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.

P is for Petrel's Plastic Parade

Looking at one of the wannabe Blue Box sets this time, and the first photograph is almost as poor as the double-decker 77xxx series Blue Box set from yesterday, however I did take shaded-shots of each window, so this will provide a little more in the way of visual information!

 

Badged to Petrel Toys, who we've seen before, sun faded on the face, and sold in 1968 (thanks to James Opie), I suspect from some of their other toys they might have been an importer/jobber or the phantom brand of a Hong Kong based shipper/agent/exporter, but more on that in a minute.

 

The set is clearly pretending to be a Blue Box -"C¦O¦M¦B¦AT"- set (that's my attempt at the explosion logo!), which were three and four-decked, but not split-window, which might (and it's a big 'might') have some significance as it's harder to sue if there is a difference in the 'appearance' of an otherwise common or industry wide packaging type?

The tank is a nasty little thing, there are several generations or iterations of it, it seems to be a copy of an equally simplified die-cast, itself several rungs below Zee/Zylmex on the quality ladder, and is best discarded loose, unless you need them for something like this Blog! While the figures are poor copies of late Blue Box GI's.

This is quite useful, and was re-issued a few years ago (I say that glibly, forgetting how fast time is going these days . . . it was reissued back in the 1990's!), lacking the silly blind/remote-controlled, bomber's turret of Marx, Blue Box, early Airfix and other toy landing craft of the time, it makes for a more realistic infantry/troop landing craft, with a coat of paint! The re-issues were a shiny-grey polypropylene.

I've cut the helicopter from this window so we can look at it below.

These seem to be poor copies of the bi-coloured vessels from Emson / 'Empire' (E), with the larger vessel behind being a copy of an old Pyro or Aurora 'box-scale' kit maybe? While the one in front is the old Tri-Ang Minic's being ripped-off again!

More of the figures and a couple of cheap Jeeps, they're not that bad for small-scale, but their lines are more Mahindra than Willy's if you know what I mean, a bit boxy at the front! And the wheel/axle sets look familiar from one of the many generations of the 1-Ton Hunber truck rack-toys.

Two helicopters which I'll return to in a mo', but suffice to say the silver one on the left looks mightily like the one in the Blue Box garage set!

This on the other hand is rather lovely and pretty unique! A proper submarine! It comes with two 1d/1¢ capsule-dispenser/Christmas cracker type, relief-flat crustaceans and, you can just see behind, his head poking-out, one of the Manurba Mini-Sub piracies!

The two similar helicopters (a more Soviet than NATO/US design) has two different plug-ins, one wearing skids, the other floats, but while that's interesting, the important bit . . . 

 

 . . . is that the Sikorsky H-34/Westland Wessex seems to be the actual Blue Box one, both in the Petrel set, and in these two unbranded generics (note the different plastic colour of each helicopter moulding), both of which have better-quality figures. Indeed, were it not for the paint, you'd mistake these for late Blue Box polyethylene versions, which they may be?

 

It's why I think Petrel are a phantom-brand or importer of some kind, their set's contents seem to be bought-in from more than one source, while the other two sets might be actual Tai Sang generics, manufactured for a contract (maybe with Cecil Colman, Codeg or someone like that; Cornelius?) or aiming at a price-point below the similar Blue Box sets.

And the fact that a 'Blue Box' helicopter ended-up in a rival product, aping their own, will be down to the fact they might not have known where the helicopters were going when they fulfilled the order for one of the middle-men, down at the docks, where Tong Wai-ki would have taken his suitcases of samples each morning, between trips to New York.

 

Branded Pyragric on the continent.

B is for Best Show on Earth! 9. Divers

Thinning-out a too-long civilians post, we find ourselves with some all-diver stuff!

In the centre we have the mini-sub from Hing Fat, with older bagged James Bond knock-offs (Thunderball - the original version) either side and a couple of the air-line uppy-downy bath toys behind.

