E is for East of India

Another non-toy company whose products had a bit of a Christmassy vibe, also shot at the Birmingham gift fair, but crafty fun, and no polymer in sight, bar a few rabbit-sized, dungaree-buttons!

 

There's something of the primative votive about these.

 

Cake decorations?

 

Felt tree-hangers.

 

There were several displays of 'The Boos'

 

Nativity figures, so generic, you can't tell which is Mary or Joseph?

 

Boos . . .

 

Animals . . .

 

. . . and more Boos!

CBC is for Church Bought Chochkes

It's stretching it a bit, but there you go! Shot back in February at Birmingham, here's an outfit who's own website make it quite clear they only supply gift shops and the ecclesiastical community, wholesale, rather than having any kind of ambitions to retail enterprise, and as they've been going since 1950, it's obviously worked for them.

 

Mostly Advent stuff, so relevant now, there are a few more general religious themes in among them, like the smaller metal items near the end of the post.

 

Wooden sets for kids.

 

Matt-painted bisque.

 

Fuller sets.

 

Stables.

 

Nativity trios!

 

Other religious iconography, including Easter.

 

Mary's and Jesus's, and some priests/monks - St. Peter?

 

That's it really - CBC Distribution; box ticked, and in the tag list!

 

Company webpage; https://www.cbcdistributors.co.uk/ 

P is for Philanthropic Polymer Pile

I haven't been as quick or often through the Charity Shops, this last eighteen months or so, work commitments, eBay bottom-feeders and a couple of store closures making it a less lucrative quest these days, but I did manage two quick tours of Farnham and Fleet's charity shops last week, while I had some time off, and I found these.

 

This was a quick round-up in Fleet

 

Box tickers for the tubs of generic play-set accessories, but also a new figure, funny how, despite forty-odd serious years of this, there's still new figures, in every bunch of plunder, every donantion, even a random bag of charity stuff! Jame's Opie always asks - primarily of lead hollow-casts and solids - how many figures (actual pose mouldings/sculpting) have there been, and the answer, from where I'm sitting, is millions - one is including copies and colour or paint variations.

 

A couple of slip-cast kittens, with slightly 'Disney' or 'doe eyes', but a rather interesting glaze technique, I thought? And mostly because they are often in mixed lots of cats, or pets, I now have quite a side-collection of china, bisque or chalkware cats. These are priced 3/6 each (three shillings and sixpence, 42 old pence, about 16p in new money, at the time?).

 

A pair of Toy Major Dino's.

 

A right old mix here, with the Ray marked Smartstudy and Viacom 2021, I assume not a Finding Nemo thing, but some other franchise, maybe Baby Shark?

 

And then, the next day - to Farnham!

 

Given the cost of these new, or 2nd-hand with box, I'm guessing a tenner for the three, while a swallow, was also the best I was going to get for what, to me, are box-tickers, to compare with plastics in the future? Not 'Britians' but W'britian from the US.

 

Simply marked 'China' and probably from some toob, or tub type thing, but a nice sample of ocean or shore-dwelling mammals, from the left; a Sea-lion, Mantee, Seal and Walrus.

 

It's Christmas! A nicely executed bit of poured-resin, possibly from Italy, but I don't know, as they are unmarked where visible, and have green-baize discs on their undersides, hiding any clues which might be there?

G is for Gardiner, Alison Gardiner

Another one shot in passing, back in February, at the NEC gift fair in Birmingham, these were both on the Alison Gardiner (who specialises in advent calenders) stand, but may both be imported from Coppenrath, (since 1768!) in Germany?

 

Nutcracker soldier tree-hangers.

 

Victoriana'esque nativity scene.

O is for Once Upon a Time, in June! Ancient & Medieval

So, the 'Ancient and Medieval' vein was both rich and numerous, although I've got them down to ten images and a close up. Probably my favourite section, after space, and maybe ceremonial, although you find a lot of interesting Wild West stuff, and new civilians are always turning-up to amaze, farm, zoo, jungle . . . Pirates, pirates are my favourite, or they bloody-well should be? Anyway, we've got the opening paragraph; Let's play show repooooort!

 

Small-scale; Another bag of our Auther and his mounted Roman Gladiator Knights! To be compared with the other bags, as I think there was a hint at one point, the content's supplier changed, or the horses got diluted with a second type or something, none of it's actually Giant, but the story still needs to be accurate!

 

A few of the other Hong Kong knock-offs, Quaker and Elastolin Romans, and a Britians Trojan War figure, along with a broken Airfix and the ex-Montaplex runner of BuM Slot's Vikings. The mast and furled sails on their cross-spar have to be made from the central tree-runner!

 

Someone came and asked me about it, and I told him what I knew, then I either bought it off him later, when I found I still had cash in my pocket, or he just gave it to me, toward the end of the show? But he's not in the credit list? One of the Liverpool or Birmingham 'gangs'?

 

Hot on the heels of the three we saw the other day, both blog wise and literally, as the show was a couple of weeks after I acquired the others, came a fourth Marx 6" Egyptian pose, on the right here, and a broken duplicate, on the left. The good one needs a bit of a clean to match the others, while I intend to give the broken one a Kopesh curved sickle-axe-sword, and I'll use quite thick Plasticard, to match the chunkiness of the originals.

 

Between them, a Gashapon Samurai (not well shot!) and one of the Lik Be/LB cavemen. 

