F is for Follow-up - Fantastic Flying Fancies!

So, as promised, I fired-off the recently found (and seen here) Tom Smith novelty artifact, the 'Surprise Space Rocket' at our Christmas Breakfast (more of a brunch) meet, and we can now look at the contents and finish studying this delightful example of how Austerity Britain cheered itself up in the 1950's! Actually, probably the 1960's!

 

This has a video of the launch in the middle, but also has all the images from both posts as an accompanying slide show, and I didn't know whether to put it at the start or the end, but the whole point of the thing (post and event) is to see what happens, so it should go first!

 

So, the contents were a bit disappointing, in that I had hoped they might be space-related, astronauts, spacemen, little UFO's or something, but actually they were pretty standard budget-end novelties, classics in fact, with two whistles, one a novelty face, a 'magic' fortune-telling fish, plastic 'tangram' puzzle and small red balloon. In fact, it's all a bit red!

 

Not a game - see video - there was also a very simple card rocket kit to cut out, and glue, the only real nod to the theme of the container, I will scan and print it, laminate it to some stiff card, and make up the duplicate, as a future follow-up, to this follow-up!

 

The six pieces are one-sided (colour/print-wise) as I may be able to build it on a card tube or wooden dowel of the correct diameter, and reinforce the landing legs with tooth-picks or coffee stirrers?

 

The party hats were the bulk of the 'shot', being the sort you see in old TV sitcoms, soaps or drama's from the 1960's or early 1970's, so it may not be the 1950's item I thought it might be?

 

Much taller than modern Christmas Cracker hats, and manufactured in crepe-paper, they have tissue frills around their tops in the same pinky-orange paper as their restricting-for-packing, paper 'vest' wraps, and one is decorated.

 

The decoration is more Easter-themed, with rabbits, bears and little flowery things (it looks like), than Christmassy, but of the same mawkishly sentimental style as wrapping papers of the era, I can still, well remember. So these 'poppers' were clearly aimed at the birthday and other celebratory market, to take up some of the slack of the quiet period between Christmas cracker seasons!

 

Construction was a loosely overlapped card tube, held together with the decorated rocket paper, with chip-board discs sandwiching the spring, and lighter fibreboard or hardboard discs holding the toys in another sandwich above the hats. A gap of about 10-mil, helps the spring generate acceleration, before the contents meet the lid.

 

Turns out the top just slides out, and I'm hoping to carefully feed this back behind the outer wrapper, eventually. For now, I've folded it down to preserve the folds and prevent the loss of the hardboard piece!

 

You will notice from the video, the toys go one way and the hats another, one suspects that if the quite substantial, bed-spring type wire-helix, hadn't been in compression for 50 or 60-years, everything would have flown further! There was no pyrotechnics though, I thought there may be a snap, as with crackers, but nothing of the sort!

M is for Maruzem Beretta 92SB

Yeah! Don't tell the Rozzers, they shoot you for owning shit like this! Fortunately, it's buried in a storage container, and is only a lighter! But it's made to resemble the real thing, and is unusual for being a lighter, these Japanese-licensed toy guns are usually air-soft BB pellet firers, not lighters.

It's actually scaled-down a bit too, maybe 30%'ish? But you wouldn't carry this around now, it really could get you shot! All the rage at a leisure-pit, keys in the fruit-bowl, bright, patterned skirts, long hair and flares, freak-off, in the early 1970's, how times change!

 

When we were kids, we loved stuff like this, we'd spend our pocket-money on it, on a day-trip to France with the school, but you don't even see it for sale over there now . . . my brother bought a flick-knife, a proper one!

 

It's a gas-burner, filled via a nozzle hidden in a small recess in the pistol grip, and a small flame-adjuster is hidden in a recessed slot near the trigger. 

 

There is a more obviously novelty one, petrol/lighter-fluid fired, but it needs work, the Bakelite handle has come loose with warping, and the mechanism is jammed solid, so, I thought, maybe, if I ever get the time, and manage to settle down, I'd do it as a project for YouTube, I've seen people work wonders with solid lumps of rust, this just needs a bit of TLC; disassemble, clean, straiten, lubricate and reassemble!

C is for Closer Inspection - "Staff Parade, You 'Orrible Man!"

Normally I do a pretty good job of demilitarising December or Christmas, as best I can, but this year I don't seem to have made much effort in that direction whatsoever, with the TAG, Tente and this afternoon's Highlander, among others, and here's another, but at least it's ceremonial!

 

I also usually try to answer comments with some alacrity, although the odd one escapes, but the 'Unknown' commenter from the 19th November might be feeling a little chagrined that I have not answered his comment, which was suggesting that the - probably - egg-timer guard from Chris's parcel, was Eyes Right, not the Deetail I'd suggested.

 

And the reason I didn't answer was because, while I thought I'd called correctly, equally, his comment seems so sure, I questioned the attribution, and wanted to check the piece, and make sure, rather than argue the toss! And it seems we both have a point, but he (the commenter)'s more right than me, however we are also both wrong!