 

We've seen (with much help from Brian Berke) various domestic and foreign versions of the smaller one, but the other is, as you can see, jai-huge! It has heavy-metal (lead?) feet, to which the body is melted on, presumably because the amount of plastic made the diver too buoyant even when filled with water?

 

The bags seem to contain sub-piaracies of the ones we looked at here, which had a handful of accessories missing from these bags, it may be that the moulding is the same, and price-cutting is responsible, but it's not clear without taking them out and comparing with something currently in storage, so a future post there!

 

Thanks to all for everything last month; Brian Carrick, Trevor Rudkin, Adrian Little, Andreas Dittmann, Gareth Morgan, Michael Mordant-Smith and Peter Evans.

H is for How They Come In - Chris - Transport Etc . . .

So many figures ended-up in this post I couldn't actually call it 'Vehicles' as I had intended, but another bunch of interesting or novel items of that ilk were included in Chris's recent parcel.

Starting with bath toys, for the most part. The Hong Kong copies of Manurba's mini-sub, one has been trimmed down somewhat to a self-propelled torpedo, with a smaller boat, which comes from a rack-toy set of about six or eight mouldings - I have them somewhere in the archive, and a few more loose, building for an 'overview' post.

I love the big blow-moulded diver, proper bath toy! Except they tended to fill with water from the little hole in the gate-mark, and you could then use them to squirt your brother at the other end of the bath, until the heat-seam split, and 'Froggie' the frogman went to landfill!

I was in a quandry as to what to do with these, as they obviously belong in the canoe posts, but needed to be H is for . . .'d first, but rather came together as I'd put the canoe season off for various reasons, of some merit, umpteen times, but ultimately, they will be tagged 'Canoes', between two similarly-tagged posts, so it's a minor worry!

I have no idea on the lower one, but match/toothpick/trinket holder is a strong possibility, while the upper one is wooden, so may have some age, or home-made'ness? But equally could be French, they seem to have stuck with wooden boats right through solid and hollow-cast lead figures, the aluminium period, the celluloids and phenolics, right-up unto plastic figures!

A Blue Box ambulance came with one of the larger figures, the ambulance still has the box-mounting intact, which is not exactly collectable, especially if you only want the vehicle for wargaming, which a lot of them were used for, back in the day. But I have two or three now, and it's getting fun to see if I'll ever have one each of them all, still attached like this?

 

The vehicle was meant to be broken/lifted off the clear plastic piece, but the glue meant they would tare away from the paper laminate of the box/tray and then people would usually break off the two tabs leaving the central piece glued to the underside of the vehicle/accessory!

 

Aircraft came in the form of two novelty-whistles - Brilliant! A small rack-toy helicopter, a - probably - knock-off Transformer type and a rather interesting X-15 X-Plane, which might be a load from a larger kit, weren't they launched 'in flight'? It could also be from a desk-top display thing, as the metallic blue paint-job looks like a professional coating . . . but it could just be a rack-toy! It's polystyrene.

 

And no, you can't really photograph lime-green against lime-green!

 

The smaller of the two whistles came in a lot Chris found in Hungary, so was accompanied by another 40mm flat (never get enough of those) and a really nice knock-off of a Western 'dime store' spaceman.

 

Another lovey bunch of oddities from Chris, so many thanks to him, and next-up will be the Wild West or civilians, depending on how tired I am tomorrow evening, but I must do canoes now for the morning, then try to catch some sleep before the early start for . . .

 

The Plastic Warrior Show . . . it's TOMORROW!

O is for Ocean Explorers

Not scoring points on this one (although they could've run with theses to add something to my follow-up, if they really felt the need to follow-me at all . . . as they did!), but rather; seeing what Hing Fat have to 'Show & Tell' on the subject of my original early-May posts, and there's a few interesting points to be made.

To be found on their Faceplant page, this would seem to be the later figures, the shooters not visible, but the newer cameraman is. Of more interest is the mix of sea creatures and marine plants, some of which look to be PVC or a PVC-equivalent and the large rock formation/lump!

