OOO is for N-Guage!

The Trebel-O-Lectric trains from Lone Star, or at least the unpowered version, which was just called Lone Star Locos, and a bit of a box-ticker as there's plenty more online, and I don't really collect it . . . much!

No, seriously, I had our childhood collection in a biscuit-tin for many years, but sold it in a moment of madness, when skint, and doing car-boot sales with a bunch of mates (you wanna' learn human nature, run a car boot stall for a few months, Jesus, we're scum!), back in the 1990's, anyway I got a good price from some chap who knew what he was looking at, at the Wavell School sale in North Camp, I think I asked 20-quid, and we settled on £16 or £17?

But a friend gave me his chuck-out set a while ago, also push-along, and very similar to my old set, but better paint! I had more track, more flat-trucks, the micro-vehicles for them and some Shell Oil tankers, along with a streamlined Mallard Loco, with I think was early Lesney (?), it wouldn't run, just sort of bumped-along the sleepers, but it looked stunning parked-up in the sidings!

In fact, I think there was a smaller Matchbox 1-75 loco, which Mum managed to get Lone Star wheels in? We also had the footbridge ('we' shared everything at that age), of which there is one in this lot, but it's missing a pillar, so I didn't shoot it, and we had a little die-cast level crossing.

 

I will look out for some of the missing bits!

 

Sidings

 

Vinyl cottage from the Gulliver County range

 

 

US style

 

 

UK style, but very-much a European-looking locomotive with those red wheels!

 

 

My favourite as a kid!

 

 

Junction box

 

The electrified version had dedicated left and right crossovers, but in the push and go range it was a single universal job! The lights had 'jewelled' red and green 'lights', replacements for which could be purchased from the gemology shop in Chobham, Martians allowing!

 

As a British Rail liveried locomotive it's considered a Deltic, but really it's a North American design, a market Lone Star were keen to tap, Deltic's were reversible with a cab at both ends.

E is for Eclectic Donation!

Well, I seem to have found a fix for the problems with editing since the changes in 2020/21, especially the annoying habit of not loading images in the right/desired/numbered or even date/alphabetical order, preferring to sometimes load in reverse or just reverse the first and last images . . . I think at lest once or twice, it's totally jumbled them!

 

And of course blogger have locked all the chats screaming for a solution, but this kind person has an answer, I've just tried the piece of code, the 'bad' code was there, I replaced it and these all worked in one hit! And I forgot to add the xxx's or any text, and it still worked!

https://www.listph.com/2020/10/fixed-new-blogger-upload-images-in-reverse-out-of-order.html

Shooting yesterday's plunder earlier I realised I still have a London Show and possibly a Sandown to Blog, so I am behind again, but they are self-imposed criteria which probably don't bother you anyway! This is the second of Jon Attwood's donation parcels - which was taped, piggy-back fashion, like a space shuttle, to the main-booster tank of his third parcel!

Jon is having a clear-out, so it's an quite eclectic mix he's been sending the Blog, which makes for more interesting posts, as there's something for everyone! This is a lot of figure-modellers or figure-painters stuff, mostly whitemetal with a bit of plastic/filler, and some repainted or home-cast solids from Hollow cast, and it's a question of what can you spot?

I have a soft-spot for Hussar uniforms, inherited from my late father's interest in Yeomanry uniforms and that excellent series of articles on the same in Military Modelling in the 1980's! I think the WWI/BEF type is an original (Britains?), as is the farmer's wife, but she has been repainted, and I may try repainting her again to something more blue maybe, certainly less pink!

Schneider moulds, or maybe (UK) Agasee, what I like - as a sample - is the variation on the blue, giving us a European on the left, British on the right and Central American in the centre! A lot of guys melt this stuff down to make their next figures, but I like to hang-on to it, as a sample of what went before, these could be home-cast/painted or something more commercial?

The horses that came with the above. The one on the plinth looks more ornamental than 'toy' and the two medieval ones in front need a name as they are definitely commercially painted. I have a fancy a bunch of these were seen/discussed at the NEC years ago, and someone ID'd them as a Spanish make, but I could be confusing them with some other's, they had similarly decorated riders with lances in swivel-arms I seem to recall?

 

Adrian Little kindly looked at this for me, and he thinks it may be Hyde, but without a rider he couldn't be sure what set/series it was from. He suspected a jockey in silks, but it's sadly lacking a tail. Again, it would have been ornamental rather than a plaything, and is quite large (1:25th'ish?), but a useful sample nevertheless!