 

Hong Kong Timpo piracy on the left, also carried by Ideal in a fort set I think? Cherilea in the middle, and another Hong Kong (Britains 'War of the Roses' swoppet-copy) on the right. All good stuff!

 

These are very interesting, copies of the Lone Star/Hubley/Kresge 'Metalions' (it's increasingly unclear just what the history of those die-casts is/was), I think someone did give me some info' on them at the show, but so much goes-on, on the day, I'll be damned before I can remember what they said! In the style of some French reissue/Bazaar stuff and may be by Norev?

 

Did I say fourteen Richard I's the other day? Make that fifteen! And Bonux here, have simplified the folds of the cloak to such an extent it's getting back, closer to the Lone Star original, and further from the Jem/Norev it was copied from, for these washing-powder premiums!

 

Dom Landsknecht, Lone Star medieval and three Cherilea's, two of the early 'swoppets' and a solid in a nice greeny-yellow plastic. There is a forthcoming post on the swoppets, as you may remember I got four at the previous year's show, and have since obtained more besides.

 

More modern stuff, the old Marx/Tudor Rose knights, and the Romano-Greek motorcycle-raider 'knights' currently still findable on Amazon and similar platforms, all grist to the mill; colour variations etc . . . 

 

A bunch of Starlux, I think I picked a few of each a few years ago, from the same seller, but they went on clearance near the end of the show, so I just bought them all, doing him a favour, really, you understand, I didn't need them, they don't even look good en masse!

 

Bloody-lovely, that's what they is! And the unpainted one is a Starlux moulding, but perhaps issued as a premium, by a third party? We saw the white, polyethylene ones from Spain years ago.

 

Me box-ticking, or bag-ticking (playing catch-up) on Replicants!

 

Biblical figures are a difficult one, they can go with the civilians, or get their own section (which they often do at Christmas!), but as they are ancient, they might as well go here, two Marx nativity animals, home-painted (?), a French Santon, looking a bit like Mary, mother of the bloke standing next to her! He is also Marx, and was called Jey'sus'ah!

 

Again, many thanks to - Issack, Graham Apperley, John Begg, Barney Brown, Brian Carrick, Peter Evans, Adrian Little, Michael Mordant-Smith, Trevor Rudkin, Steve Vickers, and with no emails since the intro-post, anyone else who gave me stuff, including the BuM Vikings (?), and which I have forgotten to add.

R is for Roman, but not Roman's!

I had an interesting chat with the couple manning the Roman stand at the NEC last month, not stuff I need to pass on, as they knew little of the history of Fontanini, had never heard of the elusive Fonplast, and were really just trying to find customers for their US-based stock, of whom I clearly wasn't one, but I shot a few of the modern 'Precepi' while I was chatting to them.

 

They've come a long way since the hand-crafted terracotta being prepared village by village between the wars, but it is now mostly poured-resin, and most of it wasn't worth shooting, as it just wouldn't have interested any loyal readers! And I think the Joseph's Studio stuff is 100% American in any case?

 

Company website;

https://www.roman.com/products/nativities/

A is for Again! Art Plastics

Now, Brian has sent me a load of Nativity stuff from the Big Apple, which I told him I would shove down in the Christmas 2024 folder, because, as you can see (it's the bloody 20th already!) I am running out of time, and still have some cake-dec' images I might get up here, however, as we looked at Art Plastics several times a year ago, and as Adrian gave me this as an early, unwrapped Christmas present last Friday, here's a nativity scene!

These are, as mentioned, the Art Plastics again, and as mentioned last year, very prolific with various sizes and finishes of this set, with alternate poses, hard and soft-edges versions, yada-yada . . . Here painted and glued into a little stable set-up, the lambs asking why there's a baby in their food tray?

 

Sphagnum moss, boy, they liked glueing sphagnum moss into their nativity-set roofs back in the day! It is the same set as the boxed one we looked at a couple of years ago, but I never took that one out and shot it separately, while with this one the box is a bit meah! Around 35 (Joseph)/40mm (Wise Man) and polystyrene, except for the sphagnum moss (I hope Brit's are saying that to themselves in Lenny Henry's David Bellamy voice!).

 

Mark on the base underside of the stable.

L is for Lakeland Plastic

A household name slowly going global with the aid of the Internet, Lakeland (who have nothing to do with the - actually - Derwent pencils) and have grown from an almost nothing agricultural supplier to what they are well within my lifetime. they regularly have a bit of Chinashite in their catalogue/stores at Christmas, and I think this is probably quite resent; 1990's maybe, 2000's?

Poured resin, decorated in muted pastel shades; there's something a bit pre-Raphaelite about them! With a minimal count of eight pieces, despite a extra lamb on the cover art, they were probably less new, than I paid for them, and I didn’t pay much!

The close-ups; all rather white and pink-cheeked I think it can be said, but the sculpting is fine enough, and Joseph's walking cane is a brass rod. To keep the sets body-count down the lamb came by himself . . . the shepherds', having washed their socks, had nothing dry to walk in!

Gabriel is particularly nice, and would make a good stand-alone fantasy figure summoning a host of otherworldly High Elves to save . . . Riverdeep? The only problem with that plan is that these are 100mm figurines, you'd need a garden for a war-games table, if you could find and afford the other figures - actually, there's all that ELC stuff, Schleich and Papo . . . it could be done!