Another Facebook shot; here we see a variation of the mini-sub with a fatter, flat-bottomed (?) design, which may be to take a sucker motor-unit (rather than the older slot-on or plug-in ones I remember from the '70's) or just ease movement on floors and carpets! Also of note is the piracy of the old Matchbox tank-landing craft and a 'fat-boy' mini-sub.

A smaller set in a carry-case from both sides; Ocean Explorer is the current branding, or at least seems to be the commonest current brand-mark for these diver sets.

No idea to contents, but both the Facebook images could be candidates for the contents of this tub? It's a similar tub currently being shipped by [the not-biggest] importer Stevens International as the Action Figure bucket we saw a while back.

Header-carded 'bottle-bag'; so-called because the automated packing machines drop the stuff into the open top like filling a bottle. This has the smaller older landing craft, which, like most Hing Fat production is copied, from Rado-Ri Toys, who - in their turn - took the basic design from Louis Marx! And possibly an older shot, I can't see the newer poses.

What looks to be a mock-up of a blister-card, sans blister!

This shot reveals one of Hing Fat's older (but recent in toy geology timescales) customers; Billy V, although they were only a brand-mark of someone else (Imex) and have been taken-over by . . . BMC? Note the branding then was Ocean Adventures, which may have been Billy V specific/requested, as the Ocean Explorers branding goes back to at least 2006 in Hing Fat literature? Not that they only have the one branding - see below.

The older landing craft, still in rack-toys and cheapie-buckets the world over and dating back to Marx playsets of the 1950's, not a bad pedigree for such an inaccurate version of a WWII equipment! As well as the Rado versions and various generic sub-piracies, Blue Box put the turret on their DUKW, and there's a larger battery-operated version kicking-around somewhere - I bet there's one on Moonbase?

Also a better shot of the little fat mini-sub, which does look like it should have been dropped on Hiroshima or Nagasaki, with the mad major from Dr. Strangelove riding-it in "Yeeehaaw"! Note also, how they separate the 2 'standing' and 5 swimming poses.

Printed catalogue page from January 2015 (Toy Fair season!) shows all the then available formats being offered to customers, all branded to Sea Divers. I've seen the 'shopping basket' with both Pirates and Wild West, when I worked for a dealer back in the 2010's and, as it looked old then,  it must have been an option back as far as the 1990's, at least? Hing Fat were founded in 1978, I think.

The larger sets have the same marine-life added, but colours are different, with none of the sky-blue divers you get today, and lots of the 'international orange' which older, more experienced collectors will know as being particularly prone to turning brittle.

D is for Dive! Dive! Dive!

We looked at the Lone Star mini-sub/2-man torpedo with box a while ago, courtesy of Brian Berke, and at the time I mentioned the divers I had which were unfindable, well, I found them! And they weren't where I thought they might be, but that's collecting, as I'm sure some of you know only too well!

Mine is sans box (as is most of the large scale collection; too busy filling gaps to worry about packaging), but is otherwise all there, the only difference with Brian's in that his propeller was silver (polished steel!), while mine is gold (steam era bronze!). As you can see I need to find another rider - in either paint scheme - as mine don't match, one has an all-over silver suit, the other is mostly black with green straps on the helmet (matching Brains), but it doesn't end there . . .

. . . as I have a third, who doesn’t match either of them! He's not in the soft PVC-like material of some of the other Toyway re-issues, being polyethylene. Equally I don't think any of the marques who've been involved with the British re-issues have done the 'sub, so I guess a test shot of the mould-tool?

My propeller is a bit loose and keeps falling out so I keep it in its own little self-seal bag (with the equally loose counter-weight), but the hook is still there, so I could power it up if I wanted to. To be honest; I'm not sure the grommet hasn't been replaced with the end of a cheap, BIC-like biro?

Timpo's was a simpler affair with no motive power and an underside too narrow for one of those Hong Kong made, battery-operated - usually red/white - motor units you could by separately for such things, but which were also supplied with a lot of model vessels.

