W is for Well, They're Not Plastic!

The last of the Sandown Park plunder from November, and I thought I was buying some of either of the two Marx issues, of the slightly larger than the Miniature Masterpiece Noah's Ark set's, plastic animals, and it wasn't until I got them home that I realised they were Line Mar slush-cast, or some kind of press-moulded alloy, metal animals from Marx's partner-firm in Japan!

 

The Hippo's box is a bit tatty!

 

I've probably got some of these, in the 'unknown' piles!

 

The kangaroo is no jumper!

 

These are really lovely for what they were, probably sixpenny / five or dime novelties. Each is wrapped in a little piece of rough tissue-paper, and the boxes are content-specific, which is nice, in something so ephemeral. Now to find the rest . . . and another kangaroo!

L is for Leifur Eiríksson

Another instalment of Brian Berke's shots from Iceland (he had terrible flu, and I think we're lucky to have these shots), and we're looking at Leifur Eiríksson, known to us as Lief Erikson, or Lief the Lucky, son of Erik the Red and as a famous Viking explorer, who hailed from the shores of Iceland, and is accepted to have discovered North America (for Europeans, probably where modern Canada is), some centuries before the European genocides and colonisation!

 

Struck by the strange, angled, sub-base, and identical pose, I assumed they must be depicting a specific statute, and a bit of a search, left me fully gen'ed-up on the statue created by American artist Alexander Stirling Calder, in Reykjavík, in the 1930's!

 

Obviously, available in a gilded or plain-metal finish, and probably a base-metal or tin-alloy of some kind, and issued in two sizes, it's definitely the sort of thing you might pick up in a charity shop at some point?

P is for Probably the Best Car-Park Barrier in the World!

Heineken don't do car-park barriers, but if they did . . . I know, we've had something similar before, but nostalgia includes crappy cultural references! I shot this, also in Guildford (see earlier post on dragon's teeth), but a few weeks earlier, only for the shots to turn out so poor (I tend to pass it at dusk each time), I had to go back and re-shoot most of it, a week later!

 

It's a train! About half-action-man scale, so 1:12th/16th, something like that? And it's towing a bunch of flatcars with local wildlife examples! Made out of stainless-steel plate or possibly a bronze-alloy, it's hard to tell as there's no rust, and I'm not a metallurgist!

 

Saddle-tank loco and four flats with an old style guards break-van at the back, I guess this is a sculpture, or 'public art'? I couldn't fine anything about it nearby, but it was getting dark both times, and it's a teeny car-park with about 15 spaces for dog-walkers at the far-end of the now one-way Woodbridge Meadows, and this barrier is almost underneath the real rail-bridge!

 

LBSC 105 is the Fat Controller's locomotive from Thomas the Tank Engine, but it's a red-oxide, not green! The LSWR Bison class had a 105, likewise the class 395's, but they didn't look like this, however the M7's did! So I guess it's a real loco' depiction?

https://www.brdatabase.info/locoqry.php?action=locodata&id=304453077&type=S&loco=105

The break-van, children of a certain age know these go at the back of a goods train, as sure as similarly aged American and Canadian kids know where the Caboose goes, but I wonder how many people under forty even know what this is called, let alone where it goes?

 

The reverse of the goods wagons, showing how the wildlife is done like theatrical scenery! Now, you can get phosphor-bronze sheet-plate, and I wonder if that is what we have here, it looks a bit brassy, but without the verdigris you'd expect with a purer brass or copper, and I've mentioned the lack of rust spots, which even stainless will get eventually, so it's some corrosion-resistant metal, which is also pretty vandal-proof?

Snail, Grebe (crested, great), Dragonfly and Kingfisher.

Fish, Newt (crested, great!) and Otter.

Coot, or Moorhen, I never get them two right!

Bumble Bee and Snake, generic!

Butterfly, Bat, Water Beetle (vicious buggers) and a Water Rat/Vole

I like that even as our entire political class descends into a naval-gazing madness of seeking power for power's sake with absolutely no solutions on offer, someone somewhere is still doing this kind of stuff, for the hell of it!

C is for Coining-it!

I was quite surprised to see these on Mercator Trading's stand earlier in the year, as I didn't remember them at all, and we had all sorts of coin and badge-albums when we were kids, and I well remember Mum sending-off for the missing ones at the end of the promotion, to fill the gaps, but the reason I didn't recognise them, is because they are from 1993, not the 1960/70's!

Fina's petrol stations, what was I doing in 1993? Commuting to Uni' on the trains, and suffering some of the last IRA bomb-threats, along with all the usual points/signal/crew failures, not thinking about petrol!

 

There's one missing and at only fifteen, a lot easier to collect than some of those previous century sets, which went to double or triple gate-fold! Get's Fina in the Tag-list, box-ticked!

 

It was California! I didn't follow it at all!

K is for Knock, Knock, Knockin' on a Corporal's Jaw!

It's been an odd 14-months, and while the light is at the end of the tunnel, I'm still uncovering things, despite thinking I've checked everything - I found four hedgehogs (of the silver-neff and chalkware variety) behind a curtain the other day, while another interesting thing I've found is this . . .

. . . door knocker, which I found in a drawer in the front room a while back, it's obviously Mr. the Lord Vice-Admiral Horatio,1st Viscount Nelson, Duke of Bronte, Knight Bachelor and All Round Jolly Good Fellow! I will have it fixed on the front-door of what's likely to be my eventual last home, but I had an inspired idea for the knocker plate, which looks a bit plain . . .

. . . this piece of originally - probably - hideously overpriced tat from Atlas Editions (think Franklin or Danbury Mint, but remove any residual or perceived - they don't have much, if you dig - class) which I picked-up on evilBay for pennies - it's Napoleon Blownapart!

It will have to be domed which I will do myself, I have also inherited smithing tools including a sand-filled leather pad and fine silver-smith's round-peen hammers which should do the job (the eagle will have to 'buy it'!), although it's probably some shite base-metal alloy so I'll have to be careful! A few knocks might actually improve that etching - he looks like a shop-dummy!

Then it can be braised (like welding) or claw-clamped to the curved knocker and the Corporal will receive Nelson's boots to the snoz every time someone comes to the door - bargain! I shall invite random Frenchmen to the house!