 

Now, these are fascinating! One of the articles in the long-queue is the recent 'Steam Punk' sets from Hornby under the old Bassett-Lowke branding, and while I shot pre-production stuff at one of the toy fairs, these are the actual figures (BL8011 Steampunk Passengers Standing Pack 2), one of two initial sets, there were also some 54mm figures, for figure painters. A really useful addition, thanks Jon!

 

Not my best shot, but I'll shoot them again and add them to that forthcoming post.

 

I also loved this, it's the Cadbury's Caramel Bunny, who - you may remember - had a breathy, flirtatious manner with a voice provided by Miriam Margoyles, in a sexy West Country accent, imploring the other woodland animals (or her beau) to "Take it easy with Cadbury's Caramel!" !

 

Funnily enough, I had just taken in a small set of Lone Star Treble-O-Trains, so there is a small overview in the pipeline, I sold my childhood sample at a car-boot about 25-years ago in a misguided moment, and have regretted it ever since, so it's nice to be reclaiming those memories!

 

I think these three are Dinky, and hoses and taps are missing on the pumps, but again it won't stop them featuring in future comparison or over-view posts, so it's all useful stuff to arrive unexpected in the post! Funny; the Lone Star N-guage traffic lights had little paste-jewelled red and green lights, while in a much larger scale you just get spots of paint!

Pairs of Matchbox road signs, two die-cast on the left, two plastic on the right. I think we've seen these before, but they are always useful as they tend to lose the little waterslide transfers, and you definitely need pairs of Level Crossing signs!

 

Marked Strickets (C) 1993 (I think), if that means anything to anyone, I first thought he was a Native American making a bison sign, but I think he's a dark-age warrior; Viking or Anglo-Saxon type, making a bull's head sign with his thumbs, some kind of tourist memento or museum keepsake? If anyone knows more, we all need to! About 45/50mm?

 

For some reason, he reminds me of Nigel Planer's Hippy from The Young Ones! "Like, man, you love the bull, you play the bull, you ARE the bull, d'you see, Riiiick?! Possibly from a fantasy boardgame, although I don't think so?

 

The Leyland Motors sign has joined the pub-sign already and is the swinger from one of those cocktail-stick/toothpick type publicity things, barrels have their zone, and Paddington will be off across 'The Pond', as a small thank-you to another contributor, who I know, knows a Paddington fan!

 

Cereal premium dog (Rice Krispies Champion Dogs), and a bear which I should know, or do, but van't recall, something like Corgi Circus I think, Jon identified the horse between the two as one of Salco's little wagon horses, from the gypsy wagon I think?

 

Probably another home-moulding shot, but it could be from a boardgame, but with so little paint remaining, it's hard to call! Around 35mm in scale/size, and we have seen a few similar ones over the years, both larger and smaller, with a few more in storage, we will have a good round-up of these, one day!

 

We saw the painted 'Huminiatures' from Slater's a while ago, but we haven't looked at the more modern sample. I thought we had, but I got a bit depressed about that box when it suffered badly in the 2007 flood, so I've looked at it a few times but not shot them!

 

However, I'm now keen to do the complete overview, as these are the unpainted Huminiatures, in a crinkly cellulose pack (for railway modellers on a budget), along with a pack of bases (pre-cut clear 'syrene in the Roco/Preiser style), which I didn't know existed.

 

Note the continuation of both Wardie/Mastermodels and Randall/Merit DNA in the sculpts . . . There are related posts in the interim queue! And one day I will try to pin the whole story down, but I need everything out of storage first, and as the chap from Pritchard's (Gaugemaster/PPP and now Ratio and Modelscene) couldn't bring himself to tell me, beyond an exasperated eye-roll a few years ago, it may never be accurately transcribed! Briefly I think it goes Mastermodels-Merit, with Slater's copying, but that's over-simplified, as we shall see shortly!

 

Many thanks again to Jon for all this stuff, it really is all gratefully received, and - as mentioned - will enhance future posts on motorcycles, Slater's, even barrels & water-butts!

However

V is for Very Small Scale World

Picked this little muck-cart and draft horse up the other day . . .

It's a solid box of a thing with no raves or side bars (smaller than ladders or supports - I've done my homework since we last looked at wagons!) or apparent fixings for them, so more of a wooden 'bucket' for manure or harvesting heavy goods; a Lancashire 'potato cart' perhaps, or something! I was going to compare it to the Britains tumbrel-cart but . . .