Mine is missing it's 'coat hanger' counter-weight, a thin [-shaped wire, similar to the Indian canoes, but a different length, which was designed to keep it upright while you pushed it about the bath! The propeller does turn, but you need a pencil or toothpick to make it so or make it go!

Timpo get a support-boat however, and there are other colours of scuba-tank (are there green ones?), the boat being used by other figures, and there is a four-man version but only with Brit's I think?

I see these on evilBay frequently, and recently missed-out on a  pearler which was bid to a reasonable sum! The divers are Britains copies I think, but the 'sub itself is relatively unique in design, but may be a copy of a toy I'm unaware of (Italian or Spanish maybe?).

From the nature of the graphics on the ad's I cropped these two out of, and the logotypes, I suspect Koon Yip were the manufacturer, while Mayfair some kind of middle-men - wholesalers or shippers? I also wonder if there is a motor nestled underneath, and whether it's B/O or wind-up?

All still on feebleBay yesterday, one (top left) a colour variation on a generic card, another (bottom right) described by the seller as Heinerle (which I doubt), the other two in Koon Yip-branded packaging and available - between the four - from the US, Canada and Germany!

The Britains one is the obvious absentee in this post, but first, I thought we'd seen it here already (but can't find the images) and second while I also thought I had one, I now can't find it . . . if I have, so 'another day' for that one!

News, Views Etc . . .Regular Round-up

Usual, general collation of bits and pieces from the inbox, the national press and further afield, with a few links of things you may find interesting, or consider worth visiting.

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New Model Navy

In the 'i' on Monday the 22nd of May, there was an interesting editorial article/'infomercial' about how in 1667 our then Master Shipwright, one Peter Pett, in the panic of a Dutch attack up the River Medway decided that as he couldn't save the real vessels (all tied-up and crewless under the orders of Charles II while he negotiated the end of the second Anglo-Dutch war), he ought to save the exquisite models, which showed how to construct the 'new' Navy's vessels.

One of the saved models

Those who have visited the Maritime Museum in Greenwich (pronounced 'grenn-itch' - for my foreign visitors!) in the past will know just how exquisite they are. Anyway; long-story, short - the saved models and the tale behind them is being told in an exhibition 'Breaking the Chain' at the Royal Chatham ('chat-um') Dockyards until the 3rd September if you're looking for something to do with the kids over the holidays.

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General News

On the 25th June a stationary chain called Smiggle has announced plans to increase its workforce as sales increase, but not to open new stores - yet. I mention it therefore only because I don't know the chain (big cities?), but it may well prove to be a source of new or different erasers, pencil-tops and novelties, and we like that sort of stuff here!

Our glorious err . . . not quite leader (yet?) 'gettin' down wi' da' kids' during the recent election campaign, I was struck by the toy which seems remarkably un-different (is that a word?) from stuff companies like Tudor Rose were chucking-out 40 years ago! ♪♫"We'll-keep the yell-ow truckroll'ing"♫♪! That's it . . . you can read the rest later, off you go to work now - humming the anthem of revolution, my work here is done for the day!

The Hornby story rumbles-on with further press releases on the 23rd and 27th of June and the 5th of July, all concerning the management's urging of shareholders to reject the mandatory takeover-bid by Phoenix Asset Management - itself a major shareholder and the group who's management coup failed a few weeks ago.

The Stanly Gibbons story also continues to make the money-pages, with an approach by private equity firm Disruptive Capital, following the failures of Gibbons' own efforts in the last couple years, and of the plans of recent months.

Further news also on the Go story with the computer AlphaGo beating the current reigning world champion (Ke Jie) for a second time, the human claimed the computer was playing "Like the God of Go"! Once they are truly smarter than us, they will identify us as THE major threat to the planet's future.

Rod Stewart, yes the crooning popster; collects Scottish toy soldiers (and model trains!), so if you're a dealer with a particularly fine sample of Scots, or 'Highlanders', might be worth a try getting in touch with his PR people, you may be sitting on a Christmas bonus - if you know what I mean!

