables books, and one on non-toy stuff! This is the first of those collectable's posts.

Back in the 'day', the Burn's guides were THE guides, rather eclipsed by the excellent Scalemates website, now. They provided a good guide to what had been around when, and this came in a few months ago, I have also got the Sci-Fi specific volume, which was a little earlier, this is one of the later 'whole' lists I think.

This was recent show plunder, and I only got it because someone else had left it on the guy's table, after being tempted! Anything New Cavendish is worth a punt, and this is both an authoritative and academic work, and also beautifully illustrated, and has a comprehensive listing of toys made by the iconic tin-plate manufacturer.

One of several general books on games and/or puzzles, but each always has the author's own favourites, or unique finds, so each has something to add, and between them, they have most of the odd lead-flat or microscale wood vehicles and things, I post from time to time, and one day I'll sit down and ID everything, and we'll have some roundups here of ships, cars, horse racers/riders &etc. It may, however, be a duplicate in the library, I'm getting familiarity-vibes, from the cover?

Bought for 'completion', a kids book really, a primer on what to collect, or sugegstions for collecting, but even a basic book will have something to give, especially if it includes fields outside your own interests. Language/jargon, tools, renovation or cleaning hints or techniques, from other hobbies/pastimes.

It's funny, you can be involved in collecting from an early age, and still be totally unaware of a book, which, when you subsequently research it, becomes clear is quite common and well-known - this is that book, for me, recently! I have a couple of the other 'Advertorial' books; 'The Hornby Book of Trains', which ran to several editions, and would, after the amalgamation, include Tri-Ang, but this had slid totally under the radar.

 

To be fair, none of them add much, being only 'chatty' illustrated catalogues, but they are nice coffee table eye-candy, and would have been popular dream-time, wish-list reading for kids, at the time.

Becoming slightly comedic now, but also very useful. Originally Chris Smith (who's Mum worked for Hawkin/Tobar) sent, first images, then a whole copy, to enhance/back-up stuff being blogged here at Small Scale World, after I'd shown a photo or scan, I couldn't remember where from, then I got confused about what I'd shown, when. Then, earlier last year, sorting the whole library, I found a couple more, one in with the books, one or two in the box-files . . . then these three came in from the Late Micheal Hyde's estate!

 

So, allowing for a duplicate or two, I should have five or six of these, from the early 1980's through to the 2000's, with the odd page in a couple of the general catalogues, giving a good overview of the 20-odd years the tin-plate ran for.

 

And it's clear this was a membership thing, a collector's club for a whole sub-branch of the hobby, with regular/annual issues of these catalogues, each of which has a mail-order form, and where all the ZZ/Rogazz, Shilling, Japanese imports and German/Russian reproductions all sit side by side with Chinese retro/fakes! But all accurately described, sometime s with a potted history of the origins of how the tools/stock was found, put into production, or reproduced, etc . . . 

 

Above are from 1983 (October), 1996 (Cristmas) and the Spring 1998 editions. 

Mentioned the other day, one of two or three issued in a rather fantastical sting/fraud which seem to have been set up over several years! There's an interesting reference to it here;

 

https://www.qualitydiecasttoys.com/articles/35 

 

and I quote "We even had Jeffrey Levitt (of Mint and Boxed infamy) calling in as he passed by on his way to Maidstone Prison. He was serving his time on weekdays but allowed home for the weekends. He did this for about a year, still trying to deal in toys whilst jailed for masterminding a massive fraud dealing in toys!" 

Another general book, or that's what it looks like, but this is co-authored by the parents of 'our own' James Opie, and they did more for the early research of all aspects of 'modern' Childhood, than anyone else, and - while better known for their work on playground/colloquial rhymes, fairy tales and children's song - they also covered the toys, and this has some very interesting chapters on play.

 

The social science of play and childhood is a fascinating field, with the well-meaning Jocasta's of Islington trying to raise 'gender-neutral' offspring, only to discover, on a walk in the woods, that the boys will pick up sticks and use them as guns or swords, the girls will pick up fir-cones and treat them as pets or babies!

 

And as a life-long Radio-4 fan, I've absorbed some of it, indeed, I dare say I've listened to one or other of the Opie parents' discussing it over the years, I've certainly caught James' brother being interviewed on consumer products, more than once!

I think this was an eBay grab, I can't honestly remember, it may have come from John B, and it's the commercial edition, of a book I may also have bought (without the shiny resin badge) as a self-publish/print-on-demand jobbie, from that there Wibbly Wobbly Way, a few years ago? It's a superb, single-subject work, with all the Reamsa rarities.

I was lucky to get this! It was earmarked for 'The Doctor', but he only wanted to check a couple of images on a specific page, then he left it, and I grabbed it with glee! Slightly deflated by realising there are several more volumes in the series! But it will help me ID stuff I know little about - French lead!