. . . it's from the very, very small scale world! Although, it would be just right for 1:300 micro-armour, blocking a crossroads - I know; I always suggest the same scenario, but that's what wagons are for, it's the law; barricades or blocking roads!

I suspect this may be from or by the Minnie Maria people who made that miniature 1:12th doll's house toy Noah's Ark we looked at a few years ago? The depth of the gloss paint being the closest match, I'll tag it as such anyway?

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?

OOO is for Treble-O-Trains . . . or Treble-O-Lectric

Don't Worry, last bit of Lone Star for a while I think, I didn't photograph all of it, just some of the more interesting pieces, the box has gone back-up and I'm on to other things!

I did have my childhood stuff until around 1996, when some friends and I were doing car-boot sales, as much for a laugh as anything else, and I sold the little tin of gray plastic track and non-powered rolling stock along with a few accessories and both pairs of Land-Rover/Citroens (which I do regret!).

The reason for selling them was that I wanted to concentrate on figures, consequently the above carded blister-pack came into the collection a year or two later and it ID'd some loose figures in the 'unknown civilians' zone!

These figures are not much bigger than those Reisler chickens we looked-at the other day!

The fences come in two versions, and earlier version with little 'feet'lettes' that are polyethylene and prone to warping (from new) and a later set with a continuous base in a nylon or polypropylene, which made for more rigid mouldings. The gates are often found with their runners still attached, which makes them look a bit odd, but useable!

Someone did tell me who made them (as sub-contractors) but I didn't note it at the time and either now can't find the email, or it was in conversation? It was one of several plastics firms in the Potter's Bar, Herts/Beds boarder area, I think (one of which; Declon Foam, was owned by Airfix!) and they (the sub-contractor) also made the low-friction wheels (a sort of Bakelite or styrene?) and nylon/polyprop' hitches, for this early N-gauge system.

There are two versions of the telegraph pole too; the older on the right was fed from the little flaps joining the bases, which on the left hand one have been drilled-out and rounded-off by way of blanking, while the resin-feed has moved to the top of the pole where a gate-mark now replaces the extended-pole of the earlier version.

Pure guesswork; but it appears the mold-tool was cut-up/reversed and a new runner/channel added, possibly when injection-moulding machines were upgraded/replaced?

Also a reinforcing flare has been tooled into the bottom of the pole where it joins the base, presumably to stop it snapping-off at that point, something which was probably actually solved simply by changing to the glossy plastic from the older chalkier one? But the whole polymer industry was 'learning on the job' back then!

A separate set contains the trees, a common design, possibly creditable to George Musgrave whose Festival branded fir-trees for Christmas cakes may have pioneered the stacking on a pole, over the plug-and-hole 'domino-stacking' of Merit's trees, but several European railway accessory companies, Marx and others carried similar trees and the first (of either design) is lost in the mists of time.

There are two patterns of each section size (one with 'open' foliage, one 'closed' or thickened) except for the smallest and the tip, each of which has the one version, and there is only room for six sections on the trunk-pole, this gives a little leeway for different appearances of tree to be constructed.

The two I knocked-up are one-of-each 'open' frond (left) and duplicates of the middle-sizes 'closed' (right) to give different looks, the figure give an idea of how small they are and they were probably meant to represent the - now all but extinct - elms which were so common then?

HO is for Lone Star Germans

Just a box ticker to get something up here for this afternoon! The Lone Star Germans reduced somewhat!

This is the contents of a full set, almost certainly from the D-Day play-set with large vac-form, you get (got; 60+-years ago!) eight each of the six figure poses downscaled to an HO-gauge compatible 23-odd millimetre size along with two of the sub-scale (N-gauge) Land Rovers from the Treble-O-Trains range range, but in a dark olive, satin finish, rather than the bright, gloss red, black or British racing-green of the railway versions, giving a 50-piece count - 100 with the Paratrooper opo's; we'll look at another day.

The painting here has been restricted to a stab-and-hope dash of matt, flesh-pink in the vague areas of the face and hands - check-out the flame-thrower operators!

Later they seem to have done service as Chinese troops (probably referring to the Korean conflict) with an all-over gloss-red hat and while one might be tempted to imagine that this headgear embellishment was home painting; note that A) the flesh (better registered) is also now gloss and . . .

. . . B) another out-painter has gone with a more detailed attempt at the red-star, Chinese troops (and later the Vietcong) carried on their soft hats; both colours are also in a gloss-finish.