Poundstrecher (an occasional source of useful clearance toys) is in sales talks as it struggles with the slowly gathering Brexit recession - as we haven't recovered from the last [Banking] recession, that'll be fun!

Mattel have announced a whole bunch of Ken Dolls, including one with a 'man-bun' and another with corn-rows, I'm not exaggerating when I say we are in the end of days; Barbie's going to an gang-bang! Although the six CGI'd models in the 'i' newspaper on the 21st of May all looked mildly demented and incapable of satisfying Barbie without bursting into tears and needing therapy.

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Toys in the media

This has been used to advertise the Guardian's jobs edition in recent weeks, a CGI of a table football team which manages to cover every base as far as political correctness is concerned, well; it's the Guardian, you'd expect nothing less!

Tim'Maaaay!

Paul Morehead - editor of Plastic Warrior magazine -sent us this from PW Towers the other day, it's a whole battle! You can't beat 'Army Men' in articles, proper reading!

The downside of polymers in the environment was highlighted in this article in the 'i' a week ago - more here: Seafieldview Blog

Lego seems to be a main offender, but you can see here that Airfix and Hong Kong are not far behind, with Matchbox and Kinder both contributing - you may love this stuff, I may love this stuff, but this stuff will have to end. We must either find the strength ('good sense'!) to make these toys out of short-life, bio-degradable, vegetable-based, pseudo-polymers, or go back to wood and metals.

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Pepper Pig

Two Pepper Pig stories were left off the last 'News, Views' (buried under other stuff!), one being good news (if you're a Pepper Pig fan or a corporate bastard) in that Entertainment One (owners of PP rights) announced it was to produce 117 new episodes and had signed new licensing deals.

The other was also good news (if you're a hater of Pepper Pig or an anarchist) as share-values dropped 22% in Entertainment One after the Canadian-owned, British registered firm took a £47-million spending-hit on global restructuring and the investment announced in the other story - easy come, easy go, it's only money!

Lego's Bid for World Domination

Lego have announced that Merlin Entertainment will be opening another Legoland Discovery Centre, this time in Birmingham's Barclaycard Arena building next year, construction has started.

In a separate story, Lego are to work with Mencap the disability charity to find employment for learning-disabled people.

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Publishing

In mid-June Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl overtook Harry potter to regain number-one spot in the top 10 books for children list, suggesting the decline of pottermania is acelerating apace.

Under the headline 'Tolkien's Lord of the Wins' daily free-sheet The Metro reported the other day that his family have settled a law suit with Warner Brothers.

Obituaries

Still on publishing - obituaries this time sadly include Michael Bond, the creator (finder surely?) of Paddington Bear, while Grotbags actress Carol Lee Scott, Geoffrey Bayldon: Catweazle and Andy Cunningham of Bodger the Badger fame have all sadly passed.

The news yesterday that George A. Romero has gone too means that it's not just our childhood which is being buried but - increasingly - our teenage-years too.

Health and Safety

Not something I normally consider or think about, but a little girl died in April after swallowing one of those tiny little coin-like batteries, not some tragic suffocation as you might think, but because the stomach-acids break into the batteries, the acid's of which are far more powerful, and can do fatal damage, worth a thought if you have younger children. The lithium-cell was from an electronic car key-fob, but similar batteries are in a lot of toys these days, Lego mini-fig LED torches spring to mind.

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A Few Links

This is one of the more amusing things I've seen recently related to toy soldiers

https://drawception.com/game/xQ9WeCwkqb/toy-soldiers-vs-barrel-of-monkeys/

Looks like fun if you can get there

http://www.southflorida.com/theater-and-arts/art/sf-walter-wick-miami-lowe-museum-20170710-story.html

This is a salutary lesson for arrogant people like you-know-who, more comments in three days than any five Toy Soldier blogs get - together - in a week!

https://archive.nyafuu.org/toy/thread/6326452/#6415927

Best pictures ever of one of my favourite toys

http://toyconnect.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/ideal-globemaster-flying-boxcar.html

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Finally - Best Bath Bomb ever!