 

I'd called Detail for three reasons, it looked vinyl, and when I squeezed the legs (off camera last time), it was confirmed to be soft, PVC vinyl; it was standing at ease/easy, which I didn't remember ever being an Eyes Right pose; and he has an SLR, which I didn't think the Eyes Right had, but actually they did, it was the Marines and Middlesex (and Glosters!) etc, who had the Lee Enfields, 'at the slope', the Guards did have SLR's 'shouldered'.

 

If you bent an Eyes Right figure's legs like that now, they would snap like carrots! And the hole for the mounting-spigot is moulded into the figure, not drilled. Also, the figure is very, very sticky!

 

Having dealt with the SLR I have to concede the arm spigots and the head, both bear more than a passing resemblance to the Eyes Right figures, which leave the pose, this is a Deetail pose, the Eyes Right were marching, at attention or at Royal Salute, weren't they? Note the sun-fading on the outward-facing jacket.

 

Welp, Vectis says "No"! There are two figures in this set at an easy 'At Ease', I think they are unique to the set, but stand to be corrected, however, it would seem the figure/pose is from the Eyes Right stable, but equally, it's a complete piracy, from Hong Kong, neither Deetail, nor Eyes Right.

 

A very good one I might add, and taking the best of Eyes Right (the sculpt) and Deetail (indestructible material), but, nevertheless, a copy, and from that mid-seventies period, when Hong Kong's PVC output tended to weep sticky-shit, after, often, quite a short time!

 

And this isn't really a Question Time post, we'll probably never know any more about such an ephemeral figure, possibly supplied in bulk to a chalkware manufacturer, who may have been over here?

 

I think the friction plug for the figure may have been duplicated to hold the egg-timer on to the side, and I guess, the hunt is on for a better one, which may have a label on the base, and give us more to go on?

 

So, that's my answer to your question, Unknown! And thanks again to Chris for the questionable imposter!

A is for Another 'Lucky Bag', and Some Seasonal Stuff!

A few other purchases in the last few weeks, and after the blind surprise 'Lucky bags' we saw from The Works earlier in the year (October), I noticed similar bags in Poundland the other day, and again got the Dinosaur themed one as the best chance of a figural, and as a comparison with the disappointing inflatable of the last example.

 

A task made slightly easier by the fact that the contents are illustrated on the outside of the bag! Stickers, puzzle, skeleton, collector cards and a 'bonus' key-ring . . . if it's listed, pictured and included in every bag, it's not a bonus, it's a priced element of the contents!

 

A few minutes later I popped into the aforementioned The Works, and bought these, as apart from the fact I thought they would make nice additions to the wooden-trees subsection, they might also prove useful as photo-shoot accessories in the future?

 

To that end, here they are, both artfully arranged (!) in the fashion of an interiors' magazine shoot! You have to imagine they are on an immaculately-polished, white piano, with a recognisable supermodel, just out of focus and staring intently at a Hockney, on the wall!

 

Mostly duplications of one sort, or another, I also picked these up on my day's shopping in Farnham a few weeks ago, they sort of complete what Opie calls a cameo, in that we have previously seen the Santa's in individual bags the same as those the snowmen are in, here.

 

We have also seen the snowmen in the red and green scarves, along with a mauve version, so this blue one is new. And we saw a copy set of the Deer, red-Santa sleigh, snowman (red scarf) and tree, also from The Works, so that's pretty much all known versions of originals and copies, now, in several variations of packaging!

C is for Cone'ucopia - 2 of 2

This is still out there, I've seen it quite often in petrol stations (service stations), and some of the smaller convenience stores, or at least those which carry stock from BJ Toys, such as the Premier store in Pirbright, which seems to have replaced the NAAFI, and from which I got mine, at about the same time Peter Evans also found them, and mentioned them to me.

 

BJ Toys; blue cone is for blokey kids, pink is for less-blokey kids! I got a blue one!

 

A real cornucopia!

 

Clockwise from top-left; Rocky keyring and collector/backing card; sports themed puzzle and colouring book; a self inflating light-stick (read 'lightsabre'), which I haven't inflated yet; a multi-hole bubble-wand and bottle of bubble liquid; three packs of fizzy candies; a Dino' mini-set, which contains stuff we've seen in BJ carded sets here at Small Scale World; and, finally, a Letrabot blind bag.

 

The dinosaur, comes with a ridiculously over-sized egg, which is more chicken than dinosaur, so clearly the egg came first! And a new take on the current palm-tree design, in that it's a single moulding, with bi-colouring, dwelt-on before, here.

 

I see a lot of this stuff in the fish departments of pet stores or garden centres, even at The Range, and I suspect that industry might have had a hand, along with the fake flower people, in the multi-colour shot techniques becoming so common now.

 

Rather aptly, I got the letter H, and it's a simplistic transformer 'bot'.

 

Sub-branded Planet White, which may be a wave-indicator (?), the Letrabots (or Letr-A-Bots) are from an Italian outfit called Ciciboom Srl., and Letranimal, Kartbots, Numberbots (with symbols) and Letrazoo also exist!

The cones retail at £4.99, and with the equivalent of three rack-toys, and several other novelties, I think they are worth the money, for kids that is; this sample will be enough for me! Remember, sometimes we buy this stuff so you don't have to, otherwise we'd probably be desperately scraping flying saucer pictures off of that evilBay!

C is for Cone'ucopia - 1 of 2

It's been a while since we did a capsule-toy round-up, but they have been gathering in several folders, so I thought I'd get some of them cleared-out over Christmas and the New Year, as it all has to be ticked off sometime! This came from the 'plastic-Poundland' in Aldershot, Bargain Buys, about a year and a half ago.

 

Cornet'toys, geddit?

 

A ball of Gummi Bears, a 'play-dough' cutter, a nodding-head novelty tortoise and a dancing sharks sticker, it won't set the world alight, but it will keep little people happy for a while! The 'main toy' however, Orka, seems to have been sourced in Rumania, who are a rarity in the Tag list!

N is for November's Sandown Park - Erasers

And not just any old erasers, but that the bulk of them are probably Diener Industries, one way or another, the other factor being that they are also French premiums, but may, due to petroleum, also be British! I picked these up a few at a time, every time I passed the chap's stall, and wish now I'd hoovered up the last few, but they were mostly duplicates, I think!

 

These are probably not Diener, as they are proper eraser-rubber, but I thought they'd go very well with the Lik Be (that's LB of course!) and Holly anthropomorphic musicians, in a future comparison post / battle of the animal bands! They are also pencil-tops.

 

These are all clearly marked Diener Ind., with a '(C)' mark, and are a mix of generics, Disney, cute and a Fontanini clown-sculpt knock-off, along with an Easter basket of bunnies! And they may well belong to several sets, or even some of the sets below, as explained as we go.

 

These are unmarked, but are manufactured in the same smudgy silicon-rubber of all Diener's 'erasers', which were always shit erasers, as they just smudged pencil around the page, leaving everything looking awful! Again, they could be from more than one set, but the paint ties them into the premiums below. The red kitten is a slightly different sculpt to the yellow one in the previous shots - head moved to ease undercuts?

I can't work out if this is supposed to be some kind of anthropomorphic Viking, or a French TV character? Nor is it clear if it's damaged, poorly fettled or had a charm/key-ring loop removed?

 

These two, both Disney, are marked Esso and Disney Prod., and were a set of premiums, given away with Esso fuels, defiantly issued in France, the complete sets are to be found in the pages of Jean Piffret's book Figurines Publicities, but, as I think I've mentioned before, we had some when we were kids, not from this set, but from the set of woodland (or other) animals, some of which are in the upper shots.

 

Indeed, the slightly Beatrix Potter'esque pricklepin in the same flesh pink as the odd figure above, is one of the items on my nostalgia wants list, as it was in my pencil case until I was far too old to have affection for such things! And the three little pigs would also go with the other musical mammals!

 

While these are just marked (C) Walt Disney Prod., but you can see where the Esso has been obliterated on the tool, so there was probably a commercial issue too, at some point.

 

Therefore, I think a couple of the sets annotated by Piffret, as French, were issued here, also with Esso, at some point around the late 1960's or early 1970's, possibly without the paint highlights of the French and more commercial Diener issues. There were more sets issued as premiums in France, though?

 

Four other, non-Diener, non-Esso types, with, from the left a grotesque facemask pencil top, this was probably from the era of cereal-premium totem-pole funny-faces and the semi-flat African mask charm type premiums. Next is a vampire, or Dracula type, in his casket, and just waking-up, by the look of it!

The footballer is bigger that the Hong Kong painted ones, issued as either key-rings or pencil-tops, but may have been the inspiration for them, and he is a pencil top too! While the 'finger fright' rubber-jiggler just came with them to make a round-number! The first three being, again, 'proper' eraser-rubber.

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!

A is for Another Retro-Rocketeer!

This one's courtesy of Peter Evans, I said we'd probably see more, before the end of the year, and this is current, PMS carried, and a slightly different take on the pull-back motor/white-button oeuvre, but again following the trend this year, for deformed NASA astronauts, and/or cartoon spaceships.

 

You push down on the Rocket racer's head, and an energy storage spring is set to fire, a quick release and off he whizzes, release slowly though, and you get a limp phutt! It's a bit of fun which will probably get passed-on to charity, but imagine getting this in your Christmas stocking, as a kid!

News, Views Etc . . . London Show

It's the London show today, and I'm off! Chalk Farm tube station - helps if I know where I'm going, I've always driven it before!

 

Heres' a random shot of some cracker toys!

 

E is for Eye Candy - Sort Of!

I think we've seen this before, in passing, but I took it apart and cleaned it of a lifetime's kitchen grime, a while ago and seem to have taken far too many photographs, which need to be out of Picasa and on the Wibbly Wobbly Way!

 

 

Obviously you need a kettle with the right kind/diameter of spout, and when the water starts to boil, the inner sliding component moves and the bird starts whistling! Before modern automatic cut-offs (which work the same way - pressure, try getting one to work if you haven't closed the lid properly, it'll boil dry!), this was an ingenious solution, to a